I've been thinking about this subject all day; two of the blogs I read have talked about it. One post was very personal, and one was basically political. The subject is abortion.
I very firmly believe that the personal is political, and I think that those two blog entries above highlight exactly what the abortion debate is about. I have often felt like forcing a woman to be pregnant is something like hijacking her body. I believe that pregnancy (while I've not gone through it) is something that cannot be minimized, or ignored. It takes over what was once yours and makes it something else altogether. I live in perpetual fear of pregnancy, and what it will do to me--it isn't just the result of the pregnancy (the child) that I fear--but the way my body will no longer be my own. And you can say whatever you want about that--you can call it selfish, you can tell me I'm an evil person--but it's how I feel. I had a pregnancy scare once, and I thought to myself constantly, "I hope S can support me through an abortion." I was certain that I would get one, and I was certain that it would be okay. I'm a responsible girl; we make sure we're safe. A pregnancy would be a fluke, and a disaster. For many of the reasons listed in the political article: lack of economic resources, a tenous grasp of health care, etc.
I have a friend (or had, depending on how you look at it) who, before I met her, got pregnant and had an abortion. She very rarely talked about it, and I only learned of it later, when she (evidently) trusted me enough to tell me. It wasn't that she was ashamed, or that she felt guilty about it, but at our college, it was good to know who your friends were on this subject. In fact, the only time we ever had a drawn-out conversation about it was during "Right-to-Life" week on campus. The girls with T-shirts that said "Yes It's Murder", the white crosses stretching down the library green; all this bothered my friend. She said that what was right for her was right for her, and no one could convince her otherwise. All it could do was make her more careful about telling, and more certain that it was necessary for her. She said that our college, when she went to counseling about the pregnancy, had told her it would send her to a special college "for that sort of thing". God forbid a pregnant woman walk around our campus, where women didn't have sex. The administration actually took that position--women didn't have sex at my school, because good Catholic girls didn't do that. Perhaps that's why our campus had one of the highest abortion rates in the country (a rumor around campus, but not hard to believe).
Which leads us right into the political. The political article is a perfect example of what's wrong with the pro-life movement. (And I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how the pro-life movement is actually pro-life. It's more pro-birth.) Discouraging abortion from happening is a practical thing, not a moral thing. It continually proves to be so--if you are pro-choice, and can handle it, read this blog. It's very sad, and I don't know how else to describe it without sounding callous, but it's interesting and can be, at times, empowering.
But that's a digression, because the aforementioned blog definitely leans towards the personal. I can't really state a political argument for abortion being legal that's any better than the one linked to at the beginning of this entry. I can restate over and over again the same things that are stated other places. I would only add one more thing: outlawing abortion will only serve to make the gap between rich and poor bigger. If abortion is outlawed, rich women will fly to Europe to have them, and poor women will depend on a whole list of unsafe and unsanitary options to have them. They'll continue to exist, and they'll continue to exist.
I know this is a very scattered entry; I hope it makes some sense.
Comments