Abortion is a Moterhood Issue.
When Arcana talks about how abortion is “not only about women getting pregnany, but also about babies growing inside women’s bodies,” I think that is an important statement. I think that sometimes when people leave out the part about a baby growing inside the woman, they might be doing that unconsciously to protect their self-esteem. If we ignore the fact that there is life inside the woman and just concentrate on the woman, than abortion is much easier to accept. However, focusing on the woman and the baby is what makes abortion so confusing and controversial.
What I couldn’t quite agree with was when she says “choosing to abort a child is like choosing to send it to one school and not another, choosing whether or not to allow it to sleep with you in your bed, choosing whether-or when-to tell it you are a lesbian, choosing whether or not to send it to Hebrew school, to catechism, to Quaker meeting.” Although she mentions that these examples are not on the same magnitude as abortion, I still don’t agree with her. All of these things are an either or situation where the child’s life will take different paths depending on that choice, but the life will continue along the way. Abortion is the termination of life without the chance of redemption or change.
As I said in my comment on Tira’s blog, there is no discussion of pregnancy prevention in these articles. I know they are short so the authors were just focusing on the main issue of abortion. However, I think its important to mention that preventing pregnancy in the first place would save women from the mental struggle of deciding whether or not to even have an abortion (as well as the lingering feelings for the rest of their life associated with that decision.) It also saves money because abortions and giving birth are both expensive medical procedures. Finally, perhaps if fewer abortions were performed each year, the issue of abortion would calm down a little. I have no idea if that would actually happen but I can see that it might be possible.
I definitely agree with Michele’s last point in her post. Although these articles are focusing on the main aspects of abortion, the inclusion of prevention practices would be very useful. It would be beneficial of the authors to include valid information on pregnancy prevention as a means to decrease the number of abortions and the number of decisions that need to be made regarding abortion. It is important to recognize these pregnancy practices because of the vast impact they can have financially and emotionally on the women who are faced with the abortion question.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Michele's last point about pregnancy prevention. It would be much less of an issue, however, I often find it aggravating that the groups that are so against abortion also refuse to fund sex education programs. They give women no alternative because they keep them in such a state of ignorance. However, the point I really wanted to speak to was Michele saying she couldn't agree with the point that abortion was the same as choosing where to send your child to school. I understand where Arcana was trying to come from, but I agree with Michele. That decision of the mother to abort is essentially causing her not to make any other decisions. I understand it is a parenting decision, but the decision seems to be more like choosing not to parent than how to help the child flourish. It says that the child wouldn't flourish when it came rather than helping it flourish at all.
ReplyDeleteMichele's point about Arcana using examples of other life choices and relating them to abortion is almost exactly what I believe. I think Michele did a good job of incorporating the quote and discussing how abortion is a much more serious and weighted choice than choosing what school to go to. However, I have to disagree with Michele's last sentence in that paragraph. She writes, "Abortion is the termination of life without the chance of redemption or change". It is not that I cannot see where Michele is coming from, but rather that I believe if the baby is still very undeveloped and a person wishes to have an abortion in the first few weeks of pregnancy that it is not murdering a child. I do not know if this belief stems from the possibility that I do not want to see it as killing a baby; but I do know that I strongly believe that having an abortion before the baby or fetus has developed is not the same thing as killing a baby. Otherwise I enjoyed reading Michele's post and thought it was very well written.
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