Yet we have in this country and in power people who want to make these things illegal. And for what reason? In 1989, Romania became free after 40 years of Communist totalitarianism and over 20 years of dictator Ceausescu’s rule:
With the official object of increasing the population, from 1966 until the December 1989 Revolution abortions were forbidden, following a decree made by Ceausescu. Women of childbearing age were subjected to obligatory gynaecological examinations in order for them to be registered in the case that they were pregnant or to determine whether they had been using contraceptives. Women who did not wish to keep pregnancies resorted to rudimentary and extremely dangerous forms of clandestine abortion. It is estimated that up to ten thousand women died as a result of such attempts to terminate pregnancies.
Many children unwanted by parents were born with serious health problems. Infant mortality increased during this period; in order to decrease the official figures, births could be registered only after a two-week delay. Often, unwanted children were abandoned in hospitals immediately after birth, later being placed in Orphanages and Children’s Homes. Due to health problems and inadequate conditions, many of these children (probably a few thousand) died at an early age.
Yes, women will continue to get abortions no matter what, you can count on it. Should any government make its business the enforcement of theological issues? No! That is in the realm of each person’s personal religious beliefs and you are free to have different beliefs than I. Does that mean you, in the form of a majority-rule democracy or a totalitarian-rule dictatorship have the right to force your theocratic beliefs on my body and mind? No!! No government or other person should ever, ever have that right.
In other words, if you don’t want to get an abortion because of your religion, then don’t get one. You don’t like what’s on, turn the channel.
Roe was about much more than the right to abortion. Roe gave women the opportunity to plan their families and enabled them to fully participate in the social, economic, and political fabric of life in our nation. Planned Parenthood will continue to keep these opportunities available by providing these essential services to millions, and standing strong to protect our fundamental human rights.[From Democratic Wings]
There is a malignancy on the American psyche and it is this notion that human behavior regarding sex should be restricted and punished unless it is primarily for procreative purposes and that other private behaviors are somehow the provence of one’s neighbors or one’s government. It’s a malignancy because so many people either believe in it whole-heartedly to the extent they want to control others who don’t believe or behave as they do, but that also those who object don’t object loudly, constantly, vociferously to these blue noses in our midst.
The result: we get an Administration that is actively attempting to destroy all family planning in this country as well of the rest of the world (at least the 3rd world anyway) through “gag rules” for aid, appointments of anti-family planning advocates to high positions in family planning institutions, abstinence-only sex education classes for our young and so much more.
And what do those policies result in? More AIDs in Africa, more women dying from illegal abortions, more unwanted pregnancies and unwanted babies here and at home, the spread of venereal disease by teenagers ignorant of any meangful sex education. Is there even one good thing that can be said about this policy that forces a narrow religious belief on others?
The concept of privacy embodied by the Roe v. Wade ruling marked an advancement in our civilization: the concept that each individual has the right to do with his or her own body what they deem right and correct. Why on earth would anyone want to try and dismantle that right? What is so threatening about that right?
What would happen if suddenly, tomorrow say, everyone in the United States believed in the right to privacy as unalienable? Here’s just a partial list:
- Unwanted pregnancies would drop to near zero as would transmission rates of venereal disease of all kinds
- Prisons would be closed down and new ones deemed not neccessary as victimless drug crimes would be decriminalized, freeing up billions of dollars for treatment of those seeking help for the sickness of addiction.
- Less people to arrest for less crimes means the need for huge amounts of police personnel (including police officers, probation officers, parole officers, prison guards and all ancillary staff) would be greatly diminished.
- Prostitution would be legal and then could be regulated thereby decreasing the spread of disease, violent crimes by johns against women and even the number of rapes in the general population (there is strong evidence of this effect).
- New jobs would be created in the health and rehab fields for those with drug and sex addictions that could now be treated and cured since the onus of criminality is gone (i.e., private treatment for a private problem about which the individual has decided to do something).
Wow! A world of less crime, less money in taxes spent on enforcement of essentially moral issues (cops as preachers), a decrease in the “busy body” culture that America seems stuck in, less disease, less unwanted children, better health, more freedom and autonomy to live and pursue your own brand of happiness whatever that is, just like is says in the Declaration of Independence that started us out.
Ben Franklin had some say on what was stamped on the first penney of the U.S.: “Mind your business” Our government has no place in your or my personal life. Neither does my neighbor nor the pastor at the church down the street. Roe v. Wade affirmed that concept. And ever since, there’s been a movement to dilute or destroy it. Ask yourself why they are doing so. Ask yourself what kind of country we would live in if they ever succeeded.
And ask yourself why “Mind your business!” isn’t the very first thing you say, loud and clear, to anyone who wants to take your rights of privacy away.
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