Tumbleweed and Alligator
Thoughts and Ramblings of a West Texas Native and a Cajun Poser
Selling Abortion as a Health Care Choice...Sorry, I'm not buying
Selling Abortion as a Health Care Choice...Sorry, I'm not buying
October 16, 2020
When I was a young woman, I lived through the women's lib movement, and thought it not only acceptable, but necessary to demand for women, those rights that had previously been denied or scoffed at. Those rights included the right to work outside the home, the right to determine our own course, the right for independence, the right for equal consideration for jobs, bank loans, contracts, and the right for sexual freedom and identity, along with the right to our own health care choices.
As we advocated for those rights, we also pushed for a cultural change, institutional change, and systemic change that could promote and facilitate our demands. As the barriers became fewer, the hurdles lower, and the opportunities more plentiful, the movement became less "militant". Marches and protests subsided. But, growing out of the movement was a group of somewhat radical women who hijacked the narrative, pushing out conservatives and often condemning and mocking the religious, and traditional value-centric women, who eventually found a more comfortable home in conservative circles and parties.
Proclaiming to be the "voice" -- OUR voice for women’s rights, this sub-movement of women grabbed one of the only remnants remaining in the original "feminist" movement - the issue of abortion. Caught up in the “sexual revolution”, many founding and “charter” members of the feminist movement sought abortions as an instant means of birth control. I even knew women of my age (20 somethings) admitting that their sexual indiscretion or unwanted pregnancy could always be erased by the $300 it took to buy an abortion. In their view, the “inconvenience” of an unwanted pregnancy disrupted their social lives, college, and/or careers.
Make no mistake; the offshoot of this movement was not labeled "pro-choice" in its infancy. It was distinctly and blatantly, for all who had eyes and ears, a "pro-abortion" declaration and demand. It is because of the extreme position and the diminishing (and desperate) voices promoting abortion-on-demand, that it became a means of survival to disguise and re-brand abortion as “women’s health care choice”, more palatable for the masses, and more marketable to donors and politicians.
Millions of women abandoned the movement to stand on the side of the unborn. More and more millennial, having never had to fight for women’s rights, are able to discern, identify, and separate abortion as a single issue, without the cluttered packaging that an all-encompassing “movement” presented to their mothers and grandmothers. There is now evidence that abortion is for the first time in decades, being rejected by a new generation.
The history of why men latched on to this issue so blindly goes beyond any sincere concern for women’s choices, and more to the heart of political correctness. Men (bless their hearts) found themselves in a confusing, often contradictory social and professional environment during the height of the women’s rights movement. The incongruity that ridiculed and admonished them for holding doors open, paying for dates, giving complements, and even expressing traditional masculine views contributed to their confusion. Men were fed a narrative based on the false premise of it being something women (girlfriends, co-workers, wives, and daughters) claimed as a “health” choice - and don’t you dare deny us our choice in the name of "women's health rights".
Many men have stood by their women friends, despite the fact that they have no direct experience with the miraculous and life-changing event of carrying and nurturing another human being within their own bodies. In fact, many men are actually indifferent, but wear the mantle of "pro-choice" as it seems to be politically correct to do so, and political suicide not to.
The adoption of the term “pro-choice” was a brilliant marketing strategy. Coupled with the interchanging term “women’s health rights”, and the mantra, “it’s my body, my choice”, the jargon gives cover for millions of people who might otherwise have to confront a stark reality of the facts we know about the life of an innocent, unborn child - that science has determined life begins at conception, that babies in the womb feel pain, that medical advances give more than an even chance for their survival, that while a baby is unwanted by the mother, they are NOT unwanted by those seeking to adopt.
So, I point this out to say this. Do not mistake "health care choice" with the destruction and extermination of a real live human being with a beating heart, a perfect soul and a unique personality. Don't make the argument that “pro-life” advocates cannot logically be in favor of the death penalty while opposed to abortion. There is no equating the two. One involves the results of the bad and destructive life choice of a guilty, sometimes unrepentant and evil criminal who is a stain on society, while the other represents the extermination and murder of an innocent life that has been denied a chance to fulfill a productive and contributing existence within a society.
The only choice to consider is that which God commands, who by divine design chose to place that life among the living for His purpose and His reason. At the moment of conception, and definitely at the moment of viability, that child has the right to live in pursuit of that purpose and that reason - whether it be in lofty pursuit of greatness through art, science, music, medicine, philosophy or politics; or in the humble station as a caring mother, father, friend or neighbor.
In conclusion, we simply have no authority to deny or withhold God’s perfect gift of life to any of His unborn, or deny that life to a less than perfect mankind.
Aborting a baby is not a “health care choice”. It’s simply a bad choice.