It’s Panda, Miss Dementia If You’re Nasty

I know I’m a little late for Blog for Choice Day (it was back on Friday, January 22 and it celebrated the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade), but I’ve been giving my opinions some thought and decided to post what I’ve come up with.

I am Pro-Choice.

I strongly believe that you have the CHOICE to have sex.

If you are not prepared to have sex RESPONSIBLY, then DON’T HAVE SEX.

If you DO have sex responsibly but are not prepared to deal with the consequences of a rare birth control failure, then DON’T HAVE SEX.

I had an unplanned pregnancy my senior year in college. Was I prepared for it? Hell no. I was young, I wasn’t settled, didn’t have a job, wasn’t emotionally prepared to have a child. Was abortion an option? HELL NO. Despite my lack of preparation, killing the child growing inside of me was not even a thought.

Yes, that’s right, I said KILLING A CHILD. Because that’s what abortion is. It’s not “termination,” it’s not “ending a pregnancy,” it’s KILLING a LIVING HUMAN. These terms are euphemisms. The dictionary definition of a euphemism is this: the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt. Is that not exactly what these terms are? No one wants to hear that they are killing their baby, because that’s the harsh truth. Instead, most women who get abortions dance around what they are really doing to make it easier on themselves. Any one who needs to use a euphemism to refer to their “choice” to have an abortion is, in my eyes, not mentally ready to have an abortion.

My decision to never have an abortion had nothing to do with my Christian faith. I wasn’t even a Christian when I made the decision. When I was in middle school, we watched an abortion video in Science class. It was called “Silent Scream.” In this video, we saw the effects of an abortion through an ultrasound. We saw a baby being ripped limb from limb as it was sucked forcefully out of it’s mother’s uterus. We saw the baby’s head being crushed by forceps so that it could be pulled out of the mother. We saw buckets of discarded baby parts in the back room of an abortion clinic. Seeing the HORROR and VIOLENCE of what goes on in an abortion made my decision against abortion for me.

A BABY aborted at 22 weeks

If you have not seen “Silent Scream,” I highly suggest you watch it here. It is powerful and disturbing, and if you are for abortion, I hope that it gives you a new perspective on it.

So, abortion was not an option for me. I faced the consequences of my CHOICE to have sex. I went to classes when I was dealing with morning sickness, I made up my assignments on the days that I couldn’t get out of bed, I finished up my degree and I continued  to work so that I could support the little miracle growing inside of me and I grew the fuck up. Despite the fact that it was an unplanned pregnancy, my son was the biggest blessing I could have ever asked for. Even when I was struggling to support us, even when the rest of my childless friends were able to go out for the evening and I was stuck at home with my baby, I never regretted it, I never wished that I could go back and change it. I had made my CHOICE and I was happy to live with it, as difficult as it could be at times.

When thinking about abortion, I became curious as to how many women who have them end up regretting them. Upon Googling “post abortion support,” I found HUNDREDS of groups dedicated to helping women cope with having abortions. If there was no need for these groups, they wouldn’t exist. According to ClinicQuotes.com, in a five year study cited in “Report on the Committee on the Operation of the Abortion Law” (Ottawa, Canada, 1977, p 20-1), 25% of women who had abortion sought out psychiatric care later, as opposed to only 3% of women who did not have abortions.”

Some women who feel fine about their abortions immediately after may even develop psychiatric problems later on in their life as a result. David Reardon, author of Aborted Women: Silent No More (Westchester, Ill.:Crossway Books, 1987, 116) says:

A woman that a six-month post-abortion survey declares “well-adjusted” may experience severe trauma on the anniversary of the abortion date, or even many years later. This fact is attested to in psychiatric textbooks which affirm that…”the psychiatrist frequently hears expressions of remorse and guilt concerning abortions that occurred twenty or more years earlier.” In one study, the number of women who expressed “serious self-reproach” increased fivefold over the period of time covered by the study.

There can also be many physical consequences of an abortion, including damage to the uterus, damage to the cervix, damage to other internal organs, heavy bleeding, infection, sepsis, etc. If the “choice” for abortion is such a good one, such a “blessing” as Rev. Katherine Ragsdale puts it (this article was brought to my attention by Brit’s post for Blog for Choice day), why would women’s bodies and minds react in such a way?

1.3 million abortions a year. Is that really acceptable in a country where birth control is easily accessible? Over at the Champagne and Benzedrine blog, he quotes “Tammy Bruce, a self-proclaimed ‘conservative feminist’”. She says: “With every kind of birth control available in the world, abortion is not something to be proud of. If you need an abortion, you’ve failed.” I don’t know if “failed” is the right word, so much as you’ve refused to accept the consequences of your CHOICE.

So what now? Well, I think that women AND men need to be educated on what abortion REALLY is. If someone took a hit of acid which caused them to be violent and kill someone, you wouldn’t call it a “blessing” and applaud their choice to do what they want with their body. You would call it a tragedy and think what a bad CHOICE that person made. That may be a harsh comparison, but that’s pretty much what’s happening. Women are making the CHOICE of what to do with their bodies and innocent humans are getting killed in their wake.

“Early feminist Mattie Brinkerhoff, writing in Victorian women’s rights magazine The Revolution, said the following:

When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is something wrong in society. So when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged.” (Champagne and Benzedrine)

Instead of fighting for the right to kill, let’s fight for the right to educate and protect.