Okay, so maybe I’m not quite done with ranting. Bear with me. The opinions I’m about to share are mine, and mine alone. Have patience.
I’ve always viewed myself as a “pro-life” person. If that doesn’t tick off at least half of you, I’ve also come to realize that it’s not as black and white (or pro-life and pro-choice) as the media and politicians would lead you to think. I also believe a woman has a right to her own body. Where it gets complicated is when another person inhabits her body. Another complication is when you consider the rights of that unborn child. How do you separate the two human beings in a legal, ethical and moral way? Let’s not forget the fact that it took two humans to make that child. Doesn’t a man have any rights in whether a child he helped to create will live or die? The issue has so many facets that most people boil it down to the simplest terms. Pro-choice. Pro-life. Pro-abortion. Anti-abortion. In our society today, if you’re Pro-life, the Left defines you as a hater of women. If you’re Pro-choice, the Right defines you as a baby killer. In my youth, I saw this issue in these simple terms also. I’ve learned, over the years, that, just because I’ve believed something for a long time (or had an opinion about it) doesn’t mean I can’t be wrong.
There was a woman in Arizona that learned her second child had a condition called alobar holoprosencephaly. It’s a condition in which the brain doesn’t separate into the normal two halves. She was twenty three weeks and four days into her pregnancy. Her doctors informed her that her baby had a sever form of the condition, and would either be stillborn or die shortly after birth. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade days later. She was ultimately forced to carry the child to full term and give birth. The baby had forty-four hours of painful life until leaving this world in her mother’s arms. Personally, I feel that was the right thing to do. I also know that it shouldn’t be my decision. It should have been the mother and father’s choice.
There are individuals out there who have had tubal pregnancies that doctors, and clinics, wouldn’t perform DNC’s to remove the fetal tissue, because of confusion over what the Supreme Court’s ruling meant to their liability. They didn’t want to be sued.
Since Roe was overturned, abortions nation-wide have only been reduced by six percent. I hope the trend continues downward. I believe abortion on demand isn’t right. I believe those children deserve a chance to live. I also know that it’s not my body I’m talking about, and that a woman has to have the right to make an informed choice. Nobody wants to see women dying from illegal, backroom abortions, or treated like walking wombs. Surely we can find an answer to this dilemma.
The abortion issue is a hotbed of emotion and passion and will tick off someone quicker than a wet willy. It’s an important topic that needs to be addressed at the individual and national level. The argument for, or against, legal abortions needs to be debated and decided upon. The Supreme Court can only define and interpret what the Constitution says, and it’s language and intent can be ambiguous and unclear on many modern issues. What I strongly believe is needed is a Constitutional Convention that would argue the issue publicly. An open forum to debate what the people want, and add it to our beloved Constitution. Let the outcome be added to that bedrock document and seared into our national conscience. I don’t know if it would outlaw abortion with, or without, stipulations, or if it would enshrine a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. What it would do is give our lawmakers an opportunity to take a stand and get something meaningful done. What do you say, representatives and senators? Instead of spending money, and time, trying to impeach each other, how about we turn that divisive, polarizing energy into something that might actually mean something in the long term? I dare you.
Rolling Stones 