UHH, MOMMY?


If you were to get a tattoo on your hip, and your parents came to you and confronted you about it, what would you say? “It’s my body, I have a right to do whatever I want with it!”, right? One of the great things about living in the United States today is that each person has the right to do whatever he wants to do with his own body and his own possessions. So why is it then that so many think that women should not have the right to have an abortion?

I understand that many believe a human fetus to be a life form. I don’t argue this. However, I do believe that in most cases in which the mother considers an abortion, a child is better off not ever coming into existence than being born into a family with a single mother who will not be able to support it. Say that a young woman gets pregnant. She does not want the baby, but she decides not to have an abortion. She is a smoker and drinks heavily, but since she does not care about the child in her womb, she does not go to any great lengths to quit these habits or keep herself healthy or even to make sure that the child is getting the proper nutrition that it needs. The child is born nine months later, but with serious health issues that have arisen out of the habits of the mother and from never visiting a doctor. Is this baby any better off just because it was born? Is this life better than no life at all?

Getting pregnant is not just as simple as “I didn’t use contraception.” According to womensissues.com, 54% of women who obtain abortions each year used contraceptives during the month that they became pregnant. Anybody who has ever taken a sex-ed course in school knows that all forms of birth control are not one hundred percent effective. But that does not mean that all women in the world who do not plan to have children are never going to have sex. They are.

And for all those pro-lifers out there, here’s a question. Why is okay to have an abortion in cases of incest and rape, but not otherwise? Whether the woman was willing or not, the fetus still will be terminated. Why is it okay to kill a child sometimes, but not others?
According to the womenissues.com website, 88% of abortions occur within the first six to twelve weeks of pregnancy. More than 6% of all abortions occur due to great risk to maternal or fetal health. Is abortion still wrong if someone would die in order for the baby to live? Why should a mother be forced to do something that will end up costing her her own life? I understand that there are a lot of religious beliefs that some seem to think make abortion morally wrong. But I have done my research-there are religious websites that explain that not only is there nowhere in the bible that says that abortion is wrong, but there are in fact quotes in the bible that explain that a man is not actually living until “the breath of life” is actually breathed into him. Also, according to womensissues.com, 43% of women who chose to abort identified with the Protestant religion, and 27% with Catholicism.

Many believe that there are other alternatives to having an abortion, and I agree. What about adoption? Why doesn’t the mother just carry the baby through until it is born, then put it into the hands of a loving family who will be able to love and care for it? It seems like a logical solution to the problem. But it may not be that simple. More than 21% of all women who have abortions choose to do so because they cannot afford to have the child and support it. This means also that they will most likely not be able to afford the thousands of dollars worth of doctor’s visits and multivitamins and will not be able to take a leave of absence from work in order to rest and make sure that the child will be healthy until she delivers. Nearly a sixth of abortions occur because the woman is too young to carry the child. If a girl gets pregnant at sixteen, will her body necessarily be mature enough to carry and protect the child?
I do not believe that having an abortion is the decision of the father of the baby. If the man had to carry the child for nine months and go through labor and endure all of the risks associated with having a child, then he also would have the right to choose whether or not to have his child.
I do not believe in abortion as a form of birth control. I think it is wrong for any woman to have dozens of abortions. I do, however, believe that if any woman wants to have dozens of abortions, she has a right to do so. The argument about abortion in the US needs to be less about the unborn child, and more about the things that would happen to the mother and the child were that child to be born. It is the right of every citizen in the United States to decide for himself what to do with his own body. Perhaps if more unqualified mothers had chosen to abort their babies once they realized they could not support them, there would be far less babies in trashcans downtown. Maybe abortions are just doctors killing babies, but certainly in a more humane way.


"All the articles on this subject that I have read have been from men. They denounce women as alone guilty, and never include man in any plans for the remedy." The Revolution, 4(1):4 July 8, 1869 –Susan B. Anthony


Sources:
Http://womensissues.com/cs/abortionstats/a/aaabortionstats.htm
http://www.postfun.com/pfp/blasphemy.html
http://www.rightgrrl.com/wquotes.html