I believe a woman should have the right to choose abortion rather than give birth to her child. I am one of the early members of NOW (National Organization for Women) so you understand my concern for women’s rights. I do not however necessarily believe nor defend the usual reason for a woman’s right to an abortion, i.e. it is her body and she has a right to do as she pleases with it. No, I do not believe this to be true in the case of a pregnancy. You see, when a woman engages in sex with a man it is a mutual agreement and acknowledgement that a child may be created by both of them, and they are both therefore responsible for this child. So in the case of pregnancy the woman has offered her body as a nursery for the child belonging to both she the mother and the man/father. In that case she only has a right to an abortion if the man agrees. She was not alone in getting pregnant and I believe she can not morally and ethically make the decision to end the pregnancy alone. This is the unspoken agreement made between a male and a female when they agree to the act of possible creation. That said I will get to my personal reasons for understanding the need for abortion and a woman’s right to be have the procedure legally and safely made available to her.
I personally hate abortion. The only thing I hate more is seeing an unwanted and unloved child brought into this mean world. Much better I believe to choose abortion and send those dear souls back to God until they find parents who will love them. If those who are so vehemently in opposition to abortion would put their heart where their hateful mouths are they would adopt one of those unwanted and unloved children who were not aborted, but allowed to be born and then abandoned.
Our foster care programs are overflowing with these children. Unwanted from the beginning and unwanted thru out their life in far too many cases. Most state foster care programs discharge a child on their 18th. birthday no matter what time of year this birthday falls on. So some foster children after being shuttled from home to home most of their lives and never staying long enough to form a bond of love with a foster parent, or anyone else, often find themselves out on the street without even a high school diploma. There have been cases of tossed out foster children living on the streets and yet continuing to go to school. Recently the news papers reported on a young man who finished his senior year in high school by actually living in the school. He managed to get by with this for several months before he was caught. In most cases however unless there is a family member willing to take them in former foster children often become one of the legion of homeless roaming our cities streets. These children when pushed onto the streets are vulnerable to the most cruel and barbaric acts of exploitation.
I have been questioned as to why I feel babies would be better off dead rather than born into some situations. It is a matter of my concept of death. I believe that death of the physical body is merely a happy reunion with God. The Anti-abortionists obviously believe that physical life is worth any amount of pain the living being has to pay for it. Then again I have worked with these unloved and unwanted and probably hopefully, abandoned children. The ones who are not abandoned are so often abused; and if not killed, then scarred emotionally for life. Scarred so badly in fact that often they grow up to become the abusers. How can anyone believe this happening to a soul is preferable to returning to be with God before their heart and mind are corrupted and filled with the hate that would allow them to abuse their own children?
I have also heard the argument that God gave us life and we must accept it to show our gratitude. My question is always: Do you mean that you believe the soul isn’t alive? That the soul is dead? No, God gave the soul life. The soul came before the physical body and the soul gives the physical body motion, nothing more, as it enters the body God provided for it on this earth. The physical body in and of itself is just a shell, or temple if you prefer, but an empty temple before the live soul enters it. So you see you need not accept the physical body in order to have life, or to be alive.
Anti-Abortionist claim that abortion is used as an alternative to birth control and as a convenience for women. There have been no definitive studies conducted as reasons for choosing abortion that I am aware of. Figures and percentages are thrown around by both sides, but these are not to my knowledge backed by factual confirmation. Unofficially it was my experience as Planned Parenthood volunteer councilor that the reasons women choose abortion fall into one of the following categories: teenaged pregnancies, victims of rape, medical necessity, unmarried mothers who were already on welfare or trying to support a number of children with no help from a partner, married women who felt the economic burden of another child to raise would severely impact the family she already has, unmarried career women who simply do not want the burden of a child. No known birth control is 100% effective and “accidents” do happen. And abortion is not a walk in the park for the women. Besides being a serious medical procedure with accompanying physical distress, it is a very emotionally wrenching experience both before and certainly after the fact.
I personally spoke to only 7 women during my several years volunteering as a counselor at the clinic who chose abortion as a matter of convenience. That is an exact number as I remember each one of them and consider them each a failure on my part, In each case I felt the woman would have loved the child if she had given herself and the child a chance.
It is the Pro-Choice agencies and individuals who give counseling and offer pregnant women alternatives and help in place of the choice of abortion. No one claims abortion is better than live birth when the live birth has a chance of being anything but a disaster for the soul. The Anti-abortionists on the other hand seem only to offer hate and abuse coupled with a superficial morality. They offer no solutions and no help for the mother or the child; only venom and self-righteousness. Have you adopted one of those unwanted and unloved children? Well, neither have I, so I should probably not ask that question. But I always do because if all the Anti-abortionists would put their energies to finding homes for the millions of abandoned children just here in the United States they would be doing far more good than all their hate and shouting and even in some cases, killing.