It makes me sad and angry that there are so many people who believe that a woman’s right to a termination is up for debate/political football.
It’s always privileged men too.
No woman should be forced to continue with a pregnancy that she doesn’t want.
An abortion is a very safe, simple procedure, it’s a personal and private choice, it’s discreet, no one is ramming it down anyone else’s throat or trying to persuade others to do it. The vast majority of the time is done very early on in the pregnancy. Evidence shows that there are no long term negative physical or mental effects on the woman.
As someone who works for children’s services, there are already far too many children in the care system and they can end up deeply traumatised, and having poor outcomes in life, adoptions often don’t work out and even when they do can be extremely traumatic for both the mother and child. That is not to take away from all of the wonderful adoptive parents and foster carers, but please let’s not romanticise it.
Most adoptions are because the birth parents are unable to care for the child, not because the mother willingly gave the baby up. Therefore to force a woman to give birth would potentially be the worse option for the woman, the child and any existing siblings. It isn’t a fairytale ending where a woman willingly gives up her baby to a loving couple to live happily ever after.
There are babies conceived in poverty, domestic abuse, rape, teenage pregnancies, older age pregnancies. These women should not be forced to give birth, it is not the better option for anyone.
If abortion was ever restricted in the western world then I have no doubt that it would result in unsafe illegal abortions, risking the woman’s life.
Women take all the risk with pregnancy and childbirth. They take an enormous toll on a woman body, her mental health, her life outcomes. We are not living in the dark ages, women deserve the choice.
What right does any privileged male who has probably never experienced any of these things and has probably done very little child rearing, who can never conceive or give birth, have to try to restrict a women’s access to abortion?
Are they themselves going to care for the babies born? Or will they expect that someone else will do it?