Little Rock Family Planning Services
501-225-3836 or Toll-Free 800-272-2183
Nine
reasons why a just society trusts women to choose
At the most basic level, the abortion issue is not really
about abortion. It is about the value of women in society. Should women make
their own decisions about family, career and how to live their lives? Or should
government do that for them? Do women have the option of deciding when or
whether to have children? Is that a proper government function?
1. EVERY CHILD A WANTED CHILD
If women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, the
result is unwanted children. Everyone knows they are among society's most tragic
cases, often uncared-for, unloved, brutalized, and abandoned. When they grow up,
these children are often seriously disadvantaged, and sometimes inclined toward
brutal behavior to others. This is not good for children, for families, or for
the country. Children need love and families who want and will care for them.
2. LAWS AGAINST ABORTION KILL WOMEN.
To prohibit abortions does not stop them. When women feel it
is absolutely necessary, they will choose to have abortions, even in secret,
without medical care, in dangerous circumstances. In the two decades before
abortion was legal in the U.S., it's been estimated that nearly a million women
per year sought out illegal abortions. Thousands died. Tens of thousands were
mutilated. All were forced to behave as if they were criminals.
3. LEGAL ABORTIONS PROTECT WOMEN'S HEALTH.
Legal abortion not only protects women's lives, it also
protects their health. For tens of thousands of women with heart disease, kidney
disease, severe hypertension, sickle-cell anemia, severe diabetes and other
illnesses that can be life threatening, the availability of legal abortion has
helped avert serious medical complications that could have resulted from
childbirth. Before legal abortion, such women�s choices were limited to
dangerous illegal abortion or dangerous childbirth.
4. A WOMAN IS MORE THAN A FETUS.
There's an argument these days that a fetus is a
"person" that is 'indistinguishable from the rest of us" and that
it deserves rights equal to women's. On this question there is a tremendous
spectrum of religious philosophical, scientific and medical option. It's been argued
for centuries. Fortunately, our society has recognized that each woman must be
able to make this decision based on her own conscience. To impose a law defining
a fetus as a "person", granting it rights equal to or superior to a
woman�s -- a thinking, feeling, and conscious human being -- is arrogant and
absurd. It only serves to diminish women.
5.BEING A MOTHER IS JUST ONE OPTION FOR WOMEN.
Many hard battles have been fought to win political and
economic equality' for women. These gains will not be worth much if reproductive
choice is denied. To be able to choose a safe, legal abortion makes many other
options possible. Otherwise an accident or a rape can end a woman's economic and
personal freedom.
6. OUTLAWING ABORTION IS DISCRIMINATORY.
Anti-abortion laws discriminate against low-income women, who
are driven to dangerous self-induced or back-alley abortions. That is all they
can afford. But the rich can travel wherever necessary to obtain a safe
abortion.
7. COMPULSORY PREGNANCY LAWS ARE INCOMPATIBLE WITH A FREE
SOCIETY.
If there is any matter that is personal and private, then
pregnancy is it. There can be no more extreme invasion of privacy than requiring
a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. If government is permitted to
compel a woman to bear a child, where will government stop? The concept is
morally repugnant. It violates traditional American ideas of individual rights
and freedoms.
8. OUTLAW ABORTION. AND MORE CHILDREN WILL BEAR CHILDREN
Forty percent of 14-year-old girls will become pregnant before
they turn 20. This could happen to your daughter or someone else close to you.
Here are the critical questions: Should the penalty for lack of knowledge or
even for a moment's carelessness be enforced pregnancy and child rearing? Or
dangerous illegal abortion? Should we consign a teenager to a life sentence of
joblessness, hopelessness and dependency?
9. CHOICE IS GOOD FOR FAMILIES.
Even when precautions are taken, accidents can and do happen.
There is no perfect birth control method. For some families, this is not a
problem. But for others, such an event can be catastrophic. An unintended
pregnancy can increase tensions, disrupt stability, and push people below the
line of economic survival. Family planning is the answer. All options must be
open.
For an excellent discussion of the issues of so called "Partial Birth Abortion" and parenteral consent laws please see this information by Richard North Patterson the author of the book Protect and Defend