I am really late to the event here but today is Blog for Choice Day and so I am writing about why I feel a woman’s right to choose whether or not to maintain a pregnancy through birth is so important. It isn’t going to be very well written because I’m in a hurry but this, in a nutshell, is how I see this issue.
To those of you who are anti-choice I would ask this question. If you or your daughter or your wife or your sister or a good female friend was jumped one day or night while leaving the movies, the shopping mall, school or just sitting at home; and if that unwanted assault resulted in a pregnancy, do you really, really believe that that woman who never wanted that man’s penis in her body – who never asked to have his seed deposited where it could reach one of her eggs – should have to endure 9 months of pregnancy and then give birth to this unwanted alien? Do you really think that it is a woman’s burden to bear any baby she might conceive regardless of the conditions under which conception was initiated?
And what if it happens because her Daddy gets in her bed at night while Mommy is asleep and tells her he loves her and while sliding down her panties whispers, “don’t cry honey, daddy loves you – this is okay but it’s our little secret” while he forces his penis in her vagina? Or maybe it isn’t her Daddy – maybe it’s her Uncle Bob who is visiting for Christmas or maybe it’s just a friend of her parents. Is she supposed to be forced to have that baby? What if she is only a teenager of 13 or 14?
And what if a woman learns that her baby has an enlarged head and that the size of the baby’s head will kill the mother and the child will never have a fighting chance at any sort of life and will be dead within days of birth? Does that mother have to see it through and hope she lives to tell the tale?
Now try writing legislation that says it’s okay to have an abortion or to take the morning after pill if any of the things listed above happen but not for any other reason. Attempt to write legislation that protects women from having babies that were forced upon them or that will kill them but will make any other kind illegal.
You can’t do it. It isn’t even possible. Even if you could word the legislation correctly how do you enforce that? How can you ever really know? If rape or incest are the only legally allowed pre-conditions for abortion how many false reports of rape do you suppose will be filed? Most rapes go unreported so going to a doctor after the fact and claiming rape and making up a credible story woudn’t be that hard – and to what end?
No – the reason we must forever give women the right to choose is because it is the woman who is having the baby. You can feel horrible about terminated pregnancies. You can see it as an act against God but you who are not the woman effected by the pregnancy have no right to tell her that it is her burden as a woman to endure under any circumstance. The choice must always be hers just as it is today by order of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
21st-century-mom.com 
The ultimate court is in her head, no matter what the law. To compound it by making her “guilty” of breaking a law is unnecessary piling on.
I have to wonder what right people think they have to decide that a woman has been through enough hardship to “earn” the right to an abortion. If you’re going to accept that it is ever okay to terminate a pregnancy, you can’t then tell a woman that she’s not been traumatized enough or that the pregnancy wouldn’t be unsafe unsafe enough for her to have an abortion. She can weigh her own risks and preferences and make her own decision. Limiting access to abortion to incest and rape victims is paternalistic, plain and simple.
Thank you for this eloquent post.
Can we elect you to office, 21CM?!
I have to say that I dissagree. I understand what you are trying to say, and if I was d that would be an extremely traumatizing experience for me. Thank you for wanting what is best for women who are d. However, a baby is the only beautiful thing that can come out of a . Having and holding an child can do much more good for a victimized woman than the knowledge that an child died in an attempt to reduce her trauma. The baby would not bring emotional pain, but rather emotional joy and healing. Most women are told that abortion is the only choice. But there is also adoption. By aborting the child, the mother is ending a life that might have had an effect on society. Isn’t it right for her to go through those nine months in order to allow the child to live, instead of her before she is born? The fetus is not just part of the mothers body. Once fertilization takes place, the zygote is its own entity, genetically distinct from both mother and father. The newly conceived individual possesses all the necessary information for a self-directed development. As early as eight or ten weeks of gestation – the earliest time at which procured abortions are performed – the fetus has a fully formed beating heart; a complete brain… feels pain, cries; and even sucks his or her thumb. And why do we insist that the baby is the mother’s and not the father’s, and then when she is d, say that the baby is the father’s and call it an alien? Do people’s value depend on who there father is? It will solve nothing by punishing the child. I’m sorry about posting such a long comment on your blog, but please be willing to consider what I have to say.
Dear anonymous who feels so strongly about his or her opionions that s/he has to post anonymously.1). what is “d” . Is that some sort of weiner shorthand for RAPED? Just say it, dear. Raped. Raped. Raped. It isn’t any easier or nicer if you use some lame abbreviation.2).It isn’t up to me to decide if a woman should or shouldn’t have her baby – it is up to her.
I’m sorry, but my computer blocks random words. I did type it out normally.
i believe in my right to choose what is best for me. i had to make that decision when i was 24. i am 36 now. as a lesbian dealing with rape, i believe the circumstances were justifiable. however, i would have made the decision either way. i am grateful for choices. i have no regrets.
A fetus feels no pain until it has reached between 18 and 22 weeks. The anti-choicer on the site is publishing lies. The fetus (which is called an embryo up until 8 weeks) feels no pain and is not conscious of it’s existance.
I’m a child of a raped mother. It was the husband of my mother’s aunt that raped her in 1964. I didn’t find out until I was in my 30s. My mother is nuts and never accomplished much of anything. She hates me and won’t talk to me about it. She hates that I have a successfull life. However, the man she married when I was five was a wonderful human being that had a tremendous impact on my life. So you know, my living has had a tremendous positive influence on the lives of others. I beleive I’m here to save lives and help the underdogs of life. I somehow learned sympathy and love beyond what most people are capable. What if my mother had aborted me? By not doing so, she has saved lives. So you figure it out!!