Choice

In my life I've never really examined all that I believe in to figure out exactly where I stand compared to others. I've always just left everybody alone about their beliefs and figured whatever I believed was common sense.


Apparently, it's either not or not as many people as I figured have common sense.


I like:


Obama. He's not perfect by any means but I like him better than anybody else we had to choose from in the last election.


Personal freedoms. I like free speech. I like that I have the choice of carryin' a gun if wanna. I like bein' able to practice my religion or lack of one rather.


The idea that all men regardless of what they look, smell, act, or taste like are created equal.


I believe women are the same as men in that they deserve the same rights and respect. Though it's in my own ways to hold doors open, pay for dinner, and in general be nicer to women. Not 'cause they're weak and fragile creatures, but 'cause a woman gave birth to me and odds are any other woman will give birth to someone else so it's my opinion that a lifetime of niceties is a small price to pay for the continuation of the species. Women deserve consideration for what they do that we men can't do.

Now I got to observe a debate the other day, pro-choice v. pro-life. I'm pro-choice. I don't like the idea of abortion, it's not sumthin' I think I could do but to say it's not even an option for a woman isn't right.

I normally keep quiet about it. I don't want to push my beliefs on anyone. Lotta people don't like havin' other peoples ideals shoved down their throats. I don't intend to do that 'cause I believe in choice. I believe in lettin' people decide what's right from themselves. If you look on my facebook page you're more likely to find the kinds of comics, books, movies, or T.V. shows I like not my political views. I never bothered with 'em 'cause to me they aren't that important. Anybody we vote for never does all they promise anyway. So, they all wind up bein' assholes to somebody, not their fault just the way it goes.

But, as I saw this debate and saw what the two participants believed in I saw myself leanin' further to the left than I ever thought I was capable of. Kris Kristofferson has said that his political views were "Left of liberal." I guess mine must be out there too. I knew I was left but I always figured more towards the middle. Only after readin' what these two had been arguin' did I figure out if I go anymore left I'm gonna be in the Pacific headin' for China.

The pro-life's side may not have been great at debate but all he could really argue was that it was morally wrong according to The Bible and his own ethics to kill an unborn child which he regarded as a whole person with a right to live.

The pro-choice side argued that a woman should have the right to preserve her body, life, finances, and freedoms if she was pregnant with a child she did not want.

Okay, so it is morally wrong to kill a person? The Bible says so. The law says so. The world is overall a better place if we aren't allowed to kill anyone. But there are exceptions to this rule. If you kill someone in self defense, it's ok. If you kill a man sentenced to death, it's ok.

But is a fetus a person? Some say yes. Some say no. Yes-a fetus is a person because so long as the mother keeps supplying the necessary nutrients, care, and space for it to grow a fetus will become a child. No-a fetus is not a person because it has no intelligable thoughts and is an incomplete person kinda like a miscarriage or stillborn at any given point in time. During the pregnancy it could go either way. Either the kid is born healthy and alive or two months after conception there's a miscarriage for no apparant reason at all.

Havin' a kid is not an easy thing. The thing they teach you in health class is that takin care of a baby is hard work. Thing they don't tell you is that the birth alone is gonna run you more than ten grand. Plus the cost of all the doctor visits durin' the pregnancy and all the furniture and the space a kid is gonna need. Then you gotta take a baby to get his shots and check-ups. Clothes, daycare, food, and toys. You know there's ,last I heard anyway, an 80% chance of a woman's vagina tearin' durin' the birth. Plus it's hours of the most difficult labor a body can endure. I heard about a woman that gave birth to twins born more than twenty-four hours apart.

Imagine that guys, your body with a gapin' hole in it for more than a day, not to mention you got doctors and nurses starin' at your body, which you're already self concious about 'cause you put on fifty pounds easy 'cause of the kid, and to top it all off your likely to piss and shit yourself while everybody's lookin'. People still die while givin' birth you know? That's not 1880's givin' birth by candle light type stuff it happened yesterday.

Everybody, call your momma hug her and kiss her if you can. Tell her you're sorry for wreckin' her body. Tell her you love her. Tell her you're sorry for all the back talkin' you've ever done. Then you can come back and finish readin' this.

Now, you tell an anemic fifteen year old girl that has never even been on a real date and has terrible parents, that would never in a million years help her, that if she's knocked up by a rapist she has to endure child birth and takin' care of that baby by herself if she even lives to see it born. I suppose she could give the kid up for adoption, if she survives, but the toll is still taken on her body and she's already got the better part of a year that she's spent worryin', gettin' hemorrhoids, and gainin' weight.

To me it seems really messed up to force somebody to give birth just because their bodies are capable of it.

Sci-fi quiz hot shot: The year is 2110 somebody just figured out how to make guys have babies through a simple procedure, like a shot, nuthin' changes really except now there's a 50/50 shot of who's gonna carry the baby. After a night of passion with a stranger you discover that you as a man are pregnant and because it's illegal to have an abortion, you my time travelin' y-chromosome bearer are gonna have to give birth to the kid. What do you do? (I might write a short story on that one. It was just a random thought in my head as I write this. But you on the other hand better get your feet in them stirrups, boy, and spread 'em wide.)

You can still say it's unethical to kill someone and that it would be wrong to give someone the option of takin' another persons life. But we already have that option. Guns are everywhere, man. People have the option of blowin' your brains out as you read this right now. If you're so interested in savin' lives then you must be opposed to all killing. No more wars, no more murder, no more guns, no more bombs. Take away everything anyone could possibly kill someone with and you'd have nuthin' left.


The option to kill is always there. We have to let people decide for themselves what is right and wrong for their situation. "He came at me in my sleep with a knife so I shot him." Justified. "He looked at me while holding a stick so I bombed his country." Not so justified. You don't have to spank your kids everyday but at some point it has to stop bein' "boys will be boys."


The option has to be there. Not so that every pregnant woman can abort every baby but so that those extreme cases have an option.

Feel free to disagree with me all you want. I think I'm right but considerin' it'll never be my decision to make who really cares what I think?