It's absurd that these decisions are made by overwhelmingly white, upper-middleclass males who would never have experienced the fear and stress of an unwanted pregnancy. A woman does not make decisions like this lightly, and the alternative to legal abortion is an unsafe illegal abortion, which often results in haemorrhaging, infection, the loss of the ability to have children in the future, and death. So, how *dare* they moralise and take away the right I have to decide what to do with my own body
You know what else gets me about this issue? It's that they use their religion as an excuse/reason for saying what *I* can and can't do with my own womb. People like Brian Harradine, in my country's (Australia) senate who is anti-abortion and a christian and currently holds part of the balance of power in our Parliment.
Who gave him the right to take away my access to abortion if I need one? Why should I have to follow the rules of his religion, when I have rejected it myself? Why is he trying to take away my legal right to a safe abortion under aneasthesia?
I am not, nor have ever been a christian, and resent that they and other fundamentalists are making decisions and laws that affect my life, according their beliefs. They judge/hate others and yet preach love and tolerance and use their religion to justify any behaviour.
They are narrow-minded, biggoted and unable to accept views that differ from their own. Their lack of logic and reasoning is frightening. If they ever examined their own religion closely enough they would see that it is immensly flawed and senseless. Oh, but who needs sense when you can have faith, right?
Who actually votes for these morons though? Why are they getting so much power? Why are they still living in their idealised little world with a 50's mindset? (Like things were so great then) Pushing their so-called Family Values down my throat. Family values...like people who don't belong to the husband/wife/2.4 children category don't have a family. Oh, and women from families don't have abortions, right?
Why should their beliefs be inflicted on me and how I *choose* to live my life? No woman takes abortion lightly. It is not like having an appendix removed and there are emotional and physical consequences that scar a woman for many years.
It is an awful decision to have to make and women don't need their moralising to make a difficult situation worse. As males they obviously can never be in the terrifying situation of having an unwanted pregnancy. I find their opinions useless and typical of the patriachial dogma that woman are subjected to daily.
Back to men deciding what is best for women. If these men are so keen on protecting the life of an unborn child, why does motherhood have such a low status in our society? Why are mothers not given the support necessary to nuture and bring up these children? Why are single mothers looked down on and their worth not recognised? If these people truly want to 'save' all these babies how about making motherhood more attractive?
Obviously it really sucks, otherwise there wouldn't have been the mass exodus from homes by women that we saw in the fifties. Women now want (and need) more than being cloistered away in suburbia, drugged up on prozac and making the dinner.
If a man makes a mistake and 'gets' a woman pregnant, life goes on for him.
She may be lucky enough, if she chooses to have the baby, to receive 'maintainence'
money from him. Poor guy, salary lowered :(
But, the woman has the child to raise for the next 20 or so years, everyday.
The demands on her body, time, plus the loss of income, the expense of raising a child
and the full-time job of nuturing and caring for that child.
So, If a woman makes a mistake, She should have the choice to rectify it,
because we're talking about 20 years of her life if she doesn't.
Fault. Blame. Murder. These are the emotionally charged words used by the anti-abortionists. There are those advocating that a fusion of cells have more rights to life than a woman who has lived for 20-odd years. That any woman who gets pregnant should have that child NO MATTER WHAT. Even if she can't support it, doesn't want it, or can't cope with a pregnancy. Sometimes, if a woman was raped, or her life is at risk, it's suddenly 'okay' and tolerable to these people for her to choose to abort.
'Tolerable' reasons?? Tolerable to who? People who like to impose their own moral
and religious beliefs on others? Are they saying that a woman has to be raped
or have her own life at risk before she can decide what to do with her own body??
By their reasoning, (and I use the term loosely), if it's the woman's fault, abortion becomes
murder...but, if it's the man's fault, that is, as a result of rape, then it's
"ok to get an abortion"
It's easier to blame the woman. (She was out, wearing a dress, drinking...she was asking for it) That's why these anti-choicers are able to be so bloody self-righteous.
Let me get this straight. No woman, EVER, asks to be raped.
As has been demonstrated all over the world for countless centuries, making abortion illegal does not stop it happening. It only replaces it with illegal abortion, which is far worse for the woman and society as a whole. Far too many women die from 'back-yard' abortions.
Those that survive often have to cope with massive blood loss, infection, the loss of fertility, excrutiating pain and a trip by ambulance to the emergency department for your 'tolerable' abortion, this time with an anaesthetic. Personally, as a woman, this is not something I would choose to endure to please their sense of 'tolerabilty'
If I required an abortion it would be my body. My womb. My decision. Not the decision of
people who I have never met and who would not be there, going through what I am, or
feeling what I feel.
How *dare* they impose their morals on millions of women and assume that they have
the right to say what they do with their own womb. Their own body. Especially if
they're suffered the absolute trauma and terror of rape already. What women need
is love and support in making these difficult decisions, not moralising and
judeo-christian guilt.
