good news

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by OldDog

Opinions of people, both male and female, are how laws are born. Government is far from perfect. (Naw, say it ain't so!) Some laws bolster rights, while many take rights away. I'm not quite certain that a woman's "bodily rights" supercede the rights of a little person growing inside her. When does life begin? That's a very complex issue. When life or death is in question, I'd rather err on the side of caution.

However, I do not feel that opinions must absolutely be more or less relevant based on the presence of or lack of certain body parts.

A fetus isn't a person. I don't have a strong issue with restrictions coming in during the third trimester as abortions in that period of time are so rare, and usually due to a serious medical issue, as I don't think it imposes an undue burden on women (as opposed to men terrorizing and assassinating doctors who are capable of performing these rare, late-pregnancy abortions, thereby limiting women's access to a safe, legal one). But prior to that, it's not about a baby; it's about women's bodily autonomy.

Men seem to think that pregnancy and childbirth are a walk in the park. As many of them have seen women go through it, I'm not sure why so many legislators cling on to this idea. Pregnancy is very stressful on the body and childbirth sucks. I went into my own pregnancy very healthy (I was still running at the beginning of my third trimester) and by the end I had gestational diabetes and preeclampsia. Had my labor not been induced early I could have died. An acquaintance of mine did die two years ago, delivering twins via C-section. Another friend had a stroke four days after giving birth. We all wanted the pregnancies, but in the wake of pregnancy was left rehab for my friend, and a grieving widower in the case of my acquaintance. I was lucky in that I recovered quickly, but I'm now at a higher risk for Type 2 Diabetes and heart disease in the future. Yay, pregnancy!

People should be honest and call the anti-abortion movement what it is: forced birth. It's a willful choice to force women into a life-threatening circumstance. And yeah, I think the opinion of a gender that will never have to face any of those life-threatening circumstances is less relevant. Unfortunately, it's the gender that has all the law-making power in the nation, so it calls the shots.