Thoughts on "the right to choose"

Let me begin by stating that I am generally against abortion, although I acknowledge that it is always a difficult question.  But what I want to address in this post is the phrase “a woman’s right to choose,” a phrase that is often used to support a woman’s right to an abortion, including her unilateral right to make that choice.

In my opinion, the woman’s “choice” came well before the time at which she is considering an abortion (except in cases of rape or similar crimes which can be the subject of a separate discussion as noted at the end of this post).  Unless one assumes that a woman is so weak and driven by her sexual desires to the extent that she cannot use her mind, a woman has the right to choose whether or not to engage in sexual intercourse.  I also believe that women are intelligent enough to understand all the possible consequences of that activity, including the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy.  A woman is able to grasp the fact that no form of birth control is 100% effective and she is able to understand that means that even if she uses birth control there is the possibility of pregnancy if she chooses to engage in sexual activity.  To think that women cannot understand this is to paint them as far dumber than they actually are.  

When a woman engages in consensual sex and becomes pregnant, the pregnancy is not a mistake.  It might be an undesirable consequence, but it is not an unknown possible consequence.  If the choice to have sex itself was a mistake, addressing the consequences of that mistake should not give the woman the automatic right to terminate another living being.  

I believe that women, like all people, should and are capable of taking responsibility for the consequences of their actions.  Hence, once making the choice to engage in sexual intercourse they are responsible for all the possible consequences of that action.   If the resulting consequence of choosing to engage in sex is that the woman becomes pregnant, she then carries within her body another living being that belongs not to the mother alone, but to the father as well and most importantly to itself.  Any right to choose that the mother may now have does not extend to making choices for the father or for the child within.  While the pregnant woman might believe that terminating the life of the child is a good choice for her, it is no longer her choice alone to make; no longer is what is good for her the only consideration.  This does not imply that abortion is never the best choice.  The point is, that in making the decision there are now 3 lives involved, not just that of the mother.

Yes, the child is within the mother’s womb; the woman’s body is affected by the pregnancy.  But this was a possible consequence when she made the choice to have sex.  She cannot now say “oops, I didn’t know.”  In a way, saying that the woman’s choice occurs after the pregnancy begins is to assume that women are just plain stupid, or weak and incapable of assessing possibilities and making decisions about whether or not to have sex.  It assumes that women are not capable of taking responsibility for their actions, even when those actions lead to a result that they do not like and now include a responsibility to another living being.

Note that the above is focused toward pregnancy following a consensual act of sex.  If the act was truly non-consensual then of course the woman did not have the opportunity to make a choice to or to not have sex and whether or not a woman should be able to choose to have an abortion if a pregnancy follows that non-consensual act requires a separate and more difficult discussion.  Similarly, there is a more difficult discussion if the mother’s own life is at risk if the pregnancy continues.  These sorts of situations require more difficult dialog because, while there is a stronger argument for allowing the woman to choose to have an abortion, there is still the other living being within her whose life will be extinguished if the abortion occurs.  The question then becomes how much does this growing life count in the decision process.