Today I went grocery shopping. On my way home, I saw a man standing on a corner waving a sign at cars that said "Abortion kills [noun]." I was driving, so I didn't catch the bottom. You can fill it in as you desire. I like "Christians," personally, but I'm an optimist.
As most of my acquaintances know, I am unflinchingly pro-choice, in all situations, the end. Seeing this guy made me wish a little bit that I still had those giant "Vote Pro-Choice" signs so I could stand on the corner opposite him and balance things out a little bit. It also raised my heart rate a tad, but I just went home.
It did, however, trigger a memory that I now realize is my earliest memory of having an opinion about this issue. I didn't know the term "pro-choice," and I probably barely understood what abortion was, but looking back, even if I couldn't name it, that was it.
I was on the school bus home. I was sitting with a girl named Jessica somebody who lived a few houses down from my grandparents. We were friends for part of elementary school. I remember it was close to election time, and it was definitely a Clinton election. So I'm guessing it was his second term in 1996. Somehow, as unlikely as it sounds that ten-year-olds would be discussing politics, it came up.
Jessica said (obviously regurgitated from her parents) that Clinton was bad because he was for abortion. She explained that abortion is where a woman is pregnant and someone gives her a shot or a pill (inaccurate, but prophetic) or something and it kills the baby. My approximate response was, "Only if that's what you want. It's not like he wants to do that to everybody."
Even at ten, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that someone might get pregnant by mistake, and might choose not to actually have the child. Not just reasonable, intuitive. I don't know where I got that attitude; it isn't as if my parents were terribly forthcoming about sexuality or pregnancy or politics. But it was there, and it hasn't wavered.
So, vote pro-choice.
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3 comments:
Q: "How would you feel if someone had aborted you!?"
A: At least I wouldn't have to be listening to you right now.
I remember not as clearly but much earlier my first experiences with the idea of abortion. from thousands of crosses in the grass in front of my grade school( to illustrate to the community, which still has a crazy high percentage of roman caths in the area, how many pregnancies are terminated each day, to the small silver buttons of molded infant feet at a few weeks old. It was never a question till highschool that abortions were not only bad, but the worse thing you could possibly do. cold blooded murder seemed pale in comparison.
in looking at this point of view, it always seemed the only people who wished to have this done were slutty teenagers, who hated jesus and their families. that and they deserved to be belitted and abused at clinics, deserving to get what was comming to them in the next life. i dont think it too far fetched to think hell treated the same way as the aborted fetus. Vigilante Pro life zealots are just as bad as any other sort of extremeism.
While i still think that abortion is not always the best option, it is good to have that option if necessary, and at least to have it safe for all involved. Like others have said in the past, it is very possible to be pro life and pro family and still believe in the right to have a say in the matters of your body. the biggest question, isnt just about carrying a child, or choosing to terminate, its about responsibility. If you cant have responsible sex, you should at least be able to make a responsible health choice.
Actually, Stephanie, reading your comment made me realize that what was perhaps the impetus for this sort of belief in my childhood was not any actively pro-choice force, but simply the absence of any anti-abortion propaganda or ties to morality or sin. I think without a god handing down absolutes, it's easier to think about they grayness of morally and ethically gray areas.
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