What do you think when I say reproductive freedoms? Most people probably think abortion right off the bat, and although it is a reproductive freedom there are many other things under this heading that I believe are human rights.
Okay, first off, abortion. Yes, I am Catholic (and may be excommunicated for stating this opinion) but abortion is legal and a right and deserves to stay that way for several important reasons. One, a woman’s bodily independence cannot be overruled by anything whether she is pregnant or not. A woman’s lifestyle, happiness and/or health can be put in jeopardy from an unwanted pregnancy and she should have the right to end it. If we remove our womanly rights on this issue, it will have the effect of driving abortion underground as it was in the past. Instead of clean, safe operating rooms and ethical doctors we would be putting women desperate to end a pregnancy in the arms of the black market and in many cases losing not one life but two. Two, if we remove our legal rights to abortion where will it stop? If a woman is at the mercy of the life inside her and doctors decide what is in the best interests of that baby, we’re looking at forced c-sections, forced inductions, forced breastfeeding or whatever and where will it stop? In cases where a mother will die or her baby will die, who will “they” choose? This slippery slope is very very real. I would never have an abortion but I recognize the importance of this landmark right in women’s lives.
To all the campaign to make abortion illegal parties out there: you are going about this in the wrong way. Instead of making abortions harder to come by, by making life hard for abortion agencies, you should be offering a valid choice to these women. Saying their choices is wrong is not useful if you do not bring alternatives to the table. Set up a clinic next door to the abortionists. Offer services in adoption, and parenting help to keep the baby. Be very realistic. Offer support, in the form of money, jobs, places to live, childcare, child supplies, parenting classes, prenatal support and most importantly in the US and other places without universal healthcare offer them a financially viable option for giving birth and getting prenatal care. Be grounded in the world. Telling a woman she is doing wrong is no good if you don’t give her the skills to make another choice. This method will save many lives but you must realize too, (even if you don’t like it) you cannot save all. And even if you view it as a sin, they are entitled to that right.
Our second important reproductive right is to decide just how many children we wish to bring into the world. This is another controversial right. Several religious groups have become famous for putting the decision into God’s Hands. Although this is a much debated stance, it is valid in the sense that these religious groups for the most part do not actively seek to become pregnant but simply do what feels natural sex-wise in their marriage and should a baby arise, great. The poster children for this movement generally have 13, 14,or 15 children. This is not a fair illustration because it fails to notice the members with one, two or even no children, they follow the tenants of this particular group and just were never blessed. This phenomenon is also notable in secular society, recently evidenced by the octuplet mother in Southern California, who already had 6 older children. This is so repugnant to our society that Dr. Phil brought this woman on his show to humiliate her and prove she is stupid and has no right raising any number of children. Obviously, I find this disgusting. Why do we feel it is any of our business how many children someone chooses to have? Since when do we have a right to regulate human reproduction? We’ve seen cases of governmental regulations regarding number of children, and the end result. Babies are killed, aborted or given away simply because they are not the child that the parents wanted or needed. Is this a civilized reaction to overpopulation? And is overpopulation the problem it is made out to be?
We are aware of the overpopulation problem in North America but it seems we have the opposite problem. Lack of people in all age groups except baby boomers is leading to a deficit of workers. We lack the young people to keep our industries from farming to forestry to computing to finance going. The overpopulation problem is more of an issue in areas without access to sexual education and contraceptives. And in aware developed nations I’ve noticed a marked increase in bigger families to be more aware of their carbon footprint. I’ve seen families of ten to thirteen members take up less resources than other families of two or three.
In the end we have no right to say whether a person can reproduce or not. We cannot sterilized mentally unstable people, drug addicts or anyone else. And the fervour around the octuplet mother has me very angry. Here’s one mother, single yes and unemployed with 14 children, and we think we have the right to decide when she should stop having kids. Why her? Is it just that she is so very public, because to be fair there are millions of mothers just like her. Mothers on welfare with 6 or more children. If these children lack food, lack clothes, lack a home, lack love; then it is our government’s business to remove them and get them what they need. But as in the case of other mothers, simply poor mothers who love their kids and love kids, is it fair of us to say, you must be rich, working and wealthy to have children? Who are we to see these kids at a distance on a 15 minute segment of a news cast and say they are not loved, they are not cared for and they are not provided for?
Again, if we try to regulate by any fashion how many kids certain members of society are allowed to have, we will mount that slope where it is hard to say where to stop. At welfare mothers? At single income families? At low income families? At families without savings? Who will be safe, if we begin to judge and try to limit reproductive freedoms??
