The Pro-Life and Pro-Choice forces have been duking it out in the United States for almost five decades, and the most disappointing characteristic about the battle is its binary nature. Black and white. Life and death. War and peace.

The flawed thinking is that if you’re pro-choice you’re pro-murder and if you’re pro-life you’re just a religious rube.

There was a terrific movie starring Laura Dern and Swoozie Kurtz that tackled this issue in “Citizen Ruth.” Dern played a young girl who sold her body for drugs and became pregnant. She became the cause celebre’ for both sides, which used all kinds of warfare to use her and protect her.

The two sides finally squared off at a house where she was holed up after being captured by the pro-choicers. While the shrieking warriors did battle outside, Citizen Ruth had a miscarriage and escaped out the back door. That’s how the movie ended.

Some recent events gave me cause to pause and reflect on this contentious issue.

One occurred about 20 years ago when I had to edit an obituary about a little boy in Hastings who was deliberately brought to term and birthed, only to die after seven hours. He was born without a brain. His parents knew it beforehand and decided to have him be born regardless.

Not long ago another couple in northeast Allegan County knew ahead of time their son would not survive more than a couple of hours after birth, but they wanted him to be baptized.

These two cases test the pro-choice crowd. If you’re pro-choice, you believe the issue should be decided by the doctor and the child’s parents, not by politicians, who have made a lot of hay over the past 50 years because of the abortion issue.

I sincerely believe that indeed, the decision to have the child despite the horror of it passing in less than a day, is that of the physicians and the parents. But there is an economic problem as well.

The United States has the most expensive health care system in the world, and it’s cases like these two that contribute that that unpleasant fact. And in America, the costs for the parents’ choice were extremely high, causing one couple to ask for help with a GoFundMe. Then it becomes the choice of those who support the couple’s difficult decision.

The emotional issue of abortion has been a complicated one over many years. It’s not as simple as being “pro-babies” or “pro-murder.”

I personally will be glad to have this settled once and for all at the ballot box in Michigan Nov. 8. Pro-Lifers have very skillfully and patiently worked hard for 49 years to have Roe vs. Wade overturned.

Not it’s soon time for the Pro-Choice movement to put up or shut up.