So yeah, my post yesterday was dramatic. I'll readily admit it. Because in truth, I'm not sure that a ban on abortion would have a gigantic effect immediately, at least on my life. I'm certain that there are women who would experience the aftershocks of the decision almost instantly, women who get pregnant the day after it happens, women who face death without the lifesaving procedure that abortion sometimes is. (Sometimes I wonder if pro-life people really do want to go that far, and if they would be able to look a woman in the face and say, "See ya! Hope you had a nice life!" Because I wouldn't.) I bet that I'd turn even more psychotic about contraception than I am now, simply out of terror. But that might be the only consequence in my life, unless of course, the worst thing ever happened, and I got (I shudder, I shudder, I shudder) pregnant unexpectedly and what would most likely be unhappily. And then I'd be a girl without a choice. Without a realistic choice, that is.
What worries me more is that after tackling abortion, some pro-lifers will go straight for contraception, because there are loonies out there who do think that any form of contraception is baby murder. They're already chomping at the bit, trying very hard to make it very hard for teenagers to understand exactly how contraception works and exactly why you should use it IF you decide to have sex and IF you decide you're not ready for a baby. That's what really scares me. And you can tell me about how they're not all going for it, and how that'll never come to pass in this country, but I also never thought we'd stand by and watch while 1100 people were killed. By a hurricane. It's less than that oh-so-sound-biteable 9/11 attack, but that 9/11 attack, while tragic, isn't REALLY because of the direct failure of our government to act in a manner that would have saved people. So yeah. I watch the things going on now--our attorney general muddying the habeas corpus waters, illegal wiretaps, torture, our support of a corrupt war--and I just don't think I know at all what this country is capable of.
So is this country capable of taking away contraception? Don't know. Probably not, but then again, I don't know for sure.
I'm pro-choice. I think women should be able to choose to have an abortion (and you can call it killing a baby or murder and it still doesn't make me squeamish, because I point blank think women have to be allowed to have moral free agency) and I think they should be able to choose IF they want to use abortion, what type they want to use and when they want to use it. And I'm against pretty much anything that's going to deny women the right to those things.
Dramatic, yeah. But for a reason.
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