When did murder become a women's rights issue? (On the subject of abortion)

It's taken many years for me to reach this point. My view, however, is not informed by religious sentiment or politics; but my personal experience of a miscarriage I had in 2003.

I will be upfront, though, that I believe in God; but my relationship to Him is at best ambivalent, because it's easy to accept the idea of a super being. However, I belong to no religion, and suspect that less than 1% of all believers actually embrace what they believe - because saying you believe in something and living like you believe in something are two different things.

But when I talk about being against abortion, I'm often called a bible thumper, a right winger, etc. So I wonder if religion and politics are the main reasons people are comfortable being pro-choice, if that's why they refuse to see the topic as anything other than a women's rights issue.

It's relevant, then, to know that before my miscarriage I was pro-choice. I made those arguments: It's our right as women to decide what we do with our bodies. And what about cases of rape or medical issues - why should we suffer more by being forced to keep our babies if we don't want to? And why should adoption be the only option for us if we do get pregnant?

Okay, so that's easy when you've never been pregnant or known someone who had an abortion, when feminism has been telling us that we control our bodies, etc. Yet we make it illegal for people to take illicit drugs like cocaine. When someone threatens to kill him- or herself, we're supposed to call 911. Good Samaritans, too, are rewarded for saving people's lives. Etc.!

In other words, we don't give ourselves complete autonomy over our bodies. Or rather, our laws don't, social norms don't, parents don't, etc. Yet we fail to recognize that a developing fetus at every stage of its development is a human being. Sure, it doesn't start out looking remotely human; but you don't get to those moments when you first get pregnant, as the visible print of a person happens over time.

Unfortunately, miscarriages also happen; I knew it as an unmistakable loss I felt from inside me. There was, too, that feeling of certainty that what I had inside me was a life; it's nothing I can explain in words. But the circumstances of my miscarriage were unique; my ex beat me, and, I think, that, in addition to my state of malnutrition (I was practically starving as a first-year grad student away from home - enough so that I ended up in the hospital a few months later), is what led to my miscarriage.

But be clear: A miscarriage is not an abortion. Specifically, one cannot anticipate a miscarriage and, more, it can result from any number of things (hence, nonspecific). An abortion, however, is the murder of a human life, one who cannot protest and is at the complete mercy of his or her mother.

Yet there are only three main ways we can get pregnant: consensual sex; rape; insemination. However, they can all result in the maturation of a fetus which, yes, starts out as cells - but without those cells, you do not get hands, toes, a head, etc. - and then turns into a baby, hopefully one that survives to cry. So go ahead and pretend that before you begin to see the suggestion of a person, nothing of significance is happening; yet we're comprised of particles smaller than atoms.

An unborn baby, however, is the most defenseless of people, especially in its earliest stages. Women who choose to murder their babies generally must do so within their first trimesters - Why? Because it's least harmful to our bodies. Is that also the time when a baby doesn't yet begin to appear human, have a heartbeat that can be recorded, etc.? Because we seem to measure the value of a baby on those terms instead of grasping that the baby does not begin to look like a person without first being something else.

So, yes, abortion is murder. Yet we call it a women's rights issue. It's our body, we can do what we like - only it's not just our body when we get pregnant. A pregnant woman is, in fact, one body carrying a second, distinct body that, if it survives the process - and anything else (e.g. cancer, accidents, malnutrition, murder, etc.) - will grow taller over time.

However, we would arrest a parent who killed his or her child. At one point, however, children had no status; parents could do what they wanted, and their cruelties were answered by claiming children as protected animals. Sometime later we legally recognized them as people; but it wasn't until around the late 19th century that we began to feel a social impulse to protect them, especially those of the poor and working classes (in the case of Lewis Hine, by labeling images of middle class children as child laborers).

In terms of babies, however, I read about a recent attempt to legally recognize unborn babies as people; but it turned into a controversy about Republicans and their so-called war on women. I haven't been up on the issues, so I don't know what the war on women is about; however, I've heard many references to the women's rights issue, a rhetoric that defined the debates on Obamacare and birth control which, as I've argued in other places, should not be included in preventive care[1].

Except I'm not here to talk about politics. I gave that example only to point out that, if you don't support abortion, you're likely to be denounced as a bible thumper or a right winger - those even when you've made no reference to religion or politics. The word slut is the other reason I get called out on them; but my view on sexual behaviors is also not what I'm here to talk about. Let me just summarize my views on consensual sex and rape in terms of the abortion topic:

Consensual Sex
If you're a woman and not prepared to take responsibility for the possibility of getting pregnant - and that means keeping or giving up your baby - do not have sex with a man, as that's the only way to ensure you do not get pregnant. If you're that desperate, buy a sex toy, masturbate, have oral sex with a man (69 gets you both off)[2], etc. - just do not let a penis near your vagina, as even the precum can make you pregnant. In other words, there's no excuse to murder your baby because of your selfish choices.

Rape
If you're a woman and this happens to you, it's not your fault. It's also okay if you feel angry, violated, hurt, depressed, etc.; but you are a survivor. That means you're alive, and you can find the strength to continue your life. However, if you get pregnant, killing that baby does not justify what happened you - because that baby also did not ask for you to be raped; you have to rise above yourself and not murder a life as a substitute for your intense desire to kill the man who raped you. Wanting to kill and killing are two different things. In other words, there's no excuse to murder your baby because of your selfish choices.

What I wish for
- That unborn babies be legally recognized as people at all stages of development.
- That abortion be legally recognized as the murder of an unborn baby, thus making it a criminal offense for which both the mother and abortionist should be held responsible.

However, my view that abortion is murder is consistent with my feminism. Specifically, as I know unborn babies to be people, so, too, do I recognize that the issue of abortion is not a women's rights issue since no person should be able to murder another person. More, that a woman has the choice of whether or not to have sex which can result in the possibility of getting pregnant; if that happens, she has the obligation to attempt or to actually carry a baby to term because she has no right to decide if another person lives or dies.

Anyway, this is just where I am at present on this topic. But to be clear, again, with regard to where I stand on the abortion issue: I belong to no religion and have no religious motivation; I belong to no party and have no political motivation. I am, instead, a woman who experienced a miscarriage and became personally aware of what it means to be pregnant and lose a baby. This is where I stand, however; you don't have to agree with me.



[1] Preventive care is free and includes services like mammograms and postrate screenings which are meant to alert doctors to what may be wrong with women's and men's bodies. Birth control does not answer that need, and thus should not be free to women. This, however, is another issue.

[2] A woman can get pregnant from swallowing cum, but the chances of that happening are extremely slim. The risk of getting pregnant from precum, however, is much greater.