I was in the car today with my family, taking a drive around the area, seeing the sights and such, when we passed a billboard rented by the local Pro-Life association. This particular billboard has been rented out by the same group for years, constantly parading images and messages apocalyptic enough to make your skin crawl. I told my sister the other day that it's the only thing I've ever considered actually vandalizing. And I meant it. I won't, because I have all the courage and bravado of a house cat. But the sentiment is honest, through and through.
This month, the billboard is parading the message that "abortion stops a beating heart." Under the phrase, there's an image of a heart-monitor line moving from left to right, terminating at the image of a broken heart sitting in a pool of blood. Other displays on this board include one that went up around this time last year. It was a photo of a sullen woman in one corner, and in quotation marks to her right were the words "Why wasn't I told?" Underneath the main image was a URL. It was something to the effect of www.abortionbreastcancer.com. The implication may seem mirky from my description, but on seeing the image, the intention was clear- having abortions increases your risk of breast cancer. It is a fact that has been concealed from you. Not only have they killed your child, they have knowingly put you in the way of death, as well.
There's a few things in this world that I consider "moral sticking points." We all have them- those little points of ethical/moral contention on which we will not budge. This is one of mine. On the issue of abortion, I am pro-Choice. I have no uterus, and thus have no right to tell women what to do with theirs. Further, it is certainly not within my rights to, through the use of guilt, moral admonishment, derision, scare tactics or otherwise, coerce any woman into making any decision regarding her own reproductive health. To abort or to give birth is an entirely personal choice on which no one but the individual woman herself has any bearing. It is the iconography I described above- that of fear, disgust, murder and gore- which has turned an issue of personal judgement into a question of moral integrity and guilt. It is the manipulative, purely emotive and misleading imagery of hate and murder that have turned women who choose to abort into figures of derision and scorn. They have been cast as deeply disturbed, malleable, blind whores with no regard for the lives of others. It is this profoundly distorted image of women that the fanatical pro-life movement relies on to justify their case. They have resorted to fear in an attempt to legitimate their medically unsound reasoning. The supposed link between breast cancer and abortions is absolutely unsubstantiated, and based on the politics of fear and compliance. This is nothing short of demonization and segregation- a "righteous" versus "evil" battle in which reason, moderation and medical fact have been cast aside in favor of manipulative appeals to visceral emotion.
This is strongly worded, but I feel strongly. The issue of abortion is not black and white. It is not a matter of good, upstanding moral people opposing the sociopathic, emotionally unaffected masses of society. This is not a crusade. A woman's decision to abort is thickly shrouded in shades of grey and is anything but the simple, good vs. bad debate that it has been cast as. The decision to abort is not taken lightly, it is not easy, it is not just a go-to for whores. The fact of the matter is, it is a personal decision, and whatever choice a woman makes does not make her righteous, or evil, a saint or a murderer. It makes her a human, capable of making her own choices, however difficult they may be. A woman understands her body better than anyone else, and to try and impose some sort of puritanical moral code onto that understanding, and criminalizing her based on certain actions is absolutely unacceptable.
Everyone has their moral sticking points. This is one of mine.
There's a few things in this world that I consider "moral sticking points." We all have them- those little points of ethical/moral contention on which we will not budge. This is one of mine. On the issue of abortion, I am pro-Choice. I have no uterus, and thus have no right to tell women what to do with theirs. Further, it is certainly not within my rights to, through the use of guilt, moral admonishment, derision, scare tactics or otherwise, coerce any woman into making any decision regarding her own reproductive health. To abort or to give birth is an entirely personal choice on which no one but the individual woman herself has any bearing. It is the iconography I described above- that of fear, disgust, murder and gore- which has turned an issue of personal judgement into a question of moral integrity and guilt. It is the manipulative, purely emotive and misleading imagery of hate and murder that have turned women who choose to abort into figures of derision and scorn. They have been cast as deeply disturbed, malleable, blind whores with no regard for the lives of others. It is this profoundly distorted image of women that the fanatical pro-life movement relies on to justify their case. They have resorted to fear in an attempt to legitimate their medically unsound reasoning. The supposed link between breast cancer and abortions is absolutely unsubstantiated, and based on the politics of fear and compliance. This is nothing short of demonization and segregation- a "righteous" versus "evil" battle in which reason, moderation and medical fact have been cast aside in favor of manipulative appeals to visceral emotion.
This is strongly worded, but I feel strongly. The issue of abortion is not black and white. It is not a matter of good, upstanding moral people opposing the sociopathic, emotionally unaffected masses of society. This is not a crusade. A woman's decision to abort is thickly shrouded in shades of grey and is anything but the simple, good vs. bad debate that it has been cast as. The decision to abort is not taken lightly, it is not easy, it is not just a go-to for whores. The fact of the matter is, it is a personal decision, and whatever choice a woman makes does not make her righteous, or evil, a saint or a murderer. It makes her a human, capable of making her own choices, however difficult they may be. A woman understands her body better than anyone else, and to try and impose some sort of puritanical moral code onto that understanding, and criminalizing her based on certain actions is absolutely unacceptable.
Everyone has their moral sticking points. This is one of mine.
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