Like always, I run a day ahead and therefore a day behind of the blogosphere. Yesterday, 22nd January was Blog for Choice day. Go ahead, Google it. I am sure you will find a bunch of posts about it. It probably doesn’t help that I am posting this at 11pm on the 23rd. I am disorganised okay?
I am firmly pro-choice, even though I have never had to make that decision, the hardest decision some women have had to make, because at the end of the day, it is MY life and MY body. I want the right to have MY say over what happens to it.
When I was 15, I sat on the phone to my friend and listened to her cry as she recounted her experiences to me. She was 14.
FOURTEEN for goodness sakes.
She found out she was pregnant a week after she and her boyfriend broke up.
She made the hard decisions alone.
Went to the clinic alone.
And came home, alone.
She rang me in her aloneness, to cry on my shoulder, even though we were thousands of kilometres apart.
Nothing I could have said or done would have made that choice easier for her. But in the end, that is all she needed.
She needed a choice.
Each woman deserves the right to choose, depending on her own morals, depending on her own unique circumstances, what happens to her. No one should be allowed to take that right away.
What if she was 12?
What if it was unconsensual?
What if it was YOUR daughter in that situation? Wouldn’t you want to be able to give her a choice?
I know I am not in the US and I am hoping like hell that Australia never tries to take my right to choose away. So instead, I am writing this in support of all my friends in the US whom, without this movement, may one day find themselves, or their daughters in a positions where there are no choices.
And that would suck.
I remember when abortion was illegal in Canada. I knew some women who made a very desperate choice in those days. I’m happy that there is decent, supervised health care for those who make that choice.
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Here, here. Or is it “Hear, hear”? Whichever. Whatever. I was allowed to have a vasectomy after the birth of our third (and unexpected) son, without any investigation, interference or comment – thereby eliminating, forever, my ability to generate more offspring. I was free to make a choice about my body (actually, I was encouraged by SWMBO – but that’s a whole ‘nother story). I don’t understand why a woman wouldn’t have the opportunity to make her own choices, as well. Except that people who have nothing better to do than stick their political noses where it doesn’t belong (in other people’s business) are more than willing to force THEIR morals on everybody else.
And now I’m going to get down off my soapbox. And dust it off. And turn it over to anyone else who cares to climb up there and declare a belief or two.
Lou’s last blog post..Tuesday 22 Jan
I couldn’t agree more with you and what Lou said. Unfortunately, I have seen many 11, 12, and 13 year old moms as a nurse. Some from consenting interaction and others from nonconsenting. I’ve even seen handicapped innocent girls raped… it’s all incredibly sad, but they should be able to have a choice, alone or with their families.
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Here, here.
Candy’s last blog post..Candy & Bill’s Excellent Adventure
right on.
Dawn’s last blog post..Answers – 6 truths and a lie
This has been such a hard topic for me to think about since I’ve had my own kids but, you’re right, I wouldn’t like to think that I didn’t have the choice at all if my circumstances were different…
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Amen, sister!
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The united states government would take away the right for people not in power to think for themselves if they could. Its all about making controlling the masses and keeping them in line.
The people against abortion think that by keeping the consequences, it will keep these things from happening. Its apparent that neither the government or certain people in that circle use logic or higher reasoning.
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99% of me agrees with you. The 1% holdout is because of a former “friend” who has used abortion as a form of birth control multiple times. If there were a way to ferret out people like that, I wish they could be forced to truly understand the consequences of their actions. Maybe she would still make the same choices, but maybe she needs some education to understand what she’s doing.
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I agree, women and girls need to be able to make their own choices.
Back before we had contraception, women had to be married before engaging in sexual activities. If they fell pregnant before marriage, they were whisked away to stay with ‘relatives’ until the baby was born, who was then taken away from the mother whom the nurses advised the baby was stillborn. The baby went to an orphanage or was sold to families who wanted to adopt.
Nobody was to know about the pregnancy as it would disgrace the family name. Also, nurses had to give an internal examination to unmarried women to make sure that they were untouched.
These days, contraception is readily available and the majority of people don’t wait until they are married. With this risky lifestyle, abortion should always be an option for accidents, rapes and so on.
16-17 is the legal age for intercourse, but at 16-17 young women need to be able to have the freedom they need to make their own decisions. Some women are ready to be mothers at this age, some in their 20’s and some wait until they are 30.
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Better late than never, as they say. Glad to hear your voice ring out among us.
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I am VERY PRO CHOICE..VERY VERY VERY..
Good Girl Vonnie.. Great Post.
xxx mum
frogpondsrock’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday…
well done..
still so sad at 14..
I am pro choice only because there is no good option for the unwanted babies. The whole its my body thing is a lie. If it was yer body you’d be able to sell it.
I just wish some kind of anesthetic would be used for the fetus but that would undermine the whole when is it a person argument. You can kill babies but not pedos, murderers and rapists, what a stupid world we live in.
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Well said, Veronica!
Have you ever seen the movie “If These Walls Could Talk?” It’s about how three different women from three different eras deal with unwanted pregnancy. And it makes a bold statement about a woman’s right to choose.
Leslie’s last blog post..I’m So Glad You Stopped By
I am also pro-choice, but I don’t approve of women who use abortion as a method of birth control. Haven’t they heard of contraception?? Don’t they know that after repeated abortions their bodies may not be able to hold a pregnancy when they finally decide that they want a baby?
Lovely post! I agree wholeheartedly.
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Great post! What if. . . What if. . . What if. . .
What if people lead lives that are different lives, face different options, dilemmas & consequences? That is why I’m prochoice!
Kisses, the ff
I am also pro choice and am sad that I missed the blog for choice day, glad to read your post though!
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Oh, I wish I had known this was going on. This is such a hot topic in the U.S. and I’m a firm believer in allowing a woman to control her own body.
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Here, here!! Well said.
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