Blog for Choice Day 2007

[annathepiper]

And because I am not yet done posting tonight, here is my contribution to Blog for Choice Day 2007.

It will probably surprise exactly none of you that I'm pro-choice. I haven't expounded at length on why before on this journal, since it's such an explosive topic. Any discussion involving it, in my experience, all too quickly degenerates into "my morals are better than your morals", and that kind of a discussion can only end in tears. Or flamewars. Or both.

But here's the thing. Being pro-choice does not mean I'm pro-abortion. It doesn't mean I'm in favor of killing babies. In fact, if it were me and my potential pregnancy on the line, I don't think I could go through with it. You could put a spiritual face on it, a religious one, but since I'm agnostic I don't really have a religious slant to this per se. It's more that if there ever came to be a child growing in my womb, there would be a quite narrow window of time in which I could even begin to think about whether I'd do it--and that window is "before there starts to be enough of a brain to make that lifeform in there a person". Even then, I'm almost dead certain I couldn't do it anyway, because even if those cells in there hadn't yet built themselves a brain, there would still be the potential of a life. And I don't think I could bring myself to mess with that.

And not even this is an absolute feeling for me. If something were to go horribly wrong with this hypothetical pregnancy, I might find myself feeling differently. If I were ever assaulted and impregnated as a result, I'd have to think very, very hard about it.

Since it's not even an absolute for me, I can't begin to try to expect others to make it an absolute either. I couldn't bring myself to tell a young girl who'd been raped by her own father or some other trusted male authority that not only would she have to bear the scars of the assault, she'd have to go through bearing the child too--and then raising it. I couldn't look an overworked, exhausted mother of four in the eye and tell her that she will have to go through bearing another child and risk her ability to feed the ones she already has. I couldn't tell a woman who has to choose between her life and her baby's that she has to let herself die. I couldn't tell a woman whose baby is at risk of being born with crippling birth defects whether it would be better to abort rather than put the child through a lifetime of physical misery.

At most, I could tell any of these women and girls that I wouldn't do it if I were them. That, were I walking in their shoes, I'd do everything in my power to surrender the child to a reputable adoption agency if I felt I couldn't raise it myself.

But in the end I wouldn't be able to walk in those shoes. They would have to take the final steps. They'd have to make the choice.

And I wouldn't ever want to be the one that takes that choice away.

Comments

It seem that I'll be first...

[gellemar.livejournal.com]

to wish you Happy Birthday! All the best wishes. New challenges and inspirations. And, definitely - nothing bad. :-)

Re: It seem that I'll be first...

[annathepiper]

Thank you very much! :)

[starfallz.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday. :)

[annathepiper]

Thank you very much! :)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Hippo Birdies! May your days be filled with the B'ys, and your nights with snuggles. Or maybe the other way 'round. or... :)

[annathepiper]

Why thank you! I'll take a little from column A, a little from column B... ;)

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty much my attitude. I don't like abortion, but don't want to see the choice taken away. Better to use persuasion and provide incentives to convince people to change their minds than to ban something, a tactic which never works.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

just fyi -- it seems that the time it takes for the proto-brain to come up with something that will eventually be a human is 24-27 weeks gestational age. let us further note that this is way, way longer than the rights protected by roe v. wade.

this scientific fact brought to you by your friendly neighborhood neuroscientist, who not long ago spent a fascinating while looking at mri's of embryo brains.