I watched a movie once. There was a grandmother, a granddaughter and a cow. The cow’s middle dipped considerably farther than it should have and it was unable to walk or stand properly after years of being formed to have children. The grandmother pointed at the cow and said, “that is a woman”.
It’s difficult for me to talk about the abortion “debate” because I don’t know what my opinion is worth. It is true that I am a woman and person of colour and both of those groups are disproportionately affected by abortion bans. However, I have never been personally impacted by limitations to reproductive healthcare. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s not an important topic for all of us to be concerned about, plenty of people seem ready to enforce limitations when they are not directly impacted as well. So I guess I can also show my support.
I don’t know how we can value literal clumps of cells over living women. Pregnancy—even healthy pregnancy—is complicated and doesn’t always result in the happy, healthy babies that people imagine. Sometimes there is unimaginable unendurable emotional and physical pain to the parent and/or the child. There are tragedies made harder by the unsolicited judgment of people not at all involved with the situation.
Also, simply not wanting to be pregnant and have/raise a child is a valid reason to not have to undergo pregnancy and childbirth—it rough even when everything goes as well as it can. I cannot mention every specific issue and challenge to having children, but I can say that unwanted children will suffer in their relationships as well.
Also, I know this isn’t everyone’s fault individually, but the world is so fucked. I mean, climate change? Racism? War? We are scared of literal, scientifically researched apocalypses ALL THE TIME. Why would you want to bring more people into that?
I do think life is worth living and we should collectively try to make the world a better place, but friends, this is not a good world. We are not a good society. We should strive to make a better world for the children and whatnot, but our predecessors made such a mess, especially in the last few centuries, that we can only hope to work toward a better world with the knowledge that we won’t be here to see it.
And I don’t understand the complete lack of empathy for others. Rich people will always have access to abortions. We know this because when abortions were banned before, they still managed to access safe abortions for their “special” situations.
Honestly, I don’t care if you’re rich and decide to have an abortion but don’t harrass people getting the same service you got the day before.
If there is a concern for life, then there should be more concern for forced sterilizations, the gaps in the foster care/adoption systems that propagate genocides and force parents and children to live lives of isolation, trauma, fear and indignity.
The amount of hypocrisy is astounding.
Not to mention, if someone doesn’t want to spend nine months as a 3D printer/incubator with extreme discomfort and increased vulnerability to disease, only to push out a completely dependent, half-developed child or by temporarily removing their organs, they shouldn’t have to do so!
I can’t tell you what the right thing to do is, I think forcefully sterilizing people is horrific, the one-child policy was terrible and the choice to have an abortion is complicated. But forcing one choice on everyone based on non-universal morals not supported by most knowledge systems is not right.
Making a generation that can’t think of abortion?
They tried and failed repeatedly. How have we not moved past this?