Whenever a person, be it a male or a female, is stripped of the right to do with and to their own body whatever it is that they choose to do, we have reached a true crisis point. A woman’s reproductive rights and as an extension of those rights the right to terminate a pregnancy is not a suitable subject for legislation beyond the blanket approval of her right to choose for herself. If there is a line to be drawn anywhere on this particular issue it is on the point of who should pay for the abortion. Frankly, it’s her choice so it should follow that it be her bill to pay and not the bill of the taxpayer.
There are so many excellent reasons for a woman to make the difficult choice of having an abortion. They run the gambit from any issue concerning the health of the woman to the horrors of a situation that the unborn child may find itself born. Whatever reason motivates the choice to terminate the pregnancy it is the woman making the choice that has to both live with that choice, be responsible for having carried it out and finally paying the bill. There may well be some significant “wiggle room” on the bill paying aspect if the woman finds that her life is in real jeopardy should she attempt to carry the child to term. In that instance the insurance she carries may have to step up to the plate, but that is really a topic for some other debate.
It is vital to mention here that the majority of lawmakers in this country are men. Men have only a slight and , no doubt, somewhat hazy concept of what it might be like to be pregnant. For that reason, if for no other, it is extremely wrong to allow those lawmakers to sit in judgment of an issue that dispute any amount of reading or interviewing of women they can never really firmly grasp.
There are those that will suggest that the father of the unborn child has a right to see the child born and take the responsibility of raising the child. That may very well be, but it begs the question, does any father’s right trump the rights of the woman who must carry the life of the unborn child inside her for nine months? I think that they do not. In the course of the pregnancy any number of things can and have gone tragically wrong. What right of the father can make a woman accept those risks if she is unwilling or unable, mentally or physically, to face them? I believe that there are none.
The people that think a woman shouldn’t be allowed to make this terrible choice should, I feel, be made to support the unwanted, deformed, addicted or critically ill children that their no votes may well, at some time, force to be born to the women that would have made the choice to abort. They should have the strength of their convictions and be ready at any moment to accept the responsibility for the lives that are influenced by way of their misguided voting.