There's many reasons why I support Pro Choice. Laws against abortion do not stop abortion in most cases; they simply make it less safe. The number of women who get abortions, does not change when it goes from legal to illegal, or vice versa. The only thing that changes is that more women die. Every year, 78,000 women die from unsafe abortions, how many lives are really being saved by imploring a law against it I might ask? If people really want to stop abortions happening, then they should turn to methods that do work. The kind of methods that would lower the rate of abortions would be comprehensive sex education, and affordable contraceptives. Unfortunately, most people who do not support abortion, are often against these preventative measures, as illogical as that is. If they truly wanted to reduce the number of abortions that occur, they would embrace these methods.
The politicians who "pro-life" activists so ardently support are only after one thing: self-interest. It's politics, ethics won't come into many of their opinions if it gets them up-votes. The majority of these politicians are not "pro-life" because they agree with you; they are because you know that you will continue to vote for them if they are. As well as people who turn to politicians for guidance, there's always those who follow religion also. While the main religions on this planet have a good foundation for some ethics, religious ideology is no foundation for any law. Freedom of religion is guaranteed to any citizen in the United States; so there's no reason as to why should the beliefs and values of one religion mandate laws for all citizens? There's reasons we don't follow everything sacred texts say and use them as law for how we live, as a Secularist I have no issue with religion, but I believe that church and state should be separate. We do not have a law against eating fish, nor do we declare it legal to sell one's daughter, or keep a person as a slave - each of which are things promoted in religious text. I believe that the laws against abortion are something to be decided by state, not religion. But that is part of my creed, as well as my logic.
The opinion that reproductive restrictions end with abortion are also false. Many people also argue that contraception itself is wrong -again this is mainly a religious philosophy- and will deny women the protection they need based on this belief. These are legislative acts that allow actual pharmacists to deny women birth control because of their beliefs, surely this violates the Hippocratic Oath, especially if thousands of woman are on birth control because their lives depend on it (I will explain this). Reproductive choice can be the only thing stands between a woman and death. Woman who face deadly consequences of a pregnancy deserve the choice to live. Teenage girls whose bodies are not yet ready for childbirth, are five times more likely to die. Not only do 70,000 girls ages between 15-19 die each year from pregnancy and childbirth, but the children they give birth to have a 60% higher chance of dying as well. On top of this, preeclampsia affects 10-15% if women, there are hundreds of other complications outside of preeclamsia that can, and will, result in death as well.
Bottom line is this, doctors should always be the ones making the medical recommendations and opinions, not governments. I wouldn't let the government tell me whether or not I could have a kidney transplant or blood transfusion, I'd go to a doctor. The fact that any government regulates a medical procedure is both illogical, and dangerous.
