In the current political scene, I've noticed criticism of candidates (Hillary Clinton) saying things they had not said previously, things that they had totally disagreed with before. This is not to try to sway you to change your personal viewpoints or to change your vote, just to show that it is completely natural for people's opinions to change as they learn more about a subject and as they mature. I wrote this when I was 16-17. Back then, I was vehemently pro-life. Now, I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum. Take a peek:

Why is it that in America, fetuses have more rights than homosexuals, transgenders, women, and minorities?

"Considering how fetuses just so happen to be people - just unborn - and considering that abortion is basically legalized murder, I’d say that those laws are giving them the basic human right to live. There aren’t any laws legalizing the murder of homosexuals, transgenders, women, and minorities in the U.S., now are there? By standing up for abortion, you’re not being a feminist. You’re supporting the killing of billions of babies, billions of people who could have done amazing things. And from what I’ve seen and heard, quite a few of those women who get abortions wish they hadn’t."

Fetuses are clumps of cells, not people, so that takes away the murder criticism. Technically, by outlawing abortion, you're making legal to force a woman to carry her pregnancy to term even if it means she'll die. Which is legalizing murder, of sorts. If you really want to save the children, focus on the children who are here in this world, living and breathing in foster homes, in war-torn countries, on the streets. These are the children who need your help, these are the children who need your saving. These are the children who are going to die if you don't do something about it. And if you truly think that cells are more important than these children, I believe there is something truly messed up with your logic. While there are women who regret their abortions, far more don't. Also, there are "quite a few" women who wish they hadn't had kids.

"I totally understand why someone wouldn’t want kids and would want to do anything to get life back to normal. I’ve heard the stories of what happens to the single women and girls that happens to, and yeah, that’s pretty awful, really freaking hard, and all of that. If something happened and I got pregnant, I’d want to get rid of the kid asap and pretend it never happened. No way would I want to deal with the rumors and sneers, cramps and crap, and not being able to do what I love for several months."

And nor should anyone have to deal with that unless they truly want to.

"But it shouldn’t be the choice of the mother to decide whether her child lives or dies. If someone decided after their child was born, they didn’t want it anymore, and took it apart piece by piece, there would be an uproar. People would be horrified. Yet because those babies are still in their mother’s womb, developing, with their heart beats and brain activity, and people can’t see them, it’s so easy for them to just say, 'Oh, a fetus is just a part of the mother’s body until it’s this many weeks old'."

Except it is the choice of the woman. She doesn't need any reason for an abortion other than that she just doesn't want to be pregnant, because it's her body. This is where the importance of birth comes in. Yes, there is a point where the fetus does have a heartbeat and is fully formed. But until that fetus is born, it has no rights. There can be only one person with full rights in a body, not two. This idea that fetuses are people with full human rights turns women into containers to carry them and to be opened up at will, and not necessarily with the woman's consent either. It makes it so that miscarriages can be investigated as murders, because what if the woman working long hours or exercising a lot caused a miscarriage? By that logic, she could be tried for manslaughter. You can already see this happening in the world, where women are being put behind bars because they had a miscarriage.

"It’s a simple fact of life that women are the ones who are built to carry children. That’s why we’ve got the hips, the breasts, the extra fat, and why our bodies do what they do. Yeah, it kind of sucks, but that’s life."

This does not, however, mean that we are obligated to have children just because our bodies are built for it, nor that we're required to see pregnancies through.

"That does not mean that one can decide to get rid of the child because it’s inconvenient. You go through with the pregnancy, and you put that child up for adoption if you don’t want it, so that someone who does can give that little life a home. You do not kill another person. And, especially if people are nasty, it’s going to be really hard going through with it, especially if you work or go to school, because that’s how society currently is. And especially with everything people say these days and not actually being able to see the child, it’s gonna be so easy to believe it’s just tissue. But you push through, you don’t kill that child, and after it’s born, you can pretend it never happened, if you want. You can go back to your life, and yeah, it’s going to be different than it was before you got pregnant. But you won’t have a child’s blood on your hands. And that should make it easier to deal with things."

Except yes, it is entirely your choice, and you don't need to have super in depth reasons for it either. "I just don't want to be pregnant" is reason enough. There are already so many children waiting to be adopted or who have been taken in by abusive families. It isn't murder to terminate a pregnancy. It's a special kind of torture to force women to see a pregnancy through if they don't want to be pregnant - especially if they are pregnant because of rape. Or if they're not women but children themselves, and their bodies can't handle it. Talk about cruel.

"You know, I wish there were a hell of a lot more equality laws too. My parents are somewhat sexist. Dad complains loudly about having to do 'women’s work' whenever he has to fold clothes or dust something or whatever and grumbles about women gunning for the same positions as men. If I were interested in girls not boys, they wouldn’t speak to me. But do you really think that true equality can be reached when there are laws allowing murder and killing people who are all of the groups mentioned up there and more? Yeah. I don’t think so."

I think it's more police brutality and senseless wars and such that are the issue now, but you get my point. Outlawing abortion does not get rid of abortion. It gets rid of safe abortions and forces people to go back to coathangers and back-alleys.

There is a lot more I could say in response to my 16- 17-year-old self, but I think I've made my point. When I was that age, I was pro-life, homophobic, anti-feminism, didn't think that white privilege was a thing, and more. Obviously, I felt very strongly about all of that. As I've researched more into things, all of those beliefs changed, and it's just as clear that I feel very strongly about those too. So it seems irrelevant to get on someone's case about something they said years ago if it's obvious that's not something they believe in anymore. Ya feel?