My Response to Abortion and John Oliver’s Video About It
Now for the most part, I agree that a woman should have the right to choose what happens to her own body. But wouldn't it be better if the government funded contraception in the form of birth control pills, condoms, IUDs, and morning after pills; as well as universal healthcare, mental healthcare, college education, and a proper, all inclusive, sex education?
And while a small percentage of women actually die during the abortion procedure, what about the much larger percentage of women who commit suicide or struggle with depression in response to their abortions? And what about other physical consequences to abortion, like debilitating pain, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding, damage to your organs, infection, or possible infertility. What about the large percentage of women who regret their decision later because they were impulsive or did not know all the details of the abortion or simply changed their views on abortion?
While I am not commenting on whether or not the government should interfere with abortion, wouldn't it be better if the government provided all the tools necessary to be sexually responsible as well as physically and mentally healthy? And wouldn't it be better to have safe sex without paying for the tools to have it so that a woman wouldn't even have to take the medical risk, however slight, of having an abortion? For example, going along with John Oliver’s "breast implants" example, what if there were a natural or less intrusive way to enhance breast size that was more cost effective and posed a significantly smaller health risk? Isn't it always better to avoid surgeries when they are not necessary? And if the government is footing the bill, aren't condoms, IUDs, and oral contraceptives a lot less expensive than surgery?
Again, I am not commenting on whether the government should interfere with abortion but it seems that it is entirely possible to make abortion a rare occurrence by providing every American with access to free contraception and sex education so that all Americans can have safe sex without worrying as much about unwanted pregnancy or STIs and that seems like a solution that most people can be happy with.
About half of all Americans contract an STI at some point in their lives, some curable and some not. About half of all pregnancies are unintended and 40% of unwanted pregnancies are terminated through abortion; 21% of all pregnancies are aborted. Abortion is a bandaid to the problem of people having unsafe sex. When people have safe sex, if using condoms or birth control pills there is only a 3% risk of getting pregnant; if a copper IUD is implemented in the woman (which lasts up to 12 years), there is only a 0.8% chance of getting pregnant; if using condoms and a copper IUD (ideal), there is only a 0.24% chance of getting pregnant, less than a quarter of a percent. And if for some reason people fail to have safe sex or the condom breaks, there is also the morning after pill, which can be taken for up to three days after having sex.
It seems ridiculous that half of all pregnancies are still unintended when safe sex is so effective. Now since I am not going into whether or not the government should interfere with abortions, I will not discuss what should happen if for some reason you have safe sex but everything goes wrong and you still get pregnant. I am simply saying that it is far more important to go directly to the root of the problem because unsafe sex negatively affects most Americans and is a much larger issue than abortion.
And if a woman has a right to choose what to do with her own body, why is rape not taken as seriously as it should be and why is suicide illegal? If a woman truly had the right to choose what happened to her own body, the Yes Means Yes consent law would be in all 50 states, all rape victims would receive justice, and suicide would be legal. The line has to be drawn somewhere but sadly it's drawn in the wrong places.
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
2087
annaxmalina
kaledo-art
andulkaphoto
