No one really is in love with the idea of ending a potential human life, and if they are, they are sick. Sadly, though, a fetus comes about through many circumstances that prove to be disadvantageous or disquieting to the woman carrying it. Her birth control may have failed, or she may have forgotten to take it. She may not be on birth control, and her partner may have been so callous and unfeeling as to have sex with her without taking precautions himself. Worst of all, she may be the victim of rape, implanted with the seed of a vicious and violent felon.
Those of us who may never be in such a position, or may never be forced to endure those circumstances, have little right to pass judgment on those women who are. We have even less of a right to limit the choices they do have. No matter what we may think of the medical procedure, abortion is an alternative, and must be, for the safety and well-being of a woman who is not planning on being a mother, or may be, but not at that time.
If you are a woman, and you choose never to avail yourself of abortion because it offends your moral sensibilities, that is you right. But your right to refuse the choice does not give you the right to take the choice from other women. They must decide for themselves what is best; that is the law of this land. If you are a man, you will never know the uncomfortable feeling of being in the position of being pregnant when you are not ready to be, and so your opinion on the matter means little. If you attempt to enforce your opinion on others, you are violating a woman's sovereign right, endowed her by her creator, to make such a choice for herself.
In the end, no one can really "ban" abortion. A woman, faced with a choice placed on her by circumstance, will simply find whatever expedient is necessary if it comes to it, to end her pregnancy. No doubt in a back room of some dingy building, with non-sterile equipment, at the hand of a "doctor," or perhaps in her own bathroom, with any of a number of wicked implements. Most likely, she will die, too, and so a potential life and an actual life will be lost, all due to the obstinacy of people who would impose their morality on everyone, contrary to the spirit and law of the nation.
I stand with all women, in giving them their full rights to their body and what is to be done with it. I condemn all those who would take those rights from women, as callous, unfeeling, and ignorant. I will not stand for a country that seeks a return to a time when women were chattel, little more than ornamentation and slaves, to be passed around as representations of political power, or to become baby-making machines. The pronouncement "be fruitful, and multiply," was not intended to sentence women to a life of constant pregnancy, simply to fill up the world, for no God would ask a people to multiply beyond what they could support, simply to do so.
This is only the edge of the abyss -- what starts here with the denigration and dehumanization of women will spread, and we will devolve into the mire of the Dark Ages, frightened by shadows, fearful of the unseen and unknown, fighting over scraps. We must move forward, not backward. We must move beyond the petty, toward the betterment of life for all of us, not just those who live a life of privilege. We are not human, where we allow poverty, hunger, disease, and ignorance to flourish still, while we have them means to eradicate them. The war against the right to abortion goes far beyond that simple act; it is the first step toward a precipice from which humankind may find it hard to retreat once it is too much further down the path. We have a choice -- reject the dogma of the past, or wallow in it. I choose the former. I choose humanity.
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