Freedom: An Opinion About Abortion Rights
Today the New York Times posted an article discussing Northern Ireland’s legalization of both same-sex marriage and abortion. In America, these two topics are both incredibly sensitive, in which opinions differ wildly and sometimes even violently. To be completely transparent, here, I am most certainly pro-choice. Not only do I believe that a woman has a right to choose what happens to her body, but I emphasize that only the woman has the right to choose. Not her significant other, parent, distant relative, neighbor, religious leader, or doctor. It’s her choice because it’s her body, her life, and her duty to live with the choices she makes. No one will ever be able to understand the circumstances of that choice, nor will they ever fully see what those choices do to her, because they aren’t her.
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Even those in similar circumstances may not fully understand the choices other women make. I, for one, would never advocate a woman who is a victim of sexual assault be forced to carry a constant reminder of it for nine months. Many attempts to fight abortion rely on emotional manipulation to do their work for them. Other times they rely on violence, by bombing clinics that allow abortions and attacking doctors who perform them. None of these are the tools of reasonable people. In some cases, this kind of behavior is a “last resort” because they feel they aren’t being listened to. Unfortunately, by relying on this kind of thing they undermine their own arguments.
I realize, of course, that those firmly entrenched in the “life begins at conception” doctrine are unlikely to be swayed by my words. In fact, I consider it highly unlikely any level of persuasion could convince those people to agree with me on a woman’s right to choose. I’ve heard the arguments, of course. That life begins at conception, that it’s murder to abort, that it can lead to health risks, that it can cause psychological distress… The list goes on. The problem with these arguments is that they are incomplete. Like that pesky argumentative essay once written for high school, they cherry pick specific circumstances and use those to try and enforce the concept that they are absolutes. A fetus is a living creature, but until it’s born, it’s not a person; it’s a parasite, feeding off the host to survive and unable to do so outside the host. There can be heath risks associated with abortions, in that there are health risks associated with any type of medical procedure. Considering the top two most common causes of death in America are heart disease and cancer according to Healthline, abortion isn’t even worthy of a footnote. As for psychological distress, I would say you have that potential either way.
To tell the tale most simply, I give you an example. There once was a woman who had extreme abdominal pain. It was sharp, located on one side of her body, and it made it nearly impossible for her to function. Finally, she consulted WebMD with her symptoms, ignored the rare or extreme conditions, and determined she likely had a cyst. She went to her doctor, only to learn it wasn’t a cyst. It was a fetus. An ultrasound was ordered to determine whether it was an ectopic pregnancy and the woman was faced with a choice: if ectopic, she would likely require an abortion as the odds of an ectopic pregnancy making it to term are about 1 in 3 million. On the other hand, if it was not, she would have to consider whether to carry this fetus to term.
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The ultrasound was done, and it determined that the egg had implanted just outside the Fallopian tube on her left side, which was why she was experiencing so much pain. As it grew, it was putting pressure on the opening, causing it to stretch. This meant she would be able to carry the baby, but would require more frequent doctor visits, more ultrasounds, and the potential for life-threatening complications should the area where the fetus implanted rupture. Now she had to decide what to do: would she carry the baby, understanding that doing so would become increasingly difficult and potentially hazardous towards the end, or would she choose to abort?
Ultimately, she chose to have the baby. Not because others decided it for her, but because she looked long and hard at what the consequences of each choice would be. She chose, of her own volition, to put her life and her health at risk to have that child. Women face these kinds of decisions every single day, and every day we have others telling us what we should and shouldn’t do. Just as it is every individual’s right to decide if they want to be left on life support should they be declared brain dead, it is every woman’s right to decide what to do with her body.
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It’s our right, our freedom, our duty, and our choice.