If you are pro-life, this post will not convince you to be pro-choice any more than a post for the inevitable "Blog for Life" day posts will convince me to be pro-life. If I had my way, we would all put aside this issue and work on reducing the amount of abortions through the spread of knowledge and better adoption care, but unfortunately, when it comes to an issue that -- in the immortal words of Jon Stewart -- "Asks one group to defend what some consider to be rape with what others consider to be murder" [paraphrase], it's far too easy to scream at each other.
For me, sometimes, it gets too easy to scream about this issue. It's hard for me to keep a level head when men like Bill Napoli say a woman who suffered "simple rape" should suck it up and have the kid, because she wasn't battered or forced to have sex with multiple men. It's hard for me to keep a level head when Gov. Jeb Bush cries over the inhumanity of abortion while he is tight-fisted with money for children's programs and won't let gay people adopt. It's hard for me when people are willing to kill doctors, prevent pharmacists from giving out needed medicine, and harass poor taxi drivers who have the gall to escort paying women to the abortion clinic as conspirators in a murder.
Of course, these things are not what all pro-life, probably most pro-life, people approve of or want. There are legitimate, well-meaning reasons to be against abortion -- my boyfriend tells me them all the time. If I get pregnant, I have no plans to abort the child. But I am not everyone, and everyone has different reasons for feeling the way they do.
Some say one shouldn't abort because of religion, but not everyone has the same religion. Some say one shouldn't abort because others would want to adopt the baby, but American adoptions are so full of red tape that many don't want to bother even trying to adopt babies in the United States. Some say one shouldn't abort because it's not taking responsibility for your actions, but others may think it's more responsible to not bring another child in this world than to abandon it to the state.
Some people may think this reasoning is flawed, but for many they are not. For many the belief in choice is a close and valuable one. It was one of feminism's largest victories. Some who point out the large number of pro-life women in the world don't understand this, but for women who fear the Bill Napolis and Jeb Bushs of the world, for women who fear the very real and still remaining stigmatization of single mothers, the right to choose is something to hold close and to hold fast.
I am pro-choice. I am pro-choice because women should have a weapon against the sexist attitudes of people like Napoli and the anti-child attitudes of people like Jeb Bush. I am pro-choice because women should not be forced into a life they are not ready to live. I am pro-choice because women who want to abort should not feel like they have to do it in an unsafe, illegal environment.
But, if you have read to the end, I want you all to know I don't think those choice should be taken lightly. I want you to all be aware America has far more unwanted pregnancies than any other industrialized country. I want you to think about how many loving couples want to adopt but can't because they're both the same sex.
I really want us to put aside all this and work to cure these problems with knowledge and not scare tactics. We should have comprehensive sex education, which is proven to work, instead of abstinence-only, which has not held up in any study. We should care more for our children in adoptive and foster care. We should not cut funding for women's centers overseas which help with essential reproductive care beyond abortion.
George W. Bush has not been willing to do this. I can only hope that whomever is president next will be different.
0 comments:
Post a Comment