forty years.

at the moment it is Tuesday night, and I am full of emotions.  so now I’m turning to blogging as a means of alleviating some of the heaviness on my mind.

just a heads-up: I’m going to do that taboo thing again, where I discuss my real opinion on a real issue.  turn back now if you can’t handle it.                                                 
40 years ago (January 22, 1973), the Supreme Court issued its decision in the landmark Roe v. Wade case; as a result, for the past 40 years women have enjoyed the right to decide to legally terminate a pregnancy [you can argue with my use of “enjoyed” here, but I feel that my freedom to control my own body is something to be celebrated].  unfortunately, for the past 40 years that freedom has also been precariously perched on the edge of being lost.  it’s been 40 exhausting years of fighting and attacks and debates and restrictions and politicians who don’t understand anything about the way the female body works.

I do not believe that life starts at conception; I’m too well-educated in the ways of biology and reproduction to ever fully agree with that statement.  granted, I’ve also never been pregnant, so my thoughts on the subject are coming from the position of outsider-looking-in.  I believe that termination of pregnancy can reasonably occur up until that stage when the fetus can viably survive on its own outside the womb.  that’s right – FETUS.  [let’s talk about terminology for a quick second, okay?  from the time it implants in your uterine wall until 8 weeks in, that clump of cells in your uterus is an embryo.  from week 9 until birth, it’s a fetus.  so you can call your growing little miracle a person all you want, but science will contradict you every time].  if you chose to abort at a reasonable time in your pregnancy, in my book you’re not killing a baby.  instead, you’re “killing” a collection of cells – but that happens every day inside your body.  every time you eat something, or have sex, or even breathe, some of the epithelial cells lining the holes in your body are sloughed off.  every 120 days or so, red blood cells are killed.  heck, you’re even killing cells as you’re growing that baby – otherwise it wouldn’t have things like fingers or toes.

okay, enough with the science.  so far, my rambling in this post has made me sound really cranky, which is perhaps true of my current emotional state.  I’m not heartless, I promise.  I understand that babies are blessings, that there are countless women/couples struggling with having children who can only dream of facing an unwanted pregnancy.  but on that same note, there are also plenty of women who should not be forced to bear children simply because someone’s god says so.  think about the insane number of children around the world who are waiting for a good home and parents to love them; why should we be forced to add more to the mix?  money is also another huge concern – pregnancy is costly.  children are expensive.  I’m not anywhere close to being a mom, and I understand this.  I love this point that one of the 1 in 3 campaigners shared earlier today – if a woman doesn’t have enough money to afford an abortion, how can she be expected to have a child?  not to mention the emotional toll – spending 9 months carrying an unwanted baby, going through the pain of labor, dealing with the postpartum craziness, making the decision to either keep the baby or give it up for adoption.  babies should be born because they are wanted, not because they have to be.  that’s no way to enter the world.

my final point: just because abortion is legal does not mean you have to have one.  it’s a choice.  it’s a decision.  and you can choose according to your own beliefs.  let other women have the same courtesy.

this post really took a different direction than I was intending, but I think that if I were to agonize over it more my words would just get angrier and angrier.  readers, I encourage you to think and to believe whatever you want without fear of retribution.  I encourage you to disagree with me.  I encourage open dialogues and expression of opinions about touchy subjects.  just please do so in an educated manner.  especially if you’re going to talk about things like abortion on Facebook*.  I do not condone forcing your beliefs on other people; it's one of the most despicable things a person can do, by my book.  respect others’ opinions and others’ rights.

[*or if you’re going to preach that abortions are “incredibly dangerous” and can cause problems for future pregnancies.  dear idiot on Facebook – things like that only happen when people like YOU make a woman go to drastic, illegal, and unsafe lengths to terminate a pregnancy.  so chew on that while you search your Bible for new quotes to take out of context]