I often wonder why a woman would chose to give up her right
to control her own reproductive life. Medical
and social science has advanced our understanding of the reproductive process
to the point where we are mentally capably of controlling our lives. Judging
from the most primitive societies, in prehistoric times women became pregnant
when they were physiological able. It was not a choice but a biological fact. As
long as they were nursing their babies, they were usually not capable of
becoming pregnant. In primitive times, though variable, the nursing phase of
child rearing lasted perhaps four years. The number of childbearing years was also
variable but limited to perhaps 20 years, give or take five or ten years, which
is reduced to 5 to 7 pregnancies. If twins were born, especially in nomadic
societies, the mother who could carry only one child on her hip for four years was
force to decide which of the two she would preserve.
As society matured the lactation period were shorten and the
number of pregnancies increased. In modern society, more and more women learn
to control their reproductive life; some chose one or two children while others
opt out of having children altogether. The very fact that women are going though
many more menstrual cycles than their ancestors, natural selection had no opportunity
to select against the effects of a monthly flood of hormones associated the process,
in contrast one cycle every four years. As a result, the incidence of breast and
uterine cancer increased tremendously.
For modern women, reproductive choice seems to be a matter
of both procreation and self-preservation. Both are very personal and private. The
conflicting element is the propensity for all of us but it seems more pronounced
in women to be nurturing toward children but toward their own babies especially
after giving birth. The religious leaders, for their own reasons, chose to
promote the sanctity of life over quality of life or self-preservation. The primitive
mother who was forced to decide to keep one twin because that was the only
practical solution would not be forced to find a different solution; in modern society outside influence would cause
her to be overcome with guilt to the point that she would be forced to sacrifice
her own well-being and would lauded for it.
The modern interpretation should be that life is to be considered
in the light of the situation we find ourselves in; the product of rape, the
knowledge of a defective infant, or the possibility other children would
starve, or to save the life of the mother has to be considered. Women can and
must weigh all of these things mainly because she can. A woman who chooses to sacrifice
her quality of life because someone appeals to her sense of empathy by the
choice of words such as baby for conceptus, abortion or even a birth control
pill is murder, or life is sacred no matter where you find it, etc is making a
big mistake.
In addition to the quality of life issue, for women to
support politicians who sacrifice the health of women when they are increasingly
susceptible to cancer is inexcusable. The fact that those politicians they
support are sacrificing the lives of infants, who are born by denying prenatal
care. These radical politicians are closing women’s health clinics in the name
of stopping murder of babies is crazy; absolutely no one is terminating a pregnancy
because they hate a conceptus so much that they would “murder it”.
CBA news reports, “. . . the United States has 50 percent
more first day deaths than all other industrialized countries combined”. It is information like this that convinces
me that we need more women’s health care clinics, not fewer. By supporting
a radical anti abortion politicians, these women who so sincerely want to do
the right thing, are doing more harm than good.
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