Recently, one of my Facebook friends shared an article about the Oklahoma Senate approving a bill to ban doctors from performing abortions. This friend is very vocally pro-life, and I respect this person's right to free speech and their beliefs. But here's the catch: this friend is male. This friend will never find himself in the position where he has to make the choice between, say, carrying the child of a rapist or having an abortion. He will never have to worry about whether he is healthy enough to carry a child to term, if he can support a child, or if he even wants a child.
This isn't just a trend with this friend. Most anti-abortion lawmakers are also male, meaning that, like my friend, they will never find themselves in a situation where they are forced to choose. There are jokes about how if men could get pregnant, abortion would be legal and there would be better access to abortion clinics, but, like many good jokes, there is a layer of truth here. As much as I hate to have to admit it, for all the progress we've made with women's rights, they still fall short. It's still largely a man's world.
People say to put the child up for adoption once it's born, and that's a perfectly good option. But pregnancy isn't always pretty and fun even when it's wanted. Take all the worst parts of pregnancy and add onto that the fact that the woman doesn't even want to be pregnant -- it makes it so much worse.
One post that I saw regarding abortion called it a worse crime than rape. What that says to me is that any man on the street has more right to my body than I do. That a female cannot be trusted with making decisions like if they are willing and able to carry a child, but that a male can be trusted to know what's best for a woman -- without even asking her first!
I'm pro-choice; I am not pro-abortion. My being pro-choice doesn't mean that I am going to tell every pregnant woman I see that she has to have an abortion or something else ridiculous like that. Rather, it means that I respect a woman's right to her own body.
There is a sort of balance possible: Believe whatever you want, just don't force your beliefs on others.
An interesting trend is that many so-called "pro-lifers" pretty much stop caring after the child is born. The family can figure out housing, food, education and other rights on their own. The only child that the laws are willing to cover is one who isn't yet born.
Abortion was made legal in the United States in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case. However, this doesn't mean that abortion never occurred before this. Rather, immensely unsafe abortions took place, ones that could end in illness, becoming infertile, and even death. Making abortions illegal now would only herald a return to these unsafe practices, a return to deaths from what has the potential to be an entirely safe medical procedure.
Making abortions illegal isn't going to stop abortions Reall-- it's only going to stop safe abortions. Making abortions illegal isn't going to save lives -- it's only going to end more. It isn't the place of lawmakers to speak out against abortions. It is entirely a woman's right to choose.
