Why abortion is not a mother’s prerogative
RINA DAVID stated in her May 8 column (“What a mom wants”): “I still support a woman’s right to have options including the option of abortion. Motherhood is a choice, and given the challenges, we shouldn’t be forcing women to be mothers when they don’t think they’ll be good at it—or good mothers to so many children.” While I respect her personal opinion, I do not think there is a clamor from many mothers to allow abortion as an option to resolve an unwanted pregnancy or to limit the number of their children. Usually, it is first-time, unwed mothers, afraid of the shame and condemnation, who find abortion as a convenient way of resolving such problem. The advocacy to allow abortion only gives people who are against the bill more reason to believe that even without clearly advocating it, the bill actually sanctions abortion in so many words. What I understand about the bill is, it mainly seeks to establish a system and network for the dissemination of information on how to prevent rather than terminate unwanted pregnancies, the latter being what abortion is. I believe that abortion remains a heinous crime against humanity perpetuated on the unborn who is made to suffer the consequences of his/her parents’ decision not to use a condom to avoid pregnancy. The self-absorbed attitude, in today’s age, is sex has become only one of so many sources for instant gratification, and abortion is an easy way out of responsible parenthood.
A woman who does not want to bear, much less care for, a child will never be a mother. This being said, the topic of abortion is totally unrelated to a commentary about what mothers want.
The reality is there are more urgent women’s rights issues other than legal abortion that surely mothers (especially those who are single parents) want concrete resolutions, such as domestic violence, psychological abuse, philandering husbands, lack of child support when the family is abandoned by one parent, and women having to bear the burden of being head of families because their husbands won’t.
A fetus is not part of a woman’s body but, rather, is another human entity beginning its existence in the obviously intended haven of its mother’s womb. Neither is a child that of a mother exclusively. The father also is responsible for siring the child whether out of love or lust. At some point, no one can argue that it is not the mother but God who breathes life to a fetus, hence, the termination of life is also not a mother’s prerogative but that of God. For medical cases, the doctor must be the arbiter if an abortion is indeed necessary. Like it or not, parents will be accountable to the Creator not to society, for being God’s instrument in His continuing act of creation. Society today is so passionate about preserving the tiniest endangered animal, yet many nations have already allowed women, no matter of what age, to make the all important decision to terminate the life in her womb for the flimsiest reasons.
—MARY JOAN ANGELES,
