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.
There is no point in hating people that are anti-pro-life, everybody has their own set of believes just like you have yours. And there is nothing you can do about it.
For those that are pro-choice, I ask you. How would you like it if your mother decided to terminate you through abortion? Don’t you like at least the good things in life? If you do then why not share it with another unborn human being.
I too used to hate people who are anti-pro-life but after reading this I think I need to think about it before hating anyone because everybody has a reason for believing something just like your friend.
A women’s right to choose to define- you can choose to keep your leg closed or more specifically, who you allow to ejaculate semen up into you. That’s where you right to choose starts and stops. Abortions should not be in form of birth control and should only be performed under the strictest guidelines. And people shouldn’t hate us just because we have a different opinion and because we are anti-pro-life.
I doubt that many people treat abortion as contraception, that’s absurd. And rape victims don’t get that choice.
Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. And you can’t hate them for having an opinion. I believe that women should have the choice to do what they want with their body and determine what to do with their given circumstances rather than me forcing them to make a decision. It isn’t my place to force people to do things in their lives, and that I shouldn’t hate women and men even if they are against or anti-pro-life was the message.
If they don’t wanna give birth to it, what makes you think they are gonna raise the child any better?
The bottom line is, women will get abortions. If they want to do it, they’ll find a way. It’s like a weed. You can make it illegal, but people are still going to smoke it. The choice we have to make here is whether or not we’re going to allow the women to have a safe, legal operation, or one that is illegal and possibly dangerous.
The people who say they’re both don’t realize that pro-choice isn’t pro-abortion it’s just allowing women to choose whether or not they want to terminate the pregnancy.
There’s a saying that if you have nothing good to say, just zip it. Which is basically true for every topic that people love to argue about. Sometimes, people aren’t even being subjective about it. What an annoying thing to read.
That’s the issue with most people. They want their opinions to be heard but they won’t try to understand what other people are saying. It’s like talking to a wall.