Contraception And Abortion Rights In America Aid Women

Contraception and abortion are still hot-button topics in America, thirty-six years after Roe v. Wade legislation passed legalizing early abortions in 46 states. Men especially need to chill out when it comes to abortion, understand it and have fewer emotional conflicts about it. They could learn why, when, how and which women get abortions.

Most women are surprised to hear that men have those inner conflicts because having a baby is of immediate importance to women's lives and their futures, both collectively and individually. Couples usually do find abortion difficult despite having consensually taken part in unprotected sex (although sometimes pregnancy can be a failure of prescription contraceptives.)

Women get abortions when they feel they have no choice. They may not have the energy, the internal emotional makeup, or the money, to carry a baby to term or to raise another child. They may not feel old and established enough to care for it. They might have been abused. Some, if not most women carrying babies, will want to carry their babies to term, or will provide prospective adoptive parents with a child as a surrogate mother. But these are all personal experiences and choices. The constant, daily experience of pregnancy determines a mother's right to choose and she should prevail. Her life should always be considered more valuable than that of an unborn baby.

Here, then, is a guide that I, as a woman and mother, have listed to try to help men especially, and women, understand the thoughts and emotions women generally experience at one time or another about the controversial topic of contraception and abortion:

1) Women want and need to be able to make personal choices as far as how they use their own fertility, for their own health and careers and lives.
2) Fertile women create ova every month, can therefore create babies every month. They all are aware of this if they are fertile, as most women are.
3) They cannot raise all the babies they could theoretically make.
4) Men sometimes threaten abortion to frighten women, like a weapon.
5) There are many children who could be adopted by those needing to raise a child.
6) There are many children living in families who cannot afford to raise them already.
7) A baby is a gift, and it must be treated well by a responsible adult.
8) Children are expensive to raise and educate.
9) Children are physically demanding and difficult to raise.
10) Children need a parent to raise them, when they are young.
11) Women who have been victimized by men and will not have the resources to raise a child need to be able to abort, if necessary for the health of the mother.
12) Anyone who thinks a raped woman should be forced to carry a child to term is inhuman. If she does so, it should be 100% her own choice. In this case, she might not know and approve of the composition of the father's genetic background.
13) Babies can incur health and education costs that even responsible, working parents cannot afford.
14) Abortion is a serious operation that a woman(or a couple)decides heavily. Abortion is not always a decision of "the couple." Since up to a third of babies are born to single women, it can be up to a woman to decide if she can raise a child and wishes to continue the pregnancy.
15) Assuming a woman takes an abortion lightly diminishes a woman's intelligence and her vision of her future.
16) Some babies are faceless, brainless, would be born dead, or could endanger the mother's life. There is no reason then for a mother to carry the baby any longer than she wants to.
17) Women will always want abortions for one reason or another, and if they can't get them safely and legally, they will, nevertheless, still have the need for them and get them done somewhere.
18) "Plan B" is an over-the-counter drug to prevent pregnancy (and possibly an ensuing abortion) in America if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. It costs about USD$44.99 at Target (request at prescription counter), WalMart, drugstore.com, and free at Planned Parenthood. "Plan B", also known as the "morning after" pill, is not the same as RU-486, a pill that causes an abortion. Here's a good slideshow of sex myths at Health.com linked here.
19)Contraceptives (to control the frequency of pregnancies) are popular prescription-based drugs, and should be available from your doctor and bought in any pharmacy, regardless of personal views held by your doctor or those behind the front counter (who have no part raising and paying for the children of buyers. In my view, one shouldn't judge the morals of women and deny them of prescription-based drugs to prevent pregnancies.)
20)"The purposeful lying done under the name of “abstinence education” in American schools is no help, either. European young people are about as active sexually as Americans, but they are not lied to about contraception in school. Teenage American girls are seven times as likely as French girls to have an abortion, for instance."
The Daily Beast, Alterman, E. "The Truth About Abortion"

Once a man has successfully impregnated a woman, he must have respect for the fact that the baby's future is the mother's prerogative. She is carrying and feeding that fetus from the first moment of conception, and making daily sacrifices and changes in her life. It is usually, in most cases and universally, the mother with primary responsibility for physically raising a baby for many years.

There are many children in need of foster care and adoption. Mothers carrying babies are well aware, and need not be lectured on abortion if they so choose. That's a bit late, very insulting and sometimes misinformed.

Whoever thinks a mother is anti-life needs to be realistic, and have more compassion and consideration for the value of her life. The lives of women have been profoundly changed and improved with family planning legislation, and American women should be proud of gaining more control over their own futures and their own choices.

In conclusion, there aren't any good cases against contraception and abortion if those choices are made, in my view, and these are my views. If I still haven't persuaded you and you think differently, please make your views known in a blog, or comment.

Cider House Rules, by John Irving, a novel on the same topic is very moving. It's also a great movie.