Blog for Choice Day 2011 :: NARAL Pro-Choice America
Today, January 21st, is NRAL Pro-Choice America's Blog for Choice Day. (www.prochoiceamerica.org)
This year's blog topic is:
“Given the anti-choice gains in the states and Congress, are you concerned about choice in 2011?”
My response would be a resounding YES. While in most cases I’m all for the recent gains of Republicans in office, it does frighten me that so many are so adamantly anti-choice. Even if Roe vs. Wade isn’t formally overturned, states have already been slowly chipping away at women’s abortion rights by making it harder and harder to get an abortion. Clinics are few and far between, and many states have a ton of legislation regarding abortion requirements, including waiting periods, counseling, and requirements to hear the baby’s heartbeat. I’m afraid that with the recent gains over anti-choice members in state and federal governments safe, legal abortions are going to be harder and harder to come by.
And let’s face it-even when abortion was illegal, women still had them. And they still will if it becomes illegal once again. Except then they were (and would be) forced into dangerous and sometimes deadly “back alley” abortions, which result in more injuries and deaths among women. A 1932 study estimated that 15,000 women died each year from illegal abortions or complications arising because of them. More conservative estimates still stand at about 5,000 to 10,000 per year. (Source: http://socialistworker.org) You don’t need me to keep rattling off these facts at you-do a quick google search. The statistics are there, the myths are there, the facts are there.
A lot of people argue that abortion is wrong and should be illegal because it takes the life of an innocent child. But what about the innocent women bearing the child? What if having that child will but her life in danger? The rates of death from childbirth are higher than the rates from medical abortions. Are you really telling me that the life of an unborn being is better, or worth more than, the life of the woman already living, breathing, and contributing to society? I’m sure there are a lot of women out there who desperately want children, who don’t want to have an abortion, but chose to have one anyway to preserve their own life. (Actually, there’s a YouTube video floating around about a husband that told off some protestor’s outside an abortion clinic because his wife was in that exact situation.) And what about in the case of rape or incest? Do you really believe it’s right for a woman to have to carry a child to term that she didn’t ask for? No woman asks to be raped. Why should she have to live with the daily reminder of what happened to her for the next nine months of her life, and then the next 18 years if she raises the child?
My bottom line is this-no woman should be forced into a life she doesn’t want. No woman, under no circumstances, should have to sacrifice her body and/or her life for a child. No law should be able to dictate what a woman can or cannot do with her own body. And yes-whether you believe life begins at conception or not-that child IS a part of her body. It is essentially a parasitic being that, up until a certain point, cannot sustain life on it’s own. So yes, it is the woman’s choice what should be done with it.
I could go on for days and branch out into topic after topic, but I won’t. All I’ll say in closing is that I hope 2011-and every year after this-moves pro-choice legislation forward instead of backward.
This year's blog topic is:
“Given the anti-choice gains in the states and Congress, are you concerned about choice in 2011?”
My response would be a resounding YES. While in most cases I’m all for the recent gains of Republicans in office, it does frighten me that so many are so adamantly anti-choice. Even if Roe vs. Wade isn’t formally overturned, states have already been slowly chipping away at women’s abortion rights by making it harder and harder to get an abortion. Clinics are few and far between, and many states have a ton of legislation regarding abortion requirements, including waiting periods, counseling, and requirements to hear the baby’s heartbeat. I’m afraid that with the recent gains over anti-choice members in state and federal governments safe, legal abortions are going to be harder and harder to come by.
And let’s face it-even when abortion was illegal, women still had them. And they still will if it becomes illegal once again. Except then they were (and would be) forced into dangerous and sometimes deadly “back alley” abortions, which result in more injuries and deaths among women. A 1932 study estimated that 15,000 women died each year from illegal abortions or complications arising because of them. More conservative estimates still stand at about 5,000 to 10,000 per year. (Source: http://socialistworker.org) You don’t need me to keep rattling off these facts at you-do a quick google search. The statistics are there, the myths are there, the facts are there.
A lot of people argue that abortion is wrong and should be illegal because it takes the life of an innocent child. But what about the innocent women bearing the child? What if having that child will but her life in danger? The rates of death from childbirth are higher than the rates from medical abortions. Are you really telling me that the life of an unborn being is better, or worth more than, the life of the woman already living, breathing, and contributing to society? I’m sure there are a lot of women out there who desperately want children, who don’t want to have an abortion, but chose to have one anyway to preserve their own life. (Actually, there’s a YouTube video floating around about a husband that told off some protestor’s outside an abortion clinic because his wife was in that exact situation.) And what about in the case of rape or incest? Do you really believe it’s right for a woman to have to carry a child to term that she didn’t ask for? No woman asks to be raped. Why should she have to live with the daily reminder of what happened to her for the next nine months of her life, and then the next 18 years if she raises the child?
My bottom line is this-no woman should be forced into a life she doesn’t want. No woman, under no circumstances, should have to sacrifice her body and/or her life for a child. No law should be able to dictate what a woman can or cannot do with her own body. And yes-whether you believe life begins at conception or not-that child IS a part of her body. It is essentially a parasitic being that, up until a certain point, cannot sustain life on it’s own. So yes, it is the woman’s choice what should be done with it.
I could go on for days and branch out into topic after topic, but I won’t. All I’ll say in closing is that I hope 2011-and every year after this-moves pro-choice legislation forward instead of backward.