Privacy and Reproductive Rights
Just about everything I know about abortion finds its way back to "The Cider House Rules". I've read the book and have watched the movie. The story is one with more than a little bit of irony.
In the good old days, orphanages were a common way of caring for children without parents. One of the opening scenes of the movie showed kids swarming around a couple looking to adopt a child.
About the same time the movie was made a co-worker adopted a brother and sister. She and her husband wanted a family and I can only guess that they felt really good that they could keep a brother and sister together while they established their own family. She had seen the movie and mentioned that they had seen lots of kids that wanted and needed families. The last report on the kids is that they were doing well in school and while money is tight, health reports are good, and everyone is moving forward. The almost babies when they joined the family are now in high school.
Education, access to birth control pills, the use of condoms, and the absolute right to say no will limit but not completely stop unwanted pregnancies. Feminists have often said that if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. They have a point. I think and believe that there should be fundamental rights related to reproduction. Birth control methods need to be taught, and birth control pills, condoms, and if necessary access to abortion clinics should be simple and women should not be required to run the gauntlet to go to clinics or be subject to invasive medical procedures that only seek to delay and complicate an already difficult decision. Doctors that provide these medical services should not be criminalized unnecessarily.
Time limits on abortion are necessary to protect all parties against late term abortions where the health of the mother is not an issue.
This is not an easy thing to think about, let alone write about. It is a matter of privacy that needs to be protected and current legislation in Texas and other states does nothing to protect women and very little to help the unborn.
Men really need to step back from this issue and listen to women before they legislate on an issue that is better handled between a women and her doctor.
I can imagine a future where unwanted pregnancies are much more rare than they are today and all babies are loved and cared for in the best way possible. The states are misguided in their attempts to tell women how to live their lives and enforcing the rules in such ways as to demean them legally in a way that no man would accept.
In the good old days, orphanages were a common way of caring for children without parents. One of the opening scenes of the movie showed kids swarming around a couple looking to adopt a child.
About the same time the movie was made a co-worker adopted a brother and sister. She and her husband wanted a family and I can only guess that they felt really good that they could keep a brother and sister together while they established their own family. She had seen the movie and mentioned that they had seen lots of kids that wanted and needed families. The last report on the kids is that they were doing well in school and while money is tight, health reports are good, and everyone is moving forward. The almost babies when they joined the family are now in high school.
Education, access to birth control pills, the use of condoms, and the absolute right to say no will limit but not completely stop unwanted pregnancies. Feminists have often said that if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. They have a point. I think and believe that there should be fundamental rights related to reproduction. Birth control methods need to be taught, and birth control pills, condoms, and if necessary access to abortion clinics should be simple and women should not be required to run the gauntlet to go to clinics or be subject to invasive medical procedures that only seek to delay and complicate an already difficult decision. Doctors that provide these medical services should not be criminalized unnecessarily.
Time limits on abortion are necessary to protect all parties against late term abortions where the health of the mother is not an issue.
This is not an easy thing to think about, let alone write about. It is a matter of privacy that needs to be protected and current legislation in Texas and other states does nothing to protect women and very little to help the unborn.
Men really need to step back from this issue and listen to women before they legislate on an issue that is better handled between a women and her doctor.
I can imagine a future where unwanted pregnancies are much more rare than they are today and all babies are loved and cared for in the best way possible. The states are misguided in their attempts to tell women how to live their lives and enforcing the rules in such ways as to demean them legally in a way that no man would accept.
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