Monday, November 12, 2012

The "War on Women"

I've been hearing about a "War on women" recently and thought to share my thoughts on a certain aspect of the war on women.  This brings me to the highly controversial political debate of abortion.  There is the typical debate of whether women should retain their rights to decide what to do with their body, and then the other side which argues for the life of the baby to be born.  While I have an opinion on this already, this is not what I feel is the problem.

I believe that all human beings have the right to choose anything they want, but this does not mean that consequences will not follow.  If one chooses to use speech to speak out against a government the consequence could be that people will understand his opinion, or in another country it could possibly be death.  So we are always free to choose what we want to do, but we are not free to choose what the consequences of our decisions are.  

This brings me to my point. Women have several wonderful choices to make before having to make the decision to abort their child.  They have the choice to have a relationship with someone, a choice to be sexually active with that person, and a choice to have unprotected sex.  These choices are all made by that women before the decision to abort surfaces (except in cases of rape or incest).  The next part is the consequence that sometimes follows, being pregnant.  Now becoming pregnant is not always a choice, it is generally a consequence of a choice.

Sometimes in life we can make a decision when a consequence arises.  For example, I have spent $500 extra than I have been making for the past 6 months and now I have to pay off credit cards. There is now a choice for this individual.  Another situation could be not having filled up on gas, and now I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere. The choice to react to that consequence could be who you call, or where you walk to. The consequence dictates your choices.

There are also times where you cannot make a certain decision after a consequence, or that the consequence now limits your ability to make certain decisions.  If I smoke for 40 years and then get lung cancer, my decision to stop smoking and avoid the damage of smoking is now not so much of an option. The time has passed for that individual.  I can't choose to raise my children in a house of peace if they've already grown up in a house of contention and left the home. I'm sure you can think of plenty of examples that are similar or fit into each category.

The choice to not have a child is not a choice that is made after you realize that you are pregnant. It is a choice that you make before you already have the consequences. The choice was yours when you weighed the decision of having sex or not having sex, and the decision of having protected sex or unprotected sex. You understand that sex can lead to pregnancy way before you made the decision to have sex.


The idea of abortion in the US began more or less in the 60's. At first they sought abortions only when:
"substantial risk that continuance of the pregnancy would gravely impair the physical or mental health of the woman, or that the child resulting from pregnancy would be born with grave physical or mental defect, or in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest." - http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/abortiontimeline.html 
 While claiming other reasons for wanting abortion to be legal "as long as it was performed prior to fetus viability," I believe that the development of the sexual revolution was responsible for the increased demand for contraceptives and abortions. Both have become more affordable and more available. Today we have plenty of ways to help avoid unwanted pregnancies. The problem is that people choose not to use them.

My beef with abortion comes in here. Why are we changing the law to accompany people that are irresponsible? (Not to mention I do think it is murder to abort a baby). Would we make laws to protect the future of people that kill people drunk driving? No, they get charged with manslaughter, they live and learn from their mistake. Their choices were to drink, to not have a designated driver, and to drive drunk or not. Their consequence of driving drunk and killing someone in an accident is not unavoidable, or changeable. They made an irresponsible choice, well multiple really, and have to live with their consequence. If we support and help to accommodate people as they act irresponsibly we will only multiply and fail to discourage responsible behavior and responsible choices.

The reason I am against abortion is because it encourages bad behavior in an indirect way. I also want to point out that people that are against abortion does not equate to a "war" on women. This is indirectly including women, but it is not intended to attack women's personal rights. The constitution was stretched to be able to include abortions and it was initially meant to protect the health of women. Women should have the right to decide what happens to their own body in terms of health, because it is their own life. What a women should not have the right to do, is alter the outcome of her choices regardless of whether it will affect her health or n


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