With the recent introduction of a bill that pretty much outright ban and criminalize all abortions in the State of Ohio — one that is very much illegal and very much unconstitutional — as well as the passing of a bill that would ban abortions after fifteen weeks in the State of Mississippi and other anti-abortion laws all over the country, it’s time to take a look at what “Pro-Life” really means.
Every person who says that they’re “pro-life” cries that abortion is murder. “Babies have a right to life!” Well, yes that may be true, but what about women who already have their lives?
Abortion is a very difficult, extremely emotional decision, and I pray that I never have to make that choice, but women have abortions for a variety of reasons — including their own health. For some women, pregnancy is dangerous; it might kill them. If a doctor tells a women that her life is in danger and her only option is terminating a pregnancy, why would anyone want to deny her the choice to save her own life? Doesn’t she have the right to life; the right to continue living the life that she already has?
People also cry about the horrors of late-term abortion, but late-term abortion is an extreme case and only makes up a minuscule percentage of all abortions performed in the US. Late-term abortion is not something that doctors just do because someone doesn’t want a baby; these pregnancies that are terminated late are wanted, but they can’t happen for some reason or another.
Many of the babies that are aborted late-term often suffer from genetic mutations or disorders that would make their lives extremely short and painful, if they’re not stillborn. So, the parents make the difficult decision to end the pregnancy so that their child doesn’t suffer. Why would anyone want a baby to suffer unnecessarily? Why would anyone want to make parents watch their child suffer, knowing that their child is going to die anyway?
Abortion is also an option for women who become pregnant out of rape or incest. Why would anyone want a woman to have a permanent reminder of a traumatic experience for the rest of her life?
“Pro-Lifers,” also cry “Adoption! Adoption!” but what about the kids already in the system? Why do we want to add more children to a system that is already over saturated? People say that women should give up unwanted children for adoption instead of aborting, but nobody wants to take care of them and the thousands of other kids in the system who need homes.
There are a variety of other reasons that lead to a woman choosing to have an abortion; however, none of those reasons matter or, frankly, are anyone else’s business. A woman’s right to choose is HER private, medical decision. It’s her life and her body.
Would it ever be acceptable to tell someone they can’t have plastic surgery or that they’re not allowed to have a life-saving cancer treatment or they are banned from seeing the doctor when they’re sick? Wouldn’t that be ridiculous? People would be outraged if there was a group of people telling everyone they can’t make their own medical decisions.
So, why is it okay for a group of people to call for the ban of a medical procedure and harass women for choosing to get that medical procedure?
Making abortion illegal doesn’t get rid of abortion. It only increases unsafe abortions — the kind you think of that happened in the “olden days” before Roe v. Wade of women in alleys using coat hangers. If a woman wants an abortion, she’ll find a way to have one, and those ways are often dangerous.
When abortion is completely illegal, women die unnecessarily.
They die from infection and procedure and pregnancy related complications. Why would anyone want these avoidable deaths, when legal abortion is a safe medical procedure that is performed by actual doctors in sterile environments?
If so-called “pro-life” people want to reduce abortion rates, then why don’t they support access to birth control and comprehensive sex education — two things that have been proven to reduce abortion rates because they reduce unplanned, unwanted pregnancies?
The “Pro-Life” movement only focuses on the unborn babies — lives that aren’t even guaranteed to begin with. It treats women like baby making factories by placing the life of a fetus ahead of the life of the woman. The movement doesn’t care if women die as long as their babies are born no matter what because, “The Bible says abortion is a sin.”
Well, news flash. The Bible says a lot of things are sins: divorce, adultery, lying, swearing, premarital sex, and the list goes on and on. If we’re basing our laws in a democracy off of what the Bible says is wrong, then why aren’t we trying to throw every divorcée in jail and harassing every couple that goes into a courthouse to get divorced? Why aren’t we condemning people who have extra marital affairs?
Anti-abortion laws are anti-woman. It’s just another way that women can be treated like second-class citizens, being told that they can’t make their own medical decision and that their life isn’t valued over the life of a fetus that’s not even capable of life on its own until its gestational age is around 24 weeks — a time that most abortions in the United States are performed long before.
And for Ohio to try to outright ban abortion, that’s what the Ohio legislators are saying: they don’t care about women or see them as worthy of life when compared to a fetus. It makes me ashamed to be an Ohioan, and every other Ohioan should be ashamed too because if this somehow becomes a law and somehow isn’t struck down by the Supreme Court, women all over the State of Ohio will die from avoidable infections and complications.
So, “Pro-Life?” Why don’t we just come out and say it? “Pro-Life” isn’t really “pro-life,” just like “Pro-Choice” isn’t “pro-abortion.”
“Pro-Life” is “pro-fetus and pro-fetus only,” and women be damned because to the “Pro-Life” movement, their lives don’t matter.
Sheetal Tadiparty
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