Let me start by saying that this is the hardest article I have ever written. As a female college student, I am surrounded by, and immersed within, the pro-choice movement. It seems to be a mandate for my generation. If you’re not pro-choice you have backward thinking, you don’t support women, you must be an old, white man in the GOP. If you aren’t pro-choice you must be uneducated, you don’t know how repressed women are, you must be regurgitating your parents’ beliefs. So it is hard for me, a young woman, surrounded by these thoughts, to stay true to my own values. It is hard for me to scroll through the pro-choice media. It is hard to defend my own opinions against a tirade of opposing views.
This is not meant to be a political statement, or a better than thou message. I do not mean to alienate with my personal beliefs. But I must say: I do not understand abortion.
I do not understand how a small and defenseless human can be deemed no more than a cluster of cells, akin to bacteria on a petri dish.
I do not understand how a mother whose natural instinct is to protect the life inside her, can chose to end it.
I do not understand how pregnancy has become a condition of the body that, if so desired, can be ended with treatment, like strep throat or the flu.
I do not understand how we can value our souls, above all else. Spend our lives searching for soul mates, pursue careers that fill our soul, and listen to our souls for guidance through life, as they are a vital essence of our humanity. But the soul of a small human is denied and disregarded, simply because their residence is within a womb.
I do not understand how a society working towards love and acceptance has not given our unborn the same right to feel the same way.
I do not understand how I can sit in a classroom, surrounded by women who have made the conscious decision to have an abortion if ever faced with an unwanted pregnancy.
I do not understand the disregard for fetal life when time and money are no object for a prematurely born infant.
I do not understand how human beings can become so passionate and angry about a woman’s right to end the life inside her, but no one speaks for that life.
I do not understand how a shot from a gun into the body of an innocent victim, resulting in death, is a heinous crime, but an injection through the wall of the uterus, into the amniotic sac, resulting in death, is a right that we vehemently defend.
I do not understand how the suggestion to de-legalize abortion can fill hearts with hate while the thought of losing life fills my eyes with tears.
I do not understand why I am made to feel less than because I, a woman, do not support my fellow women in their right to terminate pregnancy as they deem necessary.
I do not understand abortion.