Tuesday, January 23, 2007

right to choose

Yesterday was apparently Blog for Choice Day, being the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a landmark judicial opinion regarding privacy and abortion in the United States.

I am broadly in support of women's reproductive choice, with the proviso that all other forms of contraception are preferable, and that abortion should be a last resort. Most women who have an abortion do so because they cannot see any other choice, not because they are feckless and irresponsible. I know a few people who have had an abortion, and none of them took the decision lightly. People should be able to make their own moral choices in this, not have them imposed. I also feel that (since I believe in reincarnation), this isn't the only chance for that soul to be incarnated. So yes, I am pro-choice.

There should also be education for men to encourage them to be more responsible about using contraception, and not just expecting the woman to take the pill or shove a coil of barbed wire up her bits. And it would be very bad to go back to back-street abortions.

There's an excellent post about this over at the Broomstick Chronicles.

2 comments:

Balador said...

Your last point is interesting considering what's in the news at the momnet. Many young women don't carry contraception some believing that it's is the mans resposibility. So I think the education should be directed at everyone.

Yewtree said...

Oh I missed that news item - okay then, education for everyone.

There is a certain amount of sexist social conditioning which implies that girls are "easy" if they carry condoms, and perhaps the current generation have been turned off by feminism (probably because the public perception is that all feminists are radical separatists) to the extent that they are taking on board the old sexual double standards.