I can easily point out the day, date and time when I started calling myself a feminist. Two years ago I read a newspaper article about how a fourteen-year-old girl had been raped and then denied an abortion. This story angered me, it gave me shivers to know that I live in a world where people so casually deny women the right to their own bodies. It was at that moment that I decided I was a feminist, and that I hated people who wanted to take away my rights and give it to a fetus who was using my body to survive without my consent.
From that point on, I lived under a canopy of my staunch belief that people who are anti-choice do not deserve my respect. It is so easy to fold your arms across your chest and pass judgement in your mind, dividing people into two groups: for/love and against/hate. The people who do not agree with something you passionately believe in go on the side of people you detest and the ones who agree with you become your new best friends.
Then something unexpected happened. I found out that my best friend was against abortions.
She was against women having bodily autonomy and having a right to decide what they wish to do with their own bodies. This news both vexed and confused me. This was the person who always stood by me, even when I made terrible mistakes. The person who was my very first friend on my first day of elementary school. The person who would commiserate with me after each bad date.
We now stood on the opposite side of one my biggest battlegrounds. How could I simply drop this person into one of the well-divided sides in my mind? I couldn’t.
She called herself ‘pro-life’ for a reason. She was against abortion for a reason. And I hadn’t realized that everyone had a life experience, beyond what I could superficially see, that created the path to their current beliefs. When my best friend’s mother had a miscarriage, she lost her unborn sister, whom she had already started to love. I have never gone through anything like this, but I can see how it could change a person’s opinion about things.
I am feverishly against people dictating what I should do with my life. So how can I expect someone else to do what I want them to and to believe in what I think is right?
We can learn something priceless from everyone if we’re open to it. Because of my best friend’s story, I learned the power of acceptance and respect. I learned to respect the people who held beliefs that did a poor job of aligning with mine — as long as their views aren’t based on fear or hatred. I learned to ask, and learn from, the question: why?
It is because of the existence of contrasting people that the world can paint beautiful, abstract images of life. I know it’s a cliché, but life is truly lived in the gray. I do not want a world where symmetry is the only route to a good life, I do not want a world like Paris under Napoleon III. I want a world where we all can have our opinions heard, and where we all can paint the pictures of our choice.
So here are a few words to my best friend, and all those who call themselves pro-life: I respect your belief and I hope you respect mine too.
The point of this article is just so people would just learn to respect the opinions of others instead of always arguing about what is right and what is wrong. I understand that people think they’re both right at some point and maybe they are.
Sorry, I’m still pro-life. Sometimes, the world doesn’t just revolve around us. There are more important things that you have to take note of such as that unborn child in your womb. Our feelings can become irrelevant no matter how painful it is. That’s life and that’s how it should be.? The world will always push us down no matter how hard we try to get up. That’s life and sometimes we have to suck it up.
I think you’re missing the point here. That’s like saying child rape is just the same pain as not getting the job you’ve always wanted. You can’t always suck it up, you know? It’s a bigger issue than just sucking it up! You make me so angry!
I’m a feminist and I would always support other women about how they decide to deal with their bodies. However, I can’t say I support “every” woman. Other women have stupid reasons for saying that they want to do this or that and it leads to consequences that are not good at all. This is where the liberty to do whatever you want with your body should stop. A good example of this is having sex with every men on the block and not knowing who the father of the child is, then choosing abortion as an excuse for not wanting to be a mother. Life is always a choice, but if you make bad ones, you shouldn’t take it out on innocent people including that unborn child. ?
Women are strong, but we don’t always have to test it by leaving them with no choice but to deal with their pain. This is what pro-choice is about. It’s about letting women take full responsibilities of how their life is going with their choices!!!
This article made my heart hurt. I felt like I was forgetting the fact that there are many instances like rape wherein a child was conceived. I was honestly a pro-life for years because I’ve always believed that every baby has the right to live no matter what the circumstances. But if factors like rape, poverty, or anything like that is at stake and that the mother won’t be capable enough to take care of the baby, should we really make the baby suffer as much the mother? It’s not good.?
Even as an adult and I was raped, I would definitely not agree to have that baby despite my fear of abortions. Why? I know that most of you will say that the child has nothing to do with the person who raped me. But that is completely false because that child is born out of that act that will forever scar me. Rape isn’t something you just grow out of or get over with. It’s something that lives in you forever and will instill fear that will swallow you whole. I can always forgive that person who did it but the fearful and traumatizing events that he did to me will always stay with me. With that in mind, how do you create a good relationship with that child that was planted by that monster? We would be creating damaged children in the process. Children who grow up not having loving mothers and they will grow to despise themselves because they feel like the rapist lives in them too. Is that pro-life for you?
This really got me. Rape is really damaging and I absolutely agree that it will just create a chain of damaged people if not cut to the roots. I love children and would continue to pray for unborn ones who didn’t make it to this world, but events like this will only bring more harm than good to the mother and the child (if it’s born).
Respecting the belief of others shouldn’t just revolve about feminism or pro-life. I think it’s a bigger issue that we should just sit down and talk about sometimes.
Women who are raped have the right to choose what they want to do. If I had a close friend or a girl that’s going through something similar to this article, I would definitely want her to have a choice. Luckily, men like us don’t need to choose. But I dislike the fact that sometimes, women carry such burdens and men can’t always share them. Women are special and they deserve all the choice in the world.
I think it’s really best to respect the opinion of others, just like what you said. I may be pro-life and others may not be. I guess that’s okay. I also agree that life isn’t meant to be lived in symmetry all the time because the uniqueness of other people’s opinion is what makes the world this bright and colorful. Others just forget that they have to respect the opinion of others despite the obvious differences. Personally, I don’t agree with abortion but if a child was raped and it was denied abortion, I would be upset. First of all, you said it was a 14 year old. Someone who is in their teenage years already but someone who we consider very raw and young, still. A child that can conceive but do not have the strength or capacity to go through the process of 9 months of carrying a child and eventually giving birth. If you think about it, not only did the child experience the trauma of rape, now you want the child to undergo one of the most painful things in the life of a woman which is giving birth? I think it’s inhumane and unhealthy for the child… Mentally and physically. Being pro-life shouldn’t revolve around just protecting unborn children. It should also be about protecting life as it is.
Sometimes….. You just have to make the best choice that you think you can live with. After all…. Choices like this will haunt you forever, so make sure that what will haunt you will be bearable…?