I wrote a paper once upon a time. It was on abortion rights. In it, I compared the rights of women to terminate unwanted pregnancies, to the interent natural rights of man, as defined by Edmund Burke. Those natural rights are what founded America, the idea that Man is born with certain liberties and rights. And I believe that Woman is as well, including the right to govern her own body.
Let me add that women have had control over pregnancies since time immemorial. Women have known the plants and substances to trigger miscarriages, or have had better knowledge of the natural world’s answer to contraceptive chemicals. Midwives in America used to have that knowledge – until pregnancy and abortion became dominated by male doctors. And that was the beginning of the end of women’s rights in that area.
I, personally, have my own views on the subject. I do not consider a fetus a separate human life until it can survive outside the womb. And, deeper and more personally than that, I do not believe children should be born if they are not meant to be born. I believe that a woman will know when it is time to have the child that she’s meant to be a mother to, and if it isn’t the right time, then the child should not be forced into the world.
After all, let’s look at it this way: did that child ask to be born into a life that was wrong – the wrong time, the wrong place – for it? Shouldn’t a woman choose to have a child when that child can have the best life possible, rather than forcing a child out into a world that she might not be able to help it through?
When I was fifteen and I wrote that paper, I wanted to know how the right wing could be so hypocritical. How children could be left to starve, to be beaten, to be abused and molested. How these people could advocate bringing children into the world – and then not take any steps to help that child in a life that might be difficult or impossible, depending on who the childs parents were.
Ten years – and a lot of experience later – I still want to know the answer to that question. Why it is more important to save unborn fetuses, than it is to help the children who starve of malnutrition and neglect in America – much less in the rest of the world.
And that’s why, if anyone comes close to encroaching on my right to choose when my child will be born (because I’ll have that child when I believe it will have the best life with me, and with whoever its father is), then I’ll be the first on the street. I’ll be down helping the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. I’ll be pushing to get that right back.
Right now, I suggest you all push to keep it. Today is the thirtieth anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Do not let this issue go unwatched.
Jillian's Blog 