Whose Choice? Part I: The Concept of Choice

Pro-life, pro-child, pro-family, and pro-choice.

I am pro-life, pro-child, pro-family, and pro-choice. I believe that every child should be a wanted child.

Parenting. From the time I was an adolescent, I was profoundly aware that having a child is THE ultimate responsibility in life. Parents, after all, are responsible for raising and shaping the development of a human being. The ripple effects of this tremendous responsibility extend way beyond what our brains can even begin to imagine. I wish more people would honestly sit down and think about what it means to be a parent before they actually bring a child into the world. Dangerous, irresponsible, and neglectful parents remind me of that line from Parenthood, the gist of which is: You need a license to buy a dog, you need a license to drive a car, you even need a license to catch a fish. But even the most despicable person can become a parent.

Antithetical to this concept of responsible parenting is the insistence that people who know they cannot or will not properly care for a child should nevertheless be forced to bring one into the world. I can’t think of a worse thing to do than put an innocent child’s life in the hands of people who can’t or vehemently don’t want to be parents.

Choices. I believe that everyone should have easy, affordable access to various forms of contraception. Period. When contraception fails or isn’t used (rapists, for example, don’t tend to use condoms), the laws of the United States of America currently provide 3 options to a woman who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant: she can complete her pregnancy and keep the baby, she can complete her pregnancy and give the baby up for adoption, or she can terminate her pregnancy in its early stages with medication or a safe, simple medical procedure (an option that now depends upon where that woman happens to live and whether or not she can afford to travel). There is another tragic option for desperate women without access to safe, affordable, legal abortions: commit suicide and terminate the lives of both mother and fetus. This is what I hope to avoid ever happening again in this country.

Philosophical and Religious Questions. Insistence on forced birth raises a number of questions: Should human beings be able to chart the course of their own parenthood?  Should only wealthy people have access to certain family planning options (because wealthy women will always be able to procure an abortion)? Should people be allowed to interfere with biology in order to conceive a child? To prevent conception of a child? To terminate a pregnancy when contraception fails? To save or prolong a life that would otherwise expire? Human beings step in to alter biology (God’s course) all the time. Are some forms of interference with God’s biological processes acceptable while others are not? Why? And who determines this? Interpreters of the Bible? The Book of Mormon? Jews? Atheists? Should one religious group be allowed to dictate rules for the rest of the country to follow? Which religion should prevail? Why? Should we all be obligated to share the philosophies and follow the dictates of whatever religion is in power at any given time? Isn’t that why our forefathers constitutionalized the right to religious freedom, a freedom which has come to define the essence of America? 

I find it rather ironic that some of the people pushing hardest for the rest of us to adopt their religious tenets are also shrieking the loudest about limited government. Now that’s a real head-scratcher for me: “We want to limit government except in the most intimate aspects of human life, and over those deeply personal aspects we want to utilize the government as an instrument to regulate and control everybody else’s personal choices.” Hmmm. Do you hear any ring of freedom in that?

Women’s bodies. Survivors of rape and sexual assault have an especially strong need to control their own bodies, but all women deserve the right to control their own bodies and determine the course of their own lives, regardless of whether or not a given pregnancy is the product of rape. No one has the right to make that decision for another person by removing their options. No politician, no religious leader, no judicial officer, no fellow citizen should be put in charge of another woman’s body and life. If a child is too young to sign her own permission forms at school, how can she be expected to sign parental permission forms for her child? And if you can’t trust a woman to make a choice, how can you trust her to raise a child?