This year’s Blog For Choice Day is dedicated to the memory of Dr George Tiller, the abortion provider in the USA who was brutally murdered while visiting his church by an anti-abortion activist in what can only be described as an act of terrorism. Dr Tiller’s work was considered controversial because he provided ‘late term’ abortions to the women who needed them.
Dr Tiller often wore a button which said simply “Trust Women” and it is for this reason that this year’s Blog For Choice theme is “Trust Women”. And that’s what the crux of the pro-choice movement is all about, really. Trust. Treating women like capable adults who are able to make their own informed, rational choices about what does or does not happen inside their bodies.
The anti-choice lobby often show this complete lack of trust in women, by way of presuming that they know better than any given woman does about her situation, or that somehow their opinions and beliefs are more important than her opinions and beliefs. I once lost a friend this way, as he made it perfectly clear that he was arrogant enough to believe that his opposition to abortion was more valid and important than a woman’s right to make a choice based on her own beliefs.
What would the average anti-choicer do if suddenly it was made illegal to carry a baby to term, and mandatory abortion was introduced? I’d wager they’d be screaming “That’s unfair, not everybody agrees with that, why should someone else be able to make decisions like that for me?!” And yet they don’t see that by campaigning for mandatory pregnancy/childbirth, they are doing exactly the same thing.
When it comes right down to it, it doesn’t matter what you believe. Just like it would be ridiculous for me to try to make meat-eating illegal based on my personal beliefs, it’s ridiculous for the anti-choice lobby to expect something to be made illegal simply because a few people object to it. And your objections are irrelevant. If you believe women are autonomous human beings, you will know your objections are irrelevant because the only person who has the right to make decisions about a woman’s body is the woman herself.
Dr Tiller was killed by a man who trusted women so little, he was prepared to murder a living, breathing human being, simply because Tiller trusted women. So whether you’d personally have an abortion or not (and it’s really not necessary to justify yourself by stating your personal preference in an abortion debate), whether you personally think abortion is a good or bad thing, it’s important that you, I, governments and society in general trust women to know what is best for them, and to make their own decisions about their bodies.
My previous Blog For Choice posts:
Other Blog For Choice posts today (list will be updated as my feed reader is!):
- Trust Women And Their Right To Choose – HarpyMarx
- Trust Women – In A Strange Land
- The Necessity of “Trust Women” – Righteous Mom
- Why I am Pro-Choice (Blog for Choice Day 2010) – The Undomestic Goddess
- I Trust Women – Blog For Choice Day 2010 – Wired For Noise
- It’s Blog for Choice Day 2010! – Scarleteen
- Blogging for Choice: Trusting Women – Hoyden About Town
- Blog for Choice 2010 – Trust Women – Earwicga
- Trust Women – Spilt Milk
- Blog for Choice Day: “Choice” as a Feminist Idol – Kittywampus
- Blog for Choice Day 2010: Trust Women – Raising My Boychick
- Trust Women: Blog for Choice Day – Female Impersonator
- Blog For Choice 2010: Trust Women – Menstrual Poetry
“Treating women like capable adults who are able to make their own informed, rational choices about what does or does not happen inside their bodies.”
Absolutely!!!!!
Thanks for the link btw.
Thanks, and you’re welcome.
Great post Anji, I couldn’t agree more.
Wow, I didn’t realise you’d written that until the end, I basically started reading the first line and didn’t stop until I finished it. I didn’t need to read things back because it was simple, concise and right on the point. A strong article! ^0^
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i really like this post.
“So whether you’d personally have an abortion or not (and it’s really not necessary to justify yourself by stating your personal preference in an abortion debate),”
i think this is a really important point which sometimes gets lost in these discussions.
I actually wrote a whole post on that very subject over at Abortion 101.
It matters liltte if the Fort Hood murders were related to some far-reaching plot. The fact that they are a direct result of the intolerance of radical Islam is enough for most Americans to equate the attack with terrorism. Was it connectd to bin Laden? Was this planned for years? Perhaps; perhaps not. The important thing is that a particular sect of a particular religion is committed to destroying the West, and this officer is apparently a part of that. By furthering the goals of his own distorted sense of religion, he simultaneously furthers the goals of Islamic terrorist groups.