Loveday Writing

Write your thoughts on a controversial topic for ten minutes. Discuss it with someone else for twenty minutes. Write your thoughts about the issue again for another ten minutes, without re-reading your first piece.**

1. When I was growing up I was always pro-life. I know this was mainly due to religious influence. While I can’t distinctly recall the “sin” of abortion being part of a Sunday sermon or a Sunday School lesson when I attended church as a child, and when I would share my opinions with my friends I never quoted the Bible or any of its verses on the issue, I don’t know where else my pro-life view came from.

I’m not quite sure what incident or point in my life that my stance changed from pro-life to pro-choice, however I now know that I am pro-choice. I believe women should and need the choice of whether they have a baby. Whether a woman has an abortion because she has been raped, or molested, or she is unable to care for a baby, or whether she simply doesn’t want to be a mother is irrelevant, the choice should be made available to them. If men can easily have vasectomies, women should have easy and more importantly, safe access to abortions.

One thing about the issue that really makes my blood boil is the behaviour of some of the pro-life protestors at abortion clinics/family planning centres/medical centres that provide abortion services. Most of them protest because they believe it’s a sin, but what planet do they live on that they believe harassing and intimidating a woman they don’t know on the hardest choice of their lives, makes them a good person or a good Christian? Newsflash! It doesn’t and by the way, harassment and intimidation are illegal in this country. If you’re pro-life, reach out and offer genuine help, not harassment, intimidation and threats under the guise of help.

That being said, as pro-choice as I am, I don’t think I would ever be able to have an abortion myself. Not due to religious reasons, but more so medical reasons. I don’t know what life will throw at me, I may be diagnosed with cancer or some sort of other disease or ailment that may prevent me from having kids in the future, so that hypothetical pregnancy may be the only chance for me to have a child.

 

Per the instructions of this writing topic, I discussed this issue with someone else for twenty minutes and then wrote about the issue again for another ten minutes. You can find my second response after the discussion below:

 

2. When it comes to abortion, I’m pro-choice, however there’s now a part of me that sits a little bit on the fence. For example, despite being pro-choice, I couldn’t have an abortion myself, because you don’t know what like can throw at you. I may be diagnosed with cancer and that hypothetical pregnancy may be my only chance to have a child. Also while I believe a woman should have a choice because having a baby doesn’t into her life plans, I’m not sure if abortion should be used as a contraceptive in that regard, that being said I don’t think women do that anyway. Not to mention, having that child and feeling that way could lead to resentment and that child being unloved, which really isn’t any better.

In regards to women having access to abortion for medical reasons, i.e. pregnancy being a threat to a woman’s life, they should have it without barriers. There are too many cases of women dying because doctors and/or nurses didn’t have the professionalism to put their personal beliefs aside to make their patient’s health a priority. I also feel that women who want an abortion because the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, should also have access to an abortion without barriers.

I also believe women shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for having an abortion under any circumstances and that no-one has the right to tell a woman what to do with her body, she should be left alone to make the right choice for her.

 

 

**Reference: Marsden J 1998, Everything I Know About Writing, Pan Macmillan, Australia.