5th Post - Why I'm Pro-Choice

Hello everyone! Once again I have neglected my blog for way too long, but I am now officially on summer break and have a lot for motivation to write for the...fun...of it. In my fifth post I will be tackling the very politically social issue of abortion, and why I have come to be pro-choice.

First of all, let's look at the stance of pro-lifers, who, in my opinion, should be called anti-choice. The practical stance for AC supporters is that life begins at conception, thus the termination of any pregnancy is purposely ending a human life, thus abortion is murder. Most of the other arguments revolve around this kind of argument, give or take. I am going to go out on a limb and say the AC perspective is kind of simple. They believe, for the most part, that abortions should not be legal, unless the mother's life is in danger, or in the case of rape and incest. There are also other situations where the baby has some kind of permanent disability or disease that is going to most likely cause a miscarriage or still-born birth. AC stance? Check.

Now, for the PC stance. It is difficult to define exactly what a fetus is. Is it a baby? Not in the first trimester, or into the beginning of the second. It is simply not capable of living on its own, and relies on the mother for all life sustaining, well, everything. Will it be a baby? Yes, most likely. Is it yet? No.

My other point that goes along with the first is that women are not incubators. They are the one gender of our species that can reproduce, so why should they have to, just because they can? I am certainly not saying that all fathers run out on their children, but many do, especially in unmarried couples. I'll say it again. Women are not incubators. We have brains, and we have uteri, and we should be able to use both at the same time.

There also seems to be speculation that all women who get knocked up either want the baby, or deserve to get pregnant because they made the choice to have sex so it's their fault and they need to deal with the consequences. There are several very wrong ideas in that argument. For one, it has been stated that around 95% of people have sex before they get married. I have also read several articles where most of the women getting abortions used at least one type of birth control. So these women should have to deal with raising a kid for the rest of their life, or putting a kid in the "system" for who knows how many years, because they were doing what the rest of humanity does AND being responsible?

Also, we should weigh the consequences of having an abortion and having a child. An abortion, while, yes does not let what most likely will be a normal human life continue, society is not impacted by this. It has not had a life taken away from it. There will be a difference of opinion here if you believe from the moment of conception that a person has a complete life destiny and that if the mother has an abortion she could be killing the next Nobel Peace Prize winner or something. But please, realistically, letting one less person into the planet means one less person in an already over populated planet. One less mother who would probably be on social welfare. One less kid who might wind up in the foster system for years. I am a huge fan of the statement "every child a wanted child."

I understand that some of these arguments sound cruel, but I stand by them for the mere fact that women deserve choice. Even if you are anti-abortion, it is hard to be anti-woman. I don't like abortion, and I don't think it should be a necessary tool in this world. Hopefully as technology progresses, more reliable forms of birth control will be created, so abortions won't have to even matter anymore. But, right now, if you take away a woman's right to abortion, you give her back alley abortions, and other horrific references that go along with coat hangers.

If abortions weren't allowed, over 44 million more people and their offspring would be in the United States today. Does society feel the strain of these "missing people?" It doesn't seem so. In fact, we are just barely keeping up with taking care of the people in this country as is.