In
this blogpost, I want give you a quick look on the debate between pro-choice
and pro-life as well as my position in the topic.
Tell me, be honest, did you have a strong reaction
when being told of your friend or relative’s abortion, then went around and
gossiped about it, if any?
Pro-choice
versus pro-life
This must be your hundredth time to hear of these two
terms. Abortion is a very sensitive and controversial topic. More than 30 years
since the Roe v. Wade, the fire is still shimmering without a sign of relief.
In
the argument, pro-choicers are supporters of abortion. Their argument base on woman’s right to have free decision with
her body. They also believe that abortion is necessary in cases such as rape,
incest, health or financial problem. Pro-lifers, on the other hand, oppose
abortion because it is basically man-slaughtering.
Human
right versus… human right
If we look further into the argument, we will see this
is a debate between human rights. The pro-choice stands for the mother’s right.
Whereas the pro-life builds its argument on human intrinsic value, so they
claim that babies, even when they are still inside your womb, deserve basic
human rights. So whether you choose to be pro-choice or pro-life, in my
opinion, is choosing to stand for the mother or the child.
I’m
in the middle.
I myself worship individualism. In the debate,
pro-choicers claims that abortion legalization takes away women rights; whilst
pro-lifers support the outlaw because abortion is man-slaughtering. To me,
which side you stand on does not matter. Each of us have gone through certain
events and met with different people in life that help shaping our own unique
perspective. It’s a right thing to think of abortion legalization as the
violation of women’s right. But at the same time, we cannot deny that abortion
gets rid of a life. The controversy between pro-choice and pro-life will never
come to the end because of one simple fact: you can enact laws and enforce them
with violence, but you cannot kill ideas. It’s the DEBATE that we have to LIVE
WITH.
I am lucky because I was brought up by, in my opinion,
radical parents. They didn’t taught me to be either pro-choice or pro-life but
rather taught me to see everything as a system of divergent views by showing
how multi-polar the world is: left and right, good and evil, female and male,
matters and anti-matters etc. There is no such thing as absolute right or
absolute wrong, it’s just the way the contemporary society looks at it. Did we
realize how barbaric racism was during the colonial time? Did we agree with
Galileo right away when he said the Earth orbits the Sun? No, we didn’t. An
idea that seems crazy today can save human life tomorrow. Who knows?
I just want you to know that there is no absolute
wrong or absolute right. We need to look at everything from different points of
view and respect them all. Even though you are a pro-lifer, you should respect
the pro-choice movement and its reasoning, and vice versa.
It’s
the stigma that we need to worry about.
When I was 15 years old, there was a rumor in my
family about my cousin’s abortion, she was 22 and single then. Some of my aunties
show their sympathy by patting on her shoulder and asking about her health in
family reunion, but most of them whispered into each other’s ears about how
slutty and uneducated she was, and how she had humiliated her parents. But she
was tough.
3 years later I was there in her wedding. She was the
most beautiful woman with happiness sparkling in her eyes. He was willingly
aware of her “scandal”. They started their newly-wed life like many other
couples with passion and misunderstandings. Things would have been just fine if
the rumor had not gone to her mother-in-law ears. Only God knows what she was
told. Under her pressure the young couple couldn’t help but torn apart. Yes,
they loved each other. But my cousin just couldn’t stand seeing her loving husband
being tormented by his family. She is now still single and looking for not Mr.
Right but Mr. and Mrs. Right.
Yes, that’s right. Damn that narrow-minded
mother-in-law. Damn that sybaritic husband who couldn’t stand for his wife. And
damn the society that enjoys selling personal stories.
You can blame the mother-in-law for her old-school,
selfish way of life. But if you look further into the problem, she is just
another victim of social stigmas. If only she was told how my cousin was
cheated by her boyfriend who got her pregnant then ran away. If only she was
told of how brave and strong my cousin was to stand up after everything and
move on with her life. The information was mistreated. Both my cousin and the
mother are victims of social stigmatized abortion.
Truth is, when you terminate your pregnancy, the
society criticizes you as cold-hearted. When you justify yourself with rape,
incest or health problem, the society tells you to stop making excuses. On the
other hand, when you decide to keep the baby although it is unwanted or
unexpected, the society scolds you for being thoughtless or hypocrite. And do
you realize that, “the society” is you, is me, and is ALL OF US.
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| Nick Anderson |
A study from Guttmacher shows that 2 out of 3 women who had abortion do not
want to tell anything about that since they do not want to experience stigma.
Stigma may also have economic cost for women who feel they must conceal their
abortion: they pay for abortion out of pocket to not leave foot print on
insurance. And I haven’t mention that fact that more women experienced stigma,
the more likely they were to have adverse emotional outcomes.
I know stigma is the
nature of society. It helps our community grow and shapes people’s ideas. But
too many stigmas and too much cruelty makes chaos, not a community.
So let’s play a game.
From now on, when you encounter one with abortion history or is making a
decision, don’t judge her just yet. Try to understand her case and not gossip about
it behind her back. Every time you can do it, you get 1 more point. What is the
prize you ask? How about a better world?
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