Pro-Choice: Keep The Government Out Of My Uterus!

After reading numerous articles and comments concerning the issue of a woman's right to abortion, it still sickens me how many people out there shun politics, science and law, only relying on religious doctrine to back up their position.

Let me start by clearing clearing something up: Pro-choice does not equal pro-death. Pro-choice simply describes the belief that a woman should have complete and unconditional control over her own body. This includes reproductive rights, access to birth control and sexual education, access to safe abortion treatments and legal protection from forced abortion & compulsory maternity by the State. We are not for the needless deaths and murders in the World; far from it. My brother died earlier this year and it destroyed me.

But the woman's right to choose abortion, whether she exercises that right or not, goes far beyond the right to choose. It goes deep into a woman's right to control her fertility, and even the right to privacy as stated in the historical Roe vs. Wade case.

Why is abortion legal in the free world? Well, I'll tell you. Throughout history, abortion has been induced by various means, botanical abortifacients, the use of sharpened tools, and abdominal pressure. Women have been taking control of their fertility for centuries. In the early 1900's, abortion was outlawed in the United Kingdom and the United States; despite this, many abortions were still performed every year. But, in 1970, a controversial case came to the United States Supreme Court that resulted in the legalization of abortion in America - Roe vs. Wade.

"Jane Roe" as she was known, filed a suit in a U.S. District Court in Texas, claiming her pregnancy was a result of rape. The District Court filed in Roe's favor, but refused an injunction against anti-abortion laws. The district court's decision was based upon a concurring opinion by Justice Arthur Goldberg in the 1965 Supreme Court case of Griswold vs. Connecticut, regarding the right to use contraceptives (ie, birth control).

Roe vs. Wade ultimately reached the Supreme Court on appeal. The Court issued its decision in early 1973, with a 7 to 2 majority voting to strike down Texas abortion laws. The Roe Court deemed abortion a fundamental right under the United States Constitution. According to the decision, most laws against abortion in America violated a constitutional right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision overturned all state & federal laws outlawing or restricting abortion - most of which was based on religious doctrine.

In the free world, there is something magnificent known as the Separation of Church & State. It is a political and legal doctrine that states that the Government and Religion, whichever one it may be, are to be kept separate & independent from each other. You may be Christian or Muslim or Jewish or whatever - but that doesn't mean that everyone else is and it certainly does not give you the right to tell other what they can and cannot due based on your own set of beliefs. The Separation of Church & State is why (at least in my country, Canada) homosexuals can get married legally, with the same rights as heterosexual couples. It is why there is no forced religion in schools and partly why abortion is legal.

Abortion rights also need to be protected because every single person has the right to do what they want with their bodies; and no one else has the right to tell them what that can and cannot do. They simply don't have the right to do that. The rights of the person in question far outweigh the rights of other people who are not affected physically (and by that, I mean, the rights of the woman to do what she wants with her uterus is more important than the rights of other people who are not carrying the zygote or fetus.)

Even though I am radically pro-choice, I do believe that after the first trimester (three months), after signs of life are first shown, abortion is no longer safe not only for the fetus, but for the mother. Many clinics will refuse an to perform an abortion after the third month, unless the health and safety of the mother is put at risk.

The bottom line is that abortion is a womans' personal choice. The government and the opinions of other people have no place in her body. How can us women ever hope to become equal to a man if we aren't allowed to control our own fertility? Like it or not, abortion should be here to stay. Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.

Seventy-seven percent of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never be pregnant.

Against abortion? Don't have one. Simple as that.