In case you underestimated just how much thought I've given the pro-life/pro-choice argument, you ought to know when I got pregnant at 19 I dipped pro-choice real quick. Based on a loose observation of my friends, it seems 3 out of 5 of us have. For some of us it happened with our boyfriends, for some of us it was a result of rape but none of us is "that girl" everyone thinks is the one that has abortions. We are all middle class girls with solid backgrounds and good reputations who were not provided the right tools to prevent this happening.
If you were a friend, or have ever asked, this is something you're likely to know about me, because one of the bones upon which my life is framed is the idea that if I can do it then I ought to be able to talk about it.
When I decided to have an abortion I was numb to the repercussions, and I mistook that for a certainty that some women suffer, but I HAD to do it so I would be ok. Before I would ever talk to a woman considering an abortion about the agony of giving up your child, I would tell her "Listen to me now, if you're allowing the idea that you wont react like other women to influence your decision, don't. This thing hurts like a motherfucker, for some of us it's before, others right when we walk out of that office, and others don't get that broadside till 50 years after the fact. Know this shit hurts like a motherfucker and it will turn your life upside down and drain you off all the substance you are made of and it won't be ok. Not for a long time.
The years after my abortion were a dark period when my dreams were overrun with blood. I floated just under the surface of life unable to look myself in the eye or think about what I'd done without recoiling in shame. My days ran together as litanies of "I'm sorry", and I was frozen by my inability to undo this terrible thing I'd done. I wouldnt allow myself to grieve - I didn't deserve it, and there were too many times I had to be rescued from that battle, pressed into exhausted tears in dirty bathroom stalls all over the city.
It was a dark time when the agony of my choice was pressing the life from me, and if I could have died from the refusal to live, I would have.
One morning as I sat on my third floor balcony looking at another day moving purposefully by me, I recognized I was a cop out. I was sitting on my balcony weeping about what a terrible person as was, refusing to move forward while people everywhere were pulling themselves away from unspeakable tragedies. I was a pussy looking for any excuse to stop living and my child deserved a better fate than a stolen life carrying the blame for my failure to live. I could end my life, or choose to live it in honour of the choice I'd made. I realised that life was about making mistakes, and the important lessons were to be found in how you moved on from them. I had not failed at life because I had an abortion, I had failed at life because I allowed that to make me stop living, and that epiphany shamed me into accepting responsibility for my life.
If I were faced with a woman who's had an abortion I would tell her "It gets better". You never forget, and perhaps you shouldn't. I cannot forget, I will not. I carry my child every day with me in my secret places, and I live to honour the life that had to be sacrificed in order for me to find my way through mine. And fuck it... every choice, every lesson was bought at a high price so it has to be worth it.
Showing posts with label Pro-life vs Pro-choice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pro-life vs Pro-choice. Show all posts
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
feminist philosophies
I'm reading Feminist Philosophies" and am currently on the essay "Mother/State/Foetus Conflicts" by Christine Overall "
The cornerstone of foetal rights advocates position is the belief that the foetus has a right to life... and the claim that it is alive and a human being. She agrees that the foetus is alive and a human being, but this is where she loses me:
"Although foetal-rights advocates stress the alleged right to life of the foetus, they say virtually nothing of what I believe is another, but more covert set of assumptions: that the foetus has the right to the use of the pregnant woman's body, that that right should be legally protected, and hence that the woman has an obligation not to abort, and to permit any intervention in her body that is thought medically necessary for the sake of the foetus." *jaw drop*
Her supporting argument is a hypothetical example around the idea that though she has a right to life that doesn't give her the right to hook herself up to your body for days, weeks or months on end in order to cure or alleviate her life threatening illness.
"The reason for this is simple: for me to claim the right to the use of your body would be an assertion of ownership, and we know that slavery is wrong. Hence, even if the foetus does have a right to life, it does not follow that the foetus has the right to the use and occupancy of the pregnant woman's body."
I cannot believe this essay made it to print with the arguments above as the core of her pro-choice stance. She makes it seem as thought the foetus is an encroaching alien that has popped up out of nowhere and is demanding that it be accommodated, and that the poor put-upon pregnant woman played absolutely no part in its sudden existence. I am incensed that at no stage has she addressed the reason the foetus is "squatting" in the woman's body; while there are always exceptions, most women who find themselves pregnant own some of the responsibility.
This is a tough issue and after a LOT of thought I am neither pro-life or pro-choice. I believe a woman absolutely has the right to decide what happens to her body. I also believe in the sanctity of life, and if a woman has consensual sex she gives a foetus the right to her body. Therefore if she finds herself pregnant she has obligated herself to act responsibly.
It's irrelevant what anyone except what the pregnant woman think she should do about an unwanted pregnancy, and irrational arguments like Overall's undermine's the pro-choice stance and a womans right to should she choose to terminate.
The cornerstone of foetal rights advocates position is the belief that the foetus has a right to life... and the claim that it is alive and a human being. She agrees that the foetus is alive and a human being, but this is where she loses me:
"Although foetal-rights advocates stress the alleged right to life of the foetus, they say virtually nothing of what I believe is another, but more covert set of assumptions: that the foetus has the right to the use of the pregnant woman's body, that that right should be legally protected, and hence that the woman has an obligation not to abort, and to permit any intervention in her body that is thought medically necessary for the sake of the foetus." *jaw drop*
Her supporting argument is a hypothetical example around the idea that though she has a right to life that doesn't give her the right to hook herself up to your body for days, weeks or months on end in order to cure or alleviate her life threatening illness.
"The reason for this is simple: for me to claim the right to the use of your body would be an assertion of ownership, and we know that slavery is wrong. Hence, even if the foetus does have a right to life, it does not follow that the foetus has the right to the use and occupancy of the pregnant woman's body."
I cannot believe this essay made it to print with the arguments above as the core of her pro-choice stance. She makes it seem as thought the foetus is an encroaching alien that has popped up out of nowhere and is demanding that it be accommodated, and that the poor put-upon pregnant woman played absolutely no part in its sudden existence. I am incensed that at no stage has she addressed the reason the foetus is "squatting" in the woman's body; while there are always exceptions, most women who find themselves pregnant own some of the responsibility.
This is a tough issue and after a LOT of thought I am neither pro-life or pro-choice. I believe a woman absolutely has the right to decide what happens to her body. I also believe in the sanctity of life, and if a woman has consensual sex she gives a foetus the right to her body. Therefore if she finds herself pregnant she has obligated herself to act responsibly.
It's irrelevant what anyone except what the pregnant woman think she should do about an unwanted pregnancy, and irrational arguments like Overall's undermine's the pro-choice stance and a womans right to should she choose to terminate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
