Admiral Beez
Superstar
My teenage daughter and I were driving home today and listening to Trump at the abortion rally in Washington today. My daughter asked me if I was pro life or pro choice. I had to say I was both, but the latter trumps (no pun intended) the former. I told her that I can’t accept that a baby not yet born isn’t a person, and mentioned that I remember seeing her on the ultrasound when she was perhaps two or three months along, seeing her little heartbeat, toes, growing features, etc, and I said never before she was born did her mother and I not consider her our baby, a person. But, I then said if her mother had decided to abort her, that would have been, and must be her right regardless of my or anyone’s preferences, it‘s every woman’s right to decide over her body. My daughter then said, she can support abortion for teens or rape, incest, etc, to which I replied we must not try to decide what reasons for abortion are acceptable, since this means we have to equally decide what reasons are unacceptable. This cannot be, as the reason for abortion is none of our business, except for informational purposes for improving public policy. I said this last part is where prolife people need to focus, that if you want to reduce abortions you need to find out why the mother wants one and then try to fill the need. For example in the US, with only six weeks maturnity leave, massive healthcare costs, etc. plus the US and Canadian massive cost of raising a child and the destruction it can have on a young woman’s educational and career prospects. Also there’s the lack of sex education, access to birth control and girls‘ self esteem and desperation issues that lead to pregnancies. My daughter then asked me why the prolife people in the US don’t push for social programs and societal change to persuade women to keep their babies. I told her a story I’d read, where a social conservative said if they saw a woman about to toss a baby off a bridge, and stopped her, the social conservative person wouldn't then be expected to raise that baby. That, I explained is why I think US conservatives are prolife but not necessarily pro baby, or pro people. I concluded the chat by saying again that I’m pro life, and that while I think it’s a baby being aborted, but that aborting that baby is entirely the woman’s choice, it’s her body, and none of my or anyone’s business. So, that’s my dad moment of the week...