I grew up, more or less, having Republican values and beliefs served to me like a side of mashed potatoes with dinner. When I was younger, I thought of it similar to religion. Some people are born one way and some are born another. My parents were Catholic, so I was raised Catholic. My parents were Republican, so therefore I must be too. In a household where I can recall conversations about how Democrats are always wrong and Republicans are always right from the time I was six years old on, I didn’t think I had a choice.
And that’s the problem. No one should ever be made to feel as if they don’t have a choice.
The funny thing is, I’m from New Jersey. It’s primarily a state that votes blue. But the area that I actually grew up in? That’s a different story.
If you didn’t know any better, just based on the stories, and looking at the people, you might think my hometown was in Texas or Alabama. Where I come from, it’s all big trucks, BBQs, country music, and a very right-wing way of thinking. “MAGA” hats and “Let’s Go Brandon” flags are in abundance. (I’ve got one neighbor still campaigning “Hillary For Prison” and another hoping for “Trump 2024”) The vast majority of my quips about summer people are actually based on the types of people I’ve been around my entire life. A woman in cutoff shorts, grilling burgers while drinking beer with country music in the background on a brutally hot summer day, is literally the most “basic white girl” image I can conjure, solely based on personal experience. Sometimes I jokingly refer to this area as “the Northern South”.
So, as you can imagine, Republican and Christian views were what I was raised on. I didn’t know very many people outside of my hometown when I was a child, so there was really nothing to counteract it. And even if there had been, would it have worked? Can a small child ever truly be convinced that their parents are wrong?
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When I was thirteen, I finally started getting brave and sneaking around a bit online. This was when it was still considered unsafe to be oversharing on the internet, so I was primarily just a lurker, but there was one particular message board, I believe it was on the website that existed at the time in conjunction with the magazine Teen, that I frequented and often contributed to. Most of the posts I involved myself with were silly ones talking about crushes or clothes or typical teen girl embarrassing moments. There were also these stories that someone would create and then more girls would add to it from a different character’s point of view…I honestly kind of miss that. But it was on this message board that I first became aware of the pro-life/pro-choice debate.
It excited me to become a part of such a serious discussion. I was at that age when, even though I was still very much a kid, I wanted to start being seen as more of an adult. Especially being in middle school and feeling like I was so much younger, mentally, than everyone else. I honestly had never thought twice about where I stood, personally, on these types of issues before. And I continued to "not think" as I started reading through the posts in the forum.
I'm not sure the exact ages of the girls involved in these discussions, but I don't think any of us were old enough to vote. I remember there actually being a big scandal one time because an eighteen-year-old had joined, so this tells you something about the maturity level of the people involved. Most of the girls who posted to this thread posted all kinds of pro-life stuff. Pictures of sickly babies, prose written from an aborted fetus's point of view, that sort of thing. And, in my thirteen-year-old, not-nearly-old-enough-to-really-get-it brain, the idea of abortion conjured almost a horror movie image of babies being slaughtered. Scenes of actual murder, brutal and terrifying, like those stories you hear of women drowning their children or a young girl giving birth and leaving the baby in a dumpster. I was uneducated on the subject, not nearly mature enough to understand the different stages of pregnancy and fetuses. And I understood pro-life to be the side of Catholic and Republican people, both of which I'd been raised as, so based on these factors, I dubbed myself pro-life and started posting to this forum thread as if I actually knew something about the subject. Me, a sheltered thirteen-year-old, who at the time was convinced I would most likely die a virgin anyway due to my social issues. It's embarrassing to think I tried to speak on such an issue back then.
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The older I got, the more I began to question the values I once thought were my own. As kids in my graduating class reached voting age, and I took a very informative and eye opening current events class my senior year, political issues started to come up in conversation more and more, and I started to realize that perhaps I needed to stop and think about it what I supposedly believed in. My best friend in high school was actually very pro-choice and probably the first one who ever made me look at the issue from a different perspective. (This is probably why she is still in my life, one of few people from my hometown whose company I genuinely enjoy.) My senior year was an eye opening one for me, as I didn't feel ready to graduate, and wondered why it was the law of the land that after twelve years of school (not counting kindergarten or preschool), you were just expected to know what you wanted to do with your life, and were supposed to just walk out into the world regardless of whether you felt like you had all the tools necessary to succeed or not.
And it was that thought that ultimately made me realize just how pro-choice I really am, about every aspect of life.
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Society has a serious issue with trying to place everyone and everything under some kind of black-and-white umbrella of "right and wrong". There's such a prepackaged idea of what everyone should and shouldn't be doing. Meanwhile, society is forgetting a very important factor that's drilled into our heads as children, sung to us by purple dinosaurs and big yellow birds, continuously reiterated by our parents when a disagreement occurs, etc., and that is the fact that everyone is different!!!! What works for one person or situation, is not necessarily going to work for another. People, and life in general, just aren't that black and white! We mature at different rates. We have different factors in our lives, as far as upbringings, financial situations, health issues, etc. This can be applied to an infinite number of situations, including the issue of pregnancy and abortion.
Some people want children. Some simply do not. Some people are healthy and fertile. Some are not, to the point where pregnancy could lead to fatality. Some people have the financial means to raise a child. Some do not. And then there are cases of rape and sexual abuse. People whose lives end up being thrown into turmoil because someone committed a terrible crime against them. In addition to having to deal with the physical, emotional, and psychological effects of going through such an ordeal, should they also be forced to carry a child, a constant reminder of what they've been through, and then have to scramble to raise it, when it was something they most likely weren't ready for? And meanwhile the rapists themselves barely face any consequences for their actions? How is it anyone's choice but the pregnant person's, if they are ready, willing, and able to carry and raise and child? Absolutely no one is fit to make that decision, but the person whose body it is.
I know there are many arguments that happen over this...one of the biggest tends to come from people who have suffered miscarriages, and while I definitely understand how it could be triggering to hear of someone terminating a pregnancy after you've lost one, I truly don't see how one cancels out the other. Your desire to have a child does not cancel out another person's desire not to, or the circumstances in which it may be damaging to them. Everyone's situation, whether it be about pregnancy or anything else in life, is different. What's good for one person is not always good for another, and the only person who can possibly truly know what's best for them, is that person themself. Projecting your own experiences onto someone else, does not automatically make that person's circumstances, your circumstances. Live and let live.
And honestly, is banning abortion truly pro-life? Yes, babies will be born that may not have been, but what circumstances will these babies be born into? Poverty? Sickness? A childhood spent in foster care? The constant feeling of being unwanted? A toxic home life/family dynamic? And what about the people forced to bear these children? Will they be so distraught they commit suicide, or end up murdered by those that impregnated them to avoid the responsibility of a parenthood they weren't ready for? Die because their bodies can't handle the pregnancy? And people will still seek abortions. Only, without a safe, legal option, they will be putting their own lives at risk to obtain one. People will die. An abortion ban isn't truly saving anyone.
All of these points aside, the most important thing to remember is that someone's reasons for making a personal choice about their own body and life is absolutely no one's business but their own. I have said, since waking up and educating myself on such issues, that the government is far too concerned about what's going on in the privacy of people's homes, particularly in their bedrooms. There is no huge government impact when someone makes the choice, for any reason, not to give birth to a child. There is no impact on anyone but the person who chooses to terminate the pregnancy, and beliefs to the contrary are solely tied up in religion, not any real-life point. I apologize if religion is your thing, but it simply can't be applied to every situation.
I have had things happen in my life that I never expected. I have done things I said I'd never do, I've changed points of view on things that I once thought to be non-negotiable, and I can honestly say, speaking from my own experiences as a once sheltered, set-in-my-ways small town girl, that one does not truly know a situation until they are involved in it themselves. I've been judgmental in the past about certain things, but growing up and actually experiencing things has taught me so much. If there is one thing I wish I could go back and tell myself, or perhaps tell a new generation of children and teens with sheltered upbringings, it's that nothing in this world fits under a black-and-white umbrella, and nor is it meant to. Everyone's specific situations and reasonings are different, and the ability to make choices is absolutely essential.
We have all been in situations where we've felt trapped. Even if it's a small thing, or something that would be considered insignificant to another person, we've all had that feeling, at one time or another, of I'm stuck. That powerlessness is scary, no matter what it's in reference to. Everyone should have the power to make their own decisions about their lives, and sadly it's already so hard to hold onto that power, that right. The high cost of living has forced many people to stay in toxic households or abusive relationships. There are people afraid to step outside of their homes, lest they risk violence due to their race, or a random shooting, etc. Is it really ethical to force someone to carry and bear a child, when it's already so hard for us to make the decisions and hold onto the freedoms that are supposed to be our rights?
"With liberty and justice for all", is becoming more and more of a selective statement by the day. My cousin that I talked about in this post? She was shot and killed by her husband. Her husband kept a gun in the house for no real reason and didn't hesitate to fire at her immediately, upon, supposedly, waking up "startled" in the middle of the night. My cousin is dead and her husband is not in jail, and most likely won't be because of his family's social status. Nothing has been done to control gun ownership, despite mass shootings happening almost as regularly as changing one's underwear. Those of us with uteruses have more regulations placed on us than things that are truly deadly. And for what, really, at the end of the day? Control, that's all.
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The bottom line is, life is already difficult. There is absolutely no need for a law to make it even more difficult, by eliminating the right to make a choice about a major personal issue involving one's own body and nothing else. If you, personally, become pregnant and don't feel right about having an abortion, then simply don't. But don't apply your belief system to everyone else, when only the person involved can make that choice for themself. Getting people to mind their own business is already an issue. We don't need the government getting involved.
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