I am a woman…and I am pro-life.

When people hear that I am pro-life, they generally make certain assumptions about me and my belief system. I’ve been accused of hating women, of wishing women to be “simple baby-making factories”, of being anti-feminist, uneducated, intolerant…and the list goes on and on. All of this despite the fact that I am, myself, a woman. So, I thought I’d take a moment to explain why, exactly, I believe in life (and I’ll start with a spoiler: it’s not because I hate women or think they should be stripped of their reproductive rights).

First and foremost, I am pro-life because I believe that abortion is fundamentally and unequivocally murder. Not because the Bible told me so, or because it’s the main argument of our group, but because I believe a fetus to be a human being from the moment he or she is created. From the moment two gametes join together – creating a zygote, sharing genetic information – it becomes its own entity with a unique chromosomal makeup. It has all of the necessary information to grow into its own separate person.

I’m going to borrow a bit from an article I found on Reddit that really clearly sums up how to define personhood. Why do we cherish human life? It can’t be our ability over animals to reason – not all people can do so because of mental handicaps. It can’t be our ability to live independently of other people – most people cannot do so until well into their teen years or twenties, and still others are never able to. And yet it’s unlikely that one would condone killing a person because they couldn’t think on the same level as others, or because they were unable to care for themselves on the most basic levels. It all boils down to the fact that we value human life because it is human life. We share a genetic makeup that links us together. Unborn children, no matter how young, share this genetic similarity. Though they may be developing and growing, they still have this link to the rest of humankind and are entitled to all the rights thereof.

Secondly, because by the biological definition of life, unborn children are alive from the earliest stages of their existence. There are generally five criteria for defining a living being: 1. it takes in nutrients and produces waste, 2. it grows and develops, 3. it responds to stimuli, 4. it can reproduce, and 5. it can adapt. Unborn children do all of these things. Therefore, it seems fairly simple to say that unborn children are, in fact, living things and not simply a sack of cells. So, an abortion does not just terminate a pregnancy – it ends a life. Which is our general definition of murder.

Thirdly, this video. Particularly for late-term abortions, procedures are inhumane. And infants can feel pain after 20 weeks – or about 5 months. Meaning that infants can feel their bodies literally being torn apart before actually dying. Consider if someone amputated your arm, only they didn’t give you anesthesia or even pain meds, and they didn’t use medical instruments or procedures – they just pulled until it came loose. That is abortion. The issue of personhood aside, to kill any living being in this way is simply barbaric. If anyone learned that this was how people were being tortured in prison camps, or that farmers were killing their stock this way, people would be outraged (justly so). So why is it okay that an unborn child be treated this way?

Fourthly, contrary to popular pro-abortion belief, I do not hold that a woman’s “reproductive rights” include the ability to decide the fate of the child within her. I do believe more widespread sex ed and birth control education are a part of those reproductive rights: some believe it to be hypocritical to be anti-abortion but pro-contraceptives, but birth control is the single most effective way to cut down on abortions. In addition, consider newlyweds in their first year: two twenty-somethings with entry-level jobs that don’t pay much and have crappy benefits. No one would say that they should not have sex with one another as man and woman. But neither is in a place financially or otherwise to support a child. It would be irresponsible for them to bring a child into a home where neither parent has the resources to properly care for it, missing either money, time, support, or even desire. Birth control does not end life – it prevents it. A woman should be able to choose when she is prepared for motherhood by planning beforehand. [Note: while I understand that many are not given that luxury in instances of assault, many women seeking abortions do so to avoid the inconvenience of motherhood.]

A woman’s reproductive rights end at the life within her. As its own independent life form, it has its own set of rights that do not supersede the rights of the mother (as many pro-choicers will claim I believe), but that are equal to hers. The child has the right to live because of its own existence: being the mother of that child does not grant a woman the right to disregard that fact.

Fifthly, it makes no sense to me to turn to a violent, destructive act in response to a violent, destructive act. Many pro-choice advocates argue that women who are raped or otherwise assaulted should be allowed to choose abortion because she should not have to bear a child forced on her by such circumstances. But why does it make sense to follow the trauma of rape with the invasive, possibly violent act of abortion? No, I would not force a woman to raise a child conceived in this way – or, really, in any way if she were not ready or willing. Adoption is a perfectly viable option often overlooked because “women should not be forced to give up nine months for this baby”. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be difficult or painful or traumatic in its own way – I’m not claiming this is the easy way out. I’m saying that choosing life, that choosing to give a baby to a good family who can care for it and love it, is a healthier, more positive option. Instead of living the rest of one’s life knowing that the child was terminated, one could know that the child, wherever he or she is, is alive and well, with a family that cares for it.

Now, let me dispel a few assumptions that I’m sure may still be rattling around your heads:

• I am pro-life AND pro-gay rights. I am often lumped into the group of people who oppose abortion and gay marriage. This is entirely false.
• I am Catholic, and my faith informs my decisions, but my decisions are made (as I’ve hopefully shown) through independent reasoning, thought, and research. If you’ll notice, nowhere in my arguments do I say abortion is wrong because God condemns it.
• I do not think pre-marital sex is immoral. This comes from a whole set of reasoning that can be summarized by the fact that the Catholic church defines moral sex as 1. unitive and 2. procreative. For numerous reasons for another post, I only consider the unitive aspect to be true. But unitive sex can happen without marriage, and marriage does not guarantee unitive sex. So while I don’t think random hookups are okay, so long as the emotional connection is there, I believe sex can be good for many relationships, including between the unwed.
• Going from there: I do not think women should be “punished” for having sex (yes, I’ve had this thrown in my face before, as well).
• And continuing from there: No, I do not judge women who choose to have a random-sex lifestyle. It’s their life and their choice – live and let live. It hurts no one else: live however you like. It may not be the lifestyle I choose for myself, but you can life how you wish and so can I.
• And one more from there: I do believe there is inherent sexism in our culture. Women are often blamed for their own assaults (“why didn’t you fight back?”, “you shouldn’t have worn that”, “why were you walking alone?”) and that isn’t fair. I don’t believe that women are to blame for their own rapes and attacks – I believe that should a pregnancy result from that, she does not have the right to terminate the pregnancy simply because she doesn’t want to care for that child.

I hope this clears some stuff up for anyone who was confused or wished to have some insight into what being “pro-life” means. There are a lot of myths that surround us and what we believe, and people force me into those boxes. Well, I was sort of sick of it, so here you go: I believe in life because the value and worth of a life is not dictated by its age, but by its very existence.

Obamacare – From a Layman’s Perspective

I don’t pretend to be a political guru or to be particularly passionate or minutely aware of how politics work. I think I know enough to be informed, though I am ALWAYS trying to educate myself further. In fact, I very rarely read articles from my party’s perspective because I don’t want to be a brainwashed supporter: I want to be able to read an article attacking my party and my party’s candidate and be able to counter, not blindly agree with those who agree with me. So, when I came across an article about a 12-year-old boy who wrote a strongly worded letter to Romney attacking his plans for this country, I read it. The biggest issue at hand for his family seems to be the health insurance. I know this is something that a lot of people simply adore Obama for, but I thought I’d try my hand at a rebuttal to Obamacare.

I have a very close friend whose father is in healthcare (he is a doctor of some sort – excuse me for not knowing the technical title) and who is already seeing the very negative side effects of Obamacare. Did you know that pre-Obamacare, there were only a handful of medications that patients undergoing surgeries could not take for risk of serious complications? Well, since Obamacare, patients can take NONE OF THEIR prescription medication, even medications that pose little to no threat to the patient while under surgery. This means that even elderly patients on very important cholesterol or blood pressure medication cannot take that medicine before surgery – which, by the way, is bound to send cholesterol and blood pressure out of control. According to her father, people are dying far more often in routine surgeries simply because doctors cannot keep control of their blood pressure because they weren’t allowed to take their medication.

Oh, and how about the organ transplant process? Apparently, since Obamacare, patients who are cleared for organ transplant AND HAVE AN ORGAN READY cannot get that organ until their insurance is sifted through by the hospital. What does this mean? It means sometimes patients in dire need of transplants, cleared for that transplant and with the organ ready and available must wait up to weeks or even months before they are can actually undergo the surgery. Many times, the organ simply goes bad in that time. There’s a reason organ donations are done as quickly as possible and the organ placed on ice: organs are not canned beans. They will go bad very quickly, even when refrigerated. How many people have died because their perfectly good donor heart simply went bad at the hospital?

Obamacare wants to try to address every minute healthcare issue on a federal level, but that’s an impossibility. How can a government, which oversees millions of people over thousands of miles of the country in varying health, economic, and mental states, possibly provide for every single person in need? THEY CAN’T. That’s why it was NEVER the responsibility of the government to create welfare or handout programs or, more relevantly, to pass healthcare laws on behalf of the entire country. That’s like passing a law that every single college or university in the United States must offer the same exact curriculum. Well, what about private versus public schools? And how about graduate schools, medicine or law schools, tech schools, and vocation colleges? Should ITT Tech or Virginia College offer every single class that Texas A&M does, even though that’s not what students go to those schools for? Should Baton Rouge Community College, which has a few hundred students, offer the same exact curriculum LSU with more than 30,000 students? Or should LSU, a public institution, teach the same classes as Harvard or Yale, private (and let’s be frank, far more prestigious) institutions? And what about professors – should a school without access to an adequate quantum physics professor teach the subject with a subpar professor simply because another school has the option or because the government is forcing you to? Or should every school just nix the quantum physics option, even those with proper teachers? And these are just the logistical questions that don’t even consider every school’s physical space, number of students, tuition, and community. That is what Obamacare does. Obamacare created a one-size-fits-all plan that is supposed to suit all Americans, even though to propose such an option just seems absolutely ludicrous to me.

What’s the most hilarious to me is that people attack Romney for disagreeing with Obaamacare, saying that his “Romneycare” inspired Obama’s. I’m sorry, but you cannot simultaneously tell Romney that his healthcare plan inspired Obama’s while then condemning his healthcare plan. You just can’t. Speaking of which, Romney has commented many times on this issue: Obama may have used his plan as a jumping off point, but Obamacare does not reflect the core of Romneycare. Where Obamacare is working on a federal level, Romney’s plan works on a state level. Where Obamacare took trillions of dollars from pre-existing healthcare programs to fund his own, Romney’s does not. Where Obamacare raised taxes in order to make it a possibility, Romney’s did not.

This is all beside the fact that giving insurance and healthcare away just isn’t financially feasible. This country is based on the flow of money: simply doing thousands or millions of procedures for free or giving away millions of dollars in coverage for little or nothing is not a good economic plan. Just like giving away mortgage loans for houses to anyone who wants a loan isn’t a good business model (oh wait, that sounds familiar, too….) While I wish we lived in a world where everyone could be taken care of at least adequately, if not spectacularly, we just don’t. Money makes this world go ’round, and if you can’t pay for insurance, the burden of giving it to you should not be placed on others.

The biggest issue with Obamacare that I have personally has to be his stance on abortion. I am extremely pro-life and always have been and always will be. Now, up until very recently – like, a week or so ago – I truly believed that banning abortion throughout the United States was best for this country. However, I had a sort of epiphany: this can never nor would ever happen for a multitude of reasons, the biggest one being that to ban abortion would be akin to, well, forcing an entire country to accept a single healthcare provider. While I will always cheer when steps are made to taking away abortion or when abortion clinics are shut down, I understand that to completely get rid of them would be a sort of violation, despite my personal opinions about it. What I cannot accept from Obamacare is the plan to force me to pay tax dollars to fund abortions and abortion clinics. I am vehemently against abortion: to me, there is no reasonable instance in which abortion is okay. Yes, that means that rape victims, victims of incest, those whose lives are endangered by the pregnancy, or pre-term babies that show signs of problems. No, I’m not sorry for this stance. While I am just as appalled as the next person with all the talk that’s been going on about “legitimate rape”, by saying that abortion is okay in one instance, then that leads to being okay in more instances, until finally abortion is where it is now: any teenager whose condom breaks can walk in and get an abortion. This is simply unacceptable. Plus the fact that there have been studies that show that rape victims who keep their babies have a better time dealing with their trauma than those who abort, which is also true for those who were not raped but just decided to abort. A good percentage of women who decide to abort suffer guilt and emotional problems because of it.

So, that got a little off track, but my point is that Obamacare should not tell me that I have to pay for women across the nation to kill their babies (or, in technical terms, “terminate a pregnancy”). I am against it, I do not believe that it is ever the right decision, and I should not be forced to contribute to it.

The federal government was not created to see to every single need of every single individual. The federal government is meant to take care of the country as a whole: to act as a representative of the American people in times of war or crisis; to command and maintain the army; to coin money and keep track of the economy (which, by the way, Obama is also failing at, but that’s for another post); and to ensure that we remain a free country, free to live and pursue that gosh-darned happiness. The thing about that pursuit of happiness, though: nowhere in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence does it say that happiness is guaranteed or that we as Americans are entitled to it. We are free to try our damnedest to reach it, but that does not mean that the government is responsible for giving it to us.

Am I a heartless, unfeeling bitch? I don’t think so. It’s unfair that not every can get the treatment or medicine that they need because they can’t afford it. It’s unfair that not everyone can be healthy and that not everyone can get the healthcare they need. At the same time, it’s not our federal government’s responsibility to address that issue. It is the responsibility of the states individually. The states can do the most good by taking into account specific demographics, economics, statistics, and input from constituents. That’s what Romney’s plan is based on, and that’s what makes the most sense.

I have no delusions that this post will convert anyone or change any minds. Whatever comments I do get will be positive from the Romney supporters and vitriol from the Obama supporters. But silence equates to consent, and I can no longer remain silent. Too many times I sit at the lunch table and listen to friends praise Obama and curse Romney without saying a word because I know it’s not an argument I’ll win. Too many times I read articles and comments that just are not getting to the point and just exit the page. Not anymore. I’m standing up and saying what I think.

And hell, I didn’t even touch on his economic policies. Another rant for another day.