We in the United States consider the idea of freedom to be the cornerstone of our society. Our country was founded by people seeking freedom from the tyranny of European governments. We are the land of the free and the home of the brave. We strive to defend these rights and freedoms at all costs. In our great country, we are free to choose so many things. We can choose who runs our government by our right to vote. We can choose to keep our family safe by our right to bear arms. We can choose what religion we subscribe to due to our right to religious freedom. WE can even choose to protest things in our country that we don't like, because we have freedom of speech.
We are a tremendous nation made up of a wide variety of people, from differing backgrounds with diverse sets of beliefs. We live in a democracy where the majority rules, and that sometimes means that things are chosen with which we don't agree. But we have the right to disagree with public policy. When I hear of other countries where people are suppressed from expressing their opinions, I feel fortunate to live in this country. We have so many personal freedoms. And so many choices.
All this freedom and choice also means that there are times when we, as individuals, make poor decisions. We are imperfect; we are human. We make errors in judgment, but here we are free to do that. And we are free to learn from our choices, good and bad. That, I think, is what personal choice is all about: the ability to make decisions and learn from the consequences. All of our decisions come with consequences. If we choose to go to work and work hard, we have the positive result of receiving a paycheck. If we decide to break the law, we have the negative consequence of being arrested and punished.
The consequences vary though, too. Sometimes we go to work and work hard-and get laid off. Sometimes people break the law and are not caught. These things happen in an imperfect world. Sometimes we are sexually intimate with someone and become pregnant when we hadn't planned it. It is a possible consequence of that activity, whether we use contraception or not. Granted this does tend to affect us women more than it does men, but it is a potential result of our choice.
Pregnancy is defined as the process and series of changes that take place in a woman's body as the result of having a developing human within her. I can't think of anything more personal to me than my own body. I believe that I am allowed to make choices about my body. I can choose to make changes to it that I deem necessary. I feel that these rights are covered regardless of whether or not I am pregnant. I consider choices about reproduction are the most private decisions I have to make in my life. I think this is true for all women.
Women are the ones who become pregnant. If I am sexually intimate with a man and our relationship ends, he may never know if I become pregnant, but I most assuredly will. And I am then left with the decision about that pregnancy. And it is one that is fraught with consequences no matter what choice I make. Regardless of the choice I make, my life is forever altered. I can't think of anyone who would intentionally become pregnant for the sole purpose of having an abortion, so I believe that the decision to have one is never made nonchalantly. I have known women who have wrestled with this decision, and it was probably the most difficult thing that they had experienced in their lives. The ones who chose to abort their pregnancies have had to live with the consequences of guilt, shame, and pain.
In its historical judgment on the Roe vs. Wade case, the Supreme Court didn't rule that abortion was good or bad, just that it was a choice. The choice of the pregnant woman. Not the choice of legislators, but the woman. Now, I am not saying that men shouldn't be involved in the decision-making process when their partners become pregnant. I am merely saying that the choice to abort the pregnancy (or to proceed with one) is just that-a CHOICE. And a very private one at that. I can't select a definition of the beginning of life that all people agree on. Even that is private, in that it is tied up with a person's individual beliefs. I can't determine what another woman can and can't deal with: that is far too personal for me to even ascertain. And I can't make such a tremendous decision for another person, much less one I don't know and have never met. I can't imagine then how anyone else would presume to do so.