Women. Please vote.
Men that respect women. Please vote.
There is hesitation in me to share my thoughts about politics. I’m not sure why that is, but I am sure that one who hesitates to speak out about what they believe in, must then live with the decisions of others. I am not prepared to live in a country without legal abortion and this is why.
As women, we’ve never been told by a bunch of guys what we can and cannot do. I’m 59. I was raised to believe I lived in a free country. That women and men were equals. Never, did it enter my mind that others would have control of my body or that I would have control of theirs. Not until now, and the thought is incredibly disturbing.
Typically, if a group of men told a woman what to do with her body it was considered abuse. Or in extreme control, rape. Being told you can’t have an abortion is extreme control of a similar kind. A kind of slavery. Forced into babymaking. What I see said by these old white men in suits (mainly) as they discuss the laws they want, is that they would like to have control over women, plain and simple. And to hunt them down and jail them if they disobey.
Tell my daughter that she no longer has control over her body. I double-dog dare ya.
Only slaves have no control over their bodies. Are we now enslaving the lower-income segments of our populace? The ones that can't take a week off of work and already feel enslaved by their precarious financial situations. These women can ill afford to pay the exorbitant fee to travel to another state, however quietly (so as not to be hunted down), to do their private abortions? These are the ones who will begrudgingly raise little unwanted children. And they will do their very best, under taxing situations. Or they will do their very worst, under heavy resentment.
There is of course the option of putting your child up for adoption immediately upon birth, after carrying for full term this little being in your body. A truly self-sacrificing endeavor. One that the people having trouble conceiving would greatly appreciate. This choice is available now and always will be. Those on the right suggest this to be the right choice if the pregnancy is unwanted. If, there is only the choice of whether to keep or give away your child - as right-to-lifers would have it - then certainly, an understandable choice. But to force this as the only choice, does make the mother, in essence, a reluctant baby factory. I know it is unappealing to suggest, but so be it. Force is force. Women, it is easily researched, have aborted babies herbally for the many thousands of years that humans have been on earth. To be hunted down for doing so, has also occurred. Is this who we are now? Legal abortion is safer, that is why it is done.
I would not tell a distraught pregnant woman, “No honey, someone else decided you have to have this baby. You have to raise the child of your rapist (or difficult boyfriend, or abusive husband). It’s the law.” I would instead, create for her a safe place to decide what to do.
And to be fair, some women just don’t want to have children. Even if they love their mates with all their hearts. If they’ve been adequately communicating with their guy, he has probably been okay to have no children or he would have moved on. Should we have monitors in their bedroom to catch the illicit we-don’t-want-kids conversation? Should you get to decide what they do with their lives?
Or maybe they already have enough children, this hypothetical couple. Maybe 1, 2, 3, 5 or even 8 children are enough children for them to raise. Are you deciding for them?
Sometimes it just isn’t the right choice for the woman to have the baby for her own private reasons. The choice to have an abortion - in my opinion - should come with limits though. No one I’ve ever known advocated for abortion after a child could viably live on its own. That’s just a horror story the fanatical tell to scare people. Sickos that lie like that, have told people that Democrats eat babies too. The Hannibal Lectors of our world are quickly put in solitary confinement for life, or should be. No Democrats are really eating babies. Need I really say that out loud?
First trimester, 15 weeks, except for the life of the child or mother. Those are livable limits. Letting the mother (and father) and the Doctor decide outside those limits, because of medical issues. I get all that. I approve. If you’re a woman who doesn’t know she’s pregnant until later than that, okay. You’re having a baby whether you want to or not. It happens. Those limits are in place for emotional reasons. The later a mother aborts the more traumatic. For mother and child.
I’m reminded of a horrific documentary I made myself watch a few months ago, ‘One Child Nation’. It was about China's one-child policy. It took all of me to watch it. As the story goes, China was very concerned with overpopulation. This was not that long ago. It was in effect from 1979 to 2015. While we in America were carefree, wild and free, sexually and otherwise, the Chinese government had decided that no one was allowed to have more than one child. So, in order to enforce the law they started hunting down pregnant women and state-sanctioned-aborting their babies at any stage of pregnancy. There were pictures. I made myself watch. It was worse than a horror movie. It was real.
So pro-lifers, China made you kill your baby. You had no choice. It was the law. How would you like having no choice in that scenario?
The word ‘choice’ is itself a word of freedom and liberty. It is a word that defines what we’re doing with our responsibilities. How we choose to live. The concept of choice, or being pro-choice, is that you do not want to have control over another’s choices. You do not want to be responsible for another adult. It is a psychologically healthy stance. We are all adults here. I think we can trust others to decide their path in life without our input.
Pro-life is an interesting concept also. It is my understanding that pro-lifers see all human life as equally sacred. I can honor that. If you are conceived and have a heartbeat, perhaps one feels they should be responsible to keep you alive, at all costs. Even if you’re not my own child. Even if you’re being born to a mother who doesn’t want you. Having said that, what is the impact of growing up knowing your parents didn’t want you?
I believe a loving Higher Power receives all children at death, lovingly back into the heaven from which they came, innocent of all things earthly. And it is not my place to have judgment over the decision of the mother. Only to love each of them. Mother and child (and Father) to the best of my abilities and let that higher wisdom handle the rest.
A Pro-life stance would easily assume that if you’re an accident between two lovers’ enjoyment of each other, of course, you deserve to be born. But even if those lovers don’t want you?
And having brought up that situation, have we considered the impact outlawing abortion will have on the sacred act of making love. How many couples have currently refrained from loving each other physically out of fear of pregnancy? Are we prepared for the psychological grief this fear will surely create in their relationships? Again, who are we to tell people how to live? Or love.
I get it. This is only my opinion. I will vote for candidates that see pro-choice as our right.
All I ask is when you vote, realize you’re only responsible for your own children, your own life, not ours. I don’t think you want us in charge of your children, or your choices. In fact, I know you don’t. And I’m not saying this to change anyone’s mind. I’m saying this because I have a voice, and this is me using it.
References:
Abortion Laws by State — Center for Reproductive Rights
One Child Nation documentary One Child Nation | Our Films | Independent Lens | PBS
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