My thoughts on ABORTION

That's right...I said it. Abortion. That thing you are not supposed to talk about. Because it makes people mad. It makes people defensive. So, I'm going to talk about it.

My basic thoughts on abortion are this: I don't agree with it for me, personally. I think that it should be reserved for A) Rape or incest cases, where the mother feels emotionally unable to carry to term; B) Major medical issues for mother or baby, meaning that mother or baby would be killed/maimed/harmed from the birth. I can say now that "I would never have an abortion", but I have also never been in a situation where I would have to consider one. If I were to find out that (God forbid) my next child were to be born with a massive physical deformity that would render their life painful, I don't know what I would do.

Now, the bigger reason that I want to discuss this.

The point of allowing abortion in the first place, was to give women the ultimate control over their body and reproduction. This allowed women to chose, safely, to not have a child that they did not want or could not take care of. Some people may not understand that stance, but that is the basis of why abortion is legal.

Now, if you take that right away, then you have to ask the question....who is in control of the woman's body? The woman? The baby? The medical world? The government? And where does that control stop? Where is the line drawn? Is birth control outlawed? Technically, you are "aborting" a pregnancy before it has a chance to start, if you think that conception is the start of life. It is common knowledge that the egg and sperm meet before the body is "pregnant" (they meet in the Fallopian tubes). The fertilized egg has to implant into the side of the uterus before the body recognizes that you are pregnant. Birth control stops an egg from being able to implant (by messing with the lining that it would implant in). So by not letting that fertilized egg implant, you are stopping that baby from growing and ultimately being born. So if abortion is outlawed, it is only one more step to outlawing birth control.

With those two steps, a woman has little control over her reproduction. Now lets take it to the next step.

A woman gets pregnant, whether on purpose or not. She receives prenatal care, and comes to the end of the journey and gives birth. How does she give birth? Can she have a home birth? Use a birth center? Use a midwife at all? Can she decide to have a Cesarean Section if that is what she wants? If we do not have control over our reproduction anymore, then who is to say that we have control over how the birth happens? Where is happens? With who?

Did you know that even now, a woman can be forced by court order to have a Cesarean Section against her will? Such as this case. There are also untold cases of women who are coerced into a cesarean by her doctor, as the stories on sites such as The Unnecesarean share from women all over. Women are basically forced by hospitals and the "establishment" to have multiple Cesareans based on guidelines given by ACOG (even though with every Cesarean, the risk of complications rises). Very few hospitals allow VBACs (vaginal birth after cesarean), even though they are a much safer option for most mothers based on research. These women are forced to either go it alone or bend to the will of the doctors and hospitals if they have no other options in the area (such as a midwife who takes on VBACs).

Many states still "outlaw" homebirth, or make it very hard for midwives to practice. This means that the choice in birth is taken away for many women. If you do not have access to choice, then you have no choice.

Where do we draw the line? Where do we think that the government will draw the line? I am not willing to let them draw that line on me, my body, my baby, or my family. If agreeing to keep abortion legal and safe means that my other reproductive and bodily rights are respected, then so be it.