There's A Difference B/W Your Personal View Of Abortion AND Women's Rights

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"Abortion rights and reproductive freedom and choice needs to be seen in the larger context of individual liberties, of women determining the course of their lives and having control over their lives. "


Dear Dear DUers All,

There's a difference between your right to your opinion on abortion and a woman's right to have an abortion.

Can you see the difference between what you think, feel, believe and choose for your own family regarding reproductive rights
AND respecting other's rights to reproductive health and privacy?

Can you see the similarity between joining discussions arguing what is moral or right or wrong for others based on what you think YOU would do
AND those religious or political busybodies who argue what is moral or right or wrong for others based on what they think EVERYONE must do?

Can you imagine that if women's rights to reproductive health and privacy are eroded (and women are returned to second class citizen status) that there may be more moral bigots coming after you in the future: in YOUR private life, in YOUR doctor's office, in YOUR family, in YOUR bedroom, in YOUR body?

As a wise poster stated on another thread:

“The abortion debate is about who controls a woman's body: the woman or the state. Anything else is meaningless handwaving.”

An excellent discussion on Meet The Press states how people of conscience can have their own attitudes about the abortion issue AND know the difference between their opinions and the rights of women.

"What is at issue is the individual right to privacy and dignity for American women and the issue of who’s going to get to decide the most intimate aspects of our lives."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10721401/page/3 /

RE: RESPECTING CHOICE WHEN IT'S NOT YOUR CHOICE TO MAKE

MR. RUSSERT: Can you be a pro-life, pro-anti-abortion rights feminist?

MS. MICHELMAN: You can be a feminist and oppose the act of abortion on moral and ethical, religious, on personal grounds; absolutely can be.
And, in fact, many people who are pro-choice in terms of their beliefs that the policies of this nation should respect the diversity of views on these issues related to pregnancy and childbearing, abortion, and reproductive matters, that there is a diversity of views and they are informed by one’s values, as they are mine.
My personal values informed my decision about abortion.
But you can be absolutely anti-abortion, if you will, and pro-choice; believing that women ultimately, not the government, not Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay and Bill Frist, but women themselves must determine the course of their lives, and central to that determining the course of their lives is determining when and under what circumstances they will become mothers.
Because the thing that most women want is to be successful at mothering.
And the first ingredient is being able to determine when that time is right and not being forced by the government and by politicians or by judges to bear a child under circumstances of one—not of one’s choosing.

RE: LANGUAGE MATTERS

MS. MICHELMAN: Could I speak to this “abortion on demand”? 
I have to comment about this because I hear it over and over and over again.
First of all, I ran a Planned Parenthood affiliate for years.
I have been with women who have faced the decision about whether or not to have an abortion.
I have never heard a woman demand to have an abortion.
I think that that language reveals the lack of respect that those who oppose abortion have for women who face crises.
We’ve got to get rid of that language.
And Roe does not guarantee women a right to abortion without restrictions.
It balanced rights of women to have an abortion in the earlier stages of pregnancy, and allows the states to restrict in the post-viability, roughly last trimester.

RE: PRINCIPLES OF DIGNITY AND PRIVACY FOR WOMEN

MR. RUSSERT: Are the Democrats changing their vocabulary on abortion, because to Kate’s point, the political—the politics are changing?

MS. MICHELMAN: You know, I think those public comments and that public angsting after the 2004 presidential election was unfortunate because the principle that underlies a pro-choice position are the principles of dignity and privacy for women.
Abortion rights and reproductive freedom and choice needs to be seen in the larger context of individual liberties, of women determining the course of their lives and having control over their lives.
And the right to choose is an ex—the right to choose, the right of the individual woman to be guaranteed, to be free from the government and political interference in making this decision is a right that is embraced by the majority of Americans.
There may be different views on the individual act of abortion, but in terms of who should make the decision, whether it’s government and politicians or women, there is universal acceptance that women must make that decision.