Who Decides on Where the Power to Choose Who Lives Lies?

And which genital are you deciding with?

When a woman makes a decision about whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, it is never a light decision.

The right answer may be obvious to her or it may not. But it is never easy.

For many women, the decision will play practicalities such as financial stability, mental health, and resources, against emotions. Hormones are running riot and such a decision requires a unique kind of mental strength that only mothers — or pregnant women — possess.

Pregnant women seeking abortion are not uncaring, thoughtless, carefree, selfish individuals. They are, for the most part, intelligent, feeling, and highly considerate humans.

They understand that the soul that is forming within them is innocent and deserving of love. They also know that bringing a child into a world where, for a number of reasons, they may not be given a happy start in life, or where they may already have too many options taken away from them, before life has even begun, is not the most loving thing to do.

That is why, for the most part, women seeking an abortion find the decision to terminate a single pregnancy so excruciatingly hard.

The decision they come to does not come easily.

On the other hand, I wonder how hard those men thought before they walked into a school and shot many unsuspecting children in a matter of minutes?

Children who already had so much going for them? Children who had formed relationships with people and the world around them?

Children who had no choice in the matter and lived just a few years on this planet only to die in horrific circumstances? Innocent children who deserved the chance to live full lives?

Or did those men consider the lasting effects on those present who didn’t die but came close to death, or watched their classmates die? Did they realise that such trauma will destroy the life of someone, even though their hearts still beat and their lungs still breathe air?

Did that man with the gun consider any of that? And did the person who allowed them the weapon that destroyed these lives consider the enormous, destructive power they equipped that one person with?

I wonder how many of those children who died in such a manner came into this world after a difficult decision during pregnancy?

A decision that, despite the hostile world that they were coming into, their mother made with love. A difficult decision that resulted in a resolve to birth them, raise them with love, give them every opportunity they can, against any odds that made the decision hard in the first place…

…only to have them ripped away from them because of one man with a gun?

Who decides on where the power to choose life lies? And which genital are they making that decision with?

This was inspired by this raw, honest, and heartfelt piece by Preeti Ramachandran: