My Thoughts
It is May, and I’m still wearing the pins from the protest on my bags. After so much reflection, on the current administration, I can’t help but think that the freedom for women to choose has all but been taken away. Here is an administration, based on an archaic religious text, have decided they are the chosen ones to lead women to salvation, to save them from themselves.
Not only is the text archaic, but so is the mindset. Women, much to the chagrin and consternation of the conservative right, are just as smart, if not smarter than men.
It’s all an offshoot from the Middle Ages, or more aptly referred as the ‘Dark Ages’, where civilization removed itself from the throes of progress. Art, the pursuit of knowledge, and the celebration of the human intellect were supplanted by this religious zealotry.
And strangely, in 2004, we still see this confounding patriarchial puritan society trying to grow stronger.
It’s humourous, really, how Americans claim to be pure, chaste and conservative, while the pornography and drug industries are billion dollar segments of the U.S. economy. Once you pull back the veneer of purity, you have a veritable biblical version of Adam and Eve, ashamed of themselves for having bitten the forbidden fruit.
Go figure.
The protest, while not receiving the mainstream attention it deserved (for the aforementioned reasons), was an uplifting and amazing experience. It united so many people, so many people, all of whom had the same thoughts and feelings about the freedom to choose. A woman marching behind me said something that made me smile: “It’s amazing to see all these people who have the same opinion as me!”
Not just the amount of people, but the kinds of people. Unlike protests of the GOP where you get the traditional ‘hippie’, here were people from all walks of life. Men, women, children, families (with their adorable children!), couples, friends, of all ages, colors, sizes. All unified for one reason – the woman’s right to her own body.
I’d like to address my feelings of the freedom to choose.
As you may have noticed, I refer to this march as the freedom of choice. Not the freedom to have an abortion. My own personal feelings are pretty much this: I don’t like the procedure. The idea of the procedure doesn’t always sit well with me. Most times, I prefer not to even think about it.
However, the freedom to choose that procedure is, in my view, so intertwined with the right of privacy, the freedom to pursue liberty and happiness, and to an extent freedom from religious persecution. I hold those values so dearly, that it completely and totally overrides the uncomfortableness of the actual procedure.
Most importantly, there is no one on this earth who has the moral superiority to tell another woman what she may or may not do with her body. No one. Her decision is her own, not anyone else’s. If she doesn’t feel that the situation isn’t fit for having a child, then she should decide what her next step would be. Whether it be to have an abortion, or have the child given up for adoption, that is a decision for a woman to make.
I couldn’t help but wonder what those people protesting against the protestors thought of me. No doubt, they thought they had some sort moral superiority on me. Personally, I thought otherwise. In terms of patriotism, I felt my presence on the side of choice upheld those freedoms that the founding fathers (and mothers) fought so valiantly for 250 years ago. They fought for the right to choose their own destiny, not pay almage and tithe to a dictator.
Those who demand an invasion of privacy without good cause is most certainly dictatorial. Those who demand that there be no choice demand free, unauthorized entry into everyone’s bedrooms and act as vigilantes – so very similar to the British Army, which monopolized the lives of the future Americans.
The Hypocrites
I cannot stand those who admitted to having an abortion (or more than one), and then demanding, because of their mistakes, that no one else have the freedom to choose. Because this person failed to consider all her options and how she felt about the situation afterward, she has the privilege to demand that no one else may have them.
I understand how past experience may shed light and give guidance for people in the future, but one’s regret is not enough (and never should be enough) to remove the populace’s freedom of choice.
Even more so, I can’t stand those who wave banners of fetuses. What is the purpose of that? That we should save these blobs of organic matter? Or that it’s a barbaric practice?
I don’t feel the need to ‘save’ these blobs of organic matter. Nor do I think the procedure is barbaric, because of a picture of the end result. Maybe it hasn’t crossed their minds, but that’s what it looks like when it’s in a woman’s womb, too. Having an abortion doesn’t change what a fetus looks like. So, again, why are they waving them?
What drives me to the point of insanity though (and I really hate to say it) but are those people with pictures of Jesus. Let me clarify, I can’t stand the people who hold those pictures of Jesus who were quite clearly born from an incestuous relationship. For reasons of biology alone, incestuous relationships (which, from others’ first hand accounts, happens more frequently than I’d care to admit) are the worst crime to humanity. Second, the Bible decries such relationships in many places, many times. If anti-choicers want to best get their message across, I’d suggest they politely ask those people not to attend.
As an aside, I’m not a fan of the Jesus portraits either. Holding up a portrait of Jesus is tantamount to saying “I’m here demonstrating my right of free speech, and right to demonstrate, and to make sure you don’t have the right to freedom of religion.” I’m not a Catholic or Christian, so why on earth would I care what some other’s person’s religion says? My religion says the most important thing is seeking truth after serious contemplation (which I have most certainly done). My religion isn’t broken, so I don’t need a second opinion. (Inflammatory comment: Though I think the Bible is somewhat ‘broken’ – four people purporting to have followed the same person each report situations somewhat differently. The book has had several ‘revisions’, and certain texts contradict other texts. Go figure.)
A more loving choice?
I saw a woman on the side, clutching a child and a sign, which stated “I’m glad I chose adoption.” I’m certainly glad she did, but she’s one of the very few. I guarantee that if more of those anti-choice persons adopted, we’d have seen more signs like that. But we didn’t, why? Simply because anti-choice persons insist on women having the baby (after invading their private space), but will immediately leave after the child is born.
These are the same people who decry welfare. These are the same people who elect persons who strip funding for foster care and adoption services. A family friend of mine is a social worker; do you know how much of a pittance she makes? It is so curious that anti-choicers would insist that the woman have the child, but then subject that child the cruelty of a world that they create.
Below is an article, while not written to politicize the importance of the freedom to choose, underscores a problem that is much more severe than any of the current problems that flood the news airwaves.
The Deaths of Foster Children
The latest shocking numbers from the states’ hard-pressed child welfare programs confirm the ongoing national tragedy in which 1,400 children died from abuse and neglect in 2002. This intolerable toll looms darkly in a federal study that counted 896,000 abused and neglected foster children in the same year. Even the state officials now threatened with penalties candidly admit to widespread shortcomings in tracking and protecting society’s most vulnerable members.
The recent horror stories of child welfare abuses in New Jersey and Florida do not seem that aberrational in the sorry national context. Federal investigators concluded that while protections varied widely, not one state was in full compliance with the basic standard of providing permanency and stability to the children routinely bounced about in the catch-basin netherworld of foster care. Documented abuse ? the annual rate continues at more than 12 cases per 1,000 foster children ? includes starvation and inflicting sexual, physical and emotional pain, and even outright torture.
Federal health officials are right to prod and threaten the states to get improvement. But fiscally strapped statehouses need more resources to solve the caseworker shortage and guarantee humane management. The Bush administration’s proposal to give the states greater leeway over programs hardly seems advisable right now. Firmly enforced national standards and federal aid to help support them are the best hope for the millions of children currently at risk.
Let me ask you: close to 1 million foster children abused and neglected; and this is the loving choice?
Anti-choice people will in the same breath decry the freedom to choose and laud Bush for his tax cuts to ‘spur the economy’, and support his war. Let me ask you – had one billion dollars been diverted from these tax cuts and this war, social services would be much better off. Yet, anti-choicers do not clamor for more social services.
Now, I know that this is an indictment of a large group of people, and some may feel that they do not deserve this tag. However, these people have voted for politicians who do exactly what I have typed – divert money from social services (“the loving choice”) to federal improprieties, or local gifts to constituents.
A Summation
I fully support for a woman’s right to choose. I do not believe there should be any limits on a woman’s right to choose.
If we live in a society where people are able to purchase firearms (and in some instances, without background checks), then we as a society have no write to indict women for their personal choices. If we as a society allow constant bombardment and accessibility to such medications as Levitra and Viagra, then there is no rational reason to limit women’s access to contraception or the freedom of choice. If we are to call this country ‘the land of the free, and the home of the brave’, then our women should be just that – free to choose their own destiny, and brave enough to follow through. And we should be brave enough to believe and know they’ve made the right choice.
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