No self-respecting woman or man for that matter wants to be viewed as pro-abortion. Not even a militant feminist like me is comfortable speaking out publicly on behalf of women who would chose to abort their fetuses, but the stark reality of life is that every year as many as 20 million women all over the world have unsafe unregulated abortions.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a non-partisan sex education research clearinghouse, approximately 70,00 women die and millions more suffer extreme health complications from these procedures. Before the United States legalized abortions, wealthy women sought abortions in Europe where the operation was legal and safe while others simply attempted to end their pregnancy with coat hangers or by other potentially lethal, life threatening means. The cold hard reality is that whether you like it or approve of it desperate women faced with horrible decisions will seek to end pregnancies by any means necessary. Most sensible, freethinking individuals consider safe, legal abortions as a necessary option, which serves the greater good. Many people including myself would like to get to a place in society where we could tone down the tenor of shrill debate on abortion and focus our attention on birth control and sex education so that abortion becomes a choice rarely made. Unfortunately we have a very vocal minority which seems fixated on fetuses as “children” and focus their legislative efforts on making obtaining an abortion as expensive, time consuming and difficult as legislatively possible to achieve, while they stack the courts in an ongoing effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.

I feel that no one has a right to make this very personal choice for the individual. There are things that no woman likes to speak of in public, things so personal that it savages the soul. I have personally been faced with the prospect of an unwanted pregnancy. And I just want to say that unless you’ve spent a couple of days waiting for your period and literally not been able to sleep, eat or breath without crying you can’t even imagine the fear of having something growing inside you that you don’t want, aren’t prepared for and can’t imagine how to deal with. It’s all well and good for everyone to sit on your moralistic high horse and mouth your platitudes about giving the baby up for adoption or thinking about the consequences of your behavior but we’ve all done things we regret and I know plenty of women who are in relationships where they aren’t in positions of power where they can control when and where they have sex. So spare me your judgment. All I can say is I judge no one because I have felt that fear and it is a very dark and lonely place to be. Everyone has to make her own decision and then live with that choice. I also know that while there is deep and heartfelt concern for these unborn fetuses there is virtually no focused consideration for these children born into desperate circumstances once they come into this world. And let me tell you something, if mama isn’t exactly thrilled about the prospect of giving birth and you pile another baby onto her laundry list of woes the prospects aren’t exactly rosy. I’m certainly not advocating abortion as an antidote to child abuse and that’s where the sex education and birth control emphasis comes into play.

South Carolina has the lowest rates of women serving in appointed or elected positions in the nation, just 11% of state legislators are women. When women are excluded from the legislative process it results in punitive legislation that exclusively affects women like the ultra sound/abortion bill. The bill proposes that South Carolina become the first state in the nation to force a woman seeking an abortion to view the ultra sound image of her fetus. SC House lawmakers barred exemptions for victims of rape and incest insisting that to exempt such victims would “gut” the legislation. Sponsors of the bill even went so far as to say that if rape and incest victims were offered an exemption they might make up sexual assaults to get abortions. I am so sickened by that I could barely force myself to type it. Who are these self-righteous pigs? How in the world do they call themselves Christians when they so callously and cruelly speak of women who have been raped? They act as if a penis has given them some special insight or God given ability to guide females in their reproductive choices. Not one of these fetus focused, hypocrites would vote in favor of full funding of public health programs which would help low income women secure birth control and pap smears and other preventative checks ups, yet they are all gung ho to spent a million or more dollars for state mandated ultra sounds for every abortion in South Carolina. None of the sponsors of the bill have mentioned how they will pay for these mandatory ultra sounds or how they will force the women to view the images. I would think forcing an unwilling participant to view the ultrasound may be an infringement of their civil rights but that’s just my own speculation. At the very least it seems very intrusive and unnecessary burden for the clinics to provide but…they don’t seem to care about adding more layers of expensive and intrusive procedures since inhibiting the process is what this game is all about.

When someone like Senator Mike Fair says they aren’t trying to block access to abortions…you need to pay attention because that’s exactly what these fetus focused hypocrites are trying to do, one expensive, time-consuming layer at a time.