I feel you on that. I have a question. Why do women do abortions? I'm admittedly ignorant of this choice and why it matters. In my opinion, the reasons are for rape (an unwanted pregnancy) or medical reasons like the doctor found that you may die in the process and they can save you with an abortion.
I’ll answer this in two parts:
Part 1: why it is none of our business why she does it, and
Part 2: why some women do it.
Part 1: In no other case does society allow the cooption of your body medically for the use of others.
In the case of prison slavery (forced work) people argue strongly that those people’s bodies should not be legally coopted against their will for the benefit of others. They (we) want to end that. In the medical cases, it is ILLEGAL to force a person to use their body to keep another alive. Even a
dead person may not have their organ harvested to save the lives of others unless they had given permission. So a dead body has more rights than a woman?
We do not require anyone to donate blood. We do not require anyone to donate a piece of their liver, or a lung,
even when the potential donor is directly responsible for the need of the recipient, such as in a car accident or a negligent coal mining operation. In any other case, except those caused by women having sex, the body is inviolate. These people want to say that, “but when women have sex, the public owns their body and we get to say what they do with it, because women have
no right, they say, to have sex without turning their body over to us.
It is clear as a society we do NOT condone forcing people to use their body, organs, or even just their blood, for the benefit of any other human against their will. And a woman’s body after she has sex is no different. If she does not want to be a host for another being, there is no moral reason to compel her against her will.
Part 2: Women do it because they have an inherent right to have sex when they want to, and to not be forced to be a parent.
The majority of pregancies that end in abortion - the
vast majority - are a product of the right wing’s efforts to make contraception as difficult to acquire as possible. By shutting down clinics, by passing laws that birth control pills must be prescribed by a doctor instead of being available over-the-counter at a pharmacy, by passing laws that exclude it from insurance coverage, and more.
This, by the way, is the proof that “pro-lifers” are not against abortion as the prime directive, they are against women having sex without consequences. That is what they seek to control most, and they are willing to have more abortions if it means they can keep contraceptives away from women. They want sex for women to be as risky as possible. This is shown by their actions - which increase abortions.
So that is the main reason for abortions and the main avenue to reduce them - get the grip of the conservative fingers off of contraceptives. In three studies where long lasting reversible contraceptives are made free and available, abortions were reduced by more than half in the study period. If this were widespread and readily available and strongly advertized, abortions would nearly disappear. The people to blame for this - are not women.
A large number of abortions are sought by women who are married and already have children. They get abortions because the idea of having a sexless marriage is not humane, and sometimes birth control fails (such as when you are taking antibiotics). Some of these women didn’t even really want to have sex, but the social expectations of marriage will pressure them to have sex. Sometimes this is entirely voluntary, as a woman doesn’t really want sex, but does want the closeness it makes with her husband. And again, it should be her right to have sex with her husband or partner without being forced into parenthood. We have the technology to separate these, we are not apes. We can like sex and also know that parenthood is not desired or tenable every time we have sex.
Abortions can be sought because a woman had been unable to get pregnant, and gave up trying, moved in a new direction in life, then, surprise, it happens when it is impossible to reconcile the new direction with the old - a choice is made, and she has the right to make it.
It happens a lot among teens, who do not have the proper education about preventing pregnancy, and who are not in a position for parenthood. Again, blame the right wing for them getting pregnant. The desire for sex is inherently human, but it’s the right wing that is keeping people from the education and means to have sex without pregnancy.
And, of course, there are medically fragile pregnancies, and medically dangerous ones - and any attempt to outlaw abortions makes these women have to fight for their right to terminate it, and lose precious time in safe early pregnancy.
Add to that cases of forced or coerced sex. Those women, for obvious reasons, may not want to continue the pregnancy. They should not have to.
When I said limit the amount of time I actually meant for anyone outside of the above situations (and similar). I personally disagree with abortions being used for leisure, like a movie ticket for a consumer's consumption.
Not your call.
Really, that is none of you business at all.
If you want to police people’s
reasons for maintaining their own bodily autonomy, then be prepared to be policed. If men want to have sex “for leisure” then they need their baby-making abilities shut off. Mandatory vasectomies? Are you really wanting that?
Edit: And I left off the wealth disparity you mentioned purposefully for now.
Edit2: And I do not mean to accuse all women of using it at leisure. I took my sister to an abortion, and her reason was none of what I mentioned above (which drives my question).
Be careful of what you are doing when you think “doing it for leisure” is an “accusation.” You are judging them for wanting to be adults who may have sex. Are you an adult who wants to be able to have sex? Are you comfortable with people
accusing you of having sex for leisure?
Why are men so keen on telling women that wantinfg sex is bad? Why are men so keen on making sex as risky as possible for women? And why do you think you
own our bodies as your vessels and get to tell us what to do or not do with our bodies?
