Abortions, Adoption: I stand with Planned Parenthood
I flip through the news section of my computer until something catches my eye; a CNN news article with the headline: “Planned Parenthood did 1 Adoption Referral per 149 Abortions.” It catches my eye for a couple of reasons, one; I’ve been following the struggle Texas recently went through for keeping women’s rights to contraceptives and abortions (here’s a link to the Wendy Davis’s filibuster in the Senate that lasted over 7 hours! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62pUAp_S6Bs) secondly; adoptions right up my alley. I clicked on the title and found myself reading a pretty biased (from my point of view) article on how Planned Parenthood performed 327,166 abortions this year. That’s what caught my attention. At first my heart skipped a beat. That’s a lot of abortions. But then I started thinking, that’s a lot of people who were saved. Maybe not the one that some might think is the most important in that situation. But a life in some ways was probably saved. I’m pro-choice if you couldn’t tell by now even though when my birth mom was 19 she had her first child. In fact she kept on having kids and by the time she was 27 she had four children and one more on the way. Her life would have been easier if she had chosen to have gotten an abortion. She chose adoption instead. I am thankful for her choice, but growing up, every time I would visit her I could see it was painful. She missed out on raising me even though she knew that I would have a better life, a better chance if she found a new family for me. None the less, I am pro-choice. I understand more than most people what happens if a mother is too young to sufficiently raise her child, I’ve seen the product of a teen mom who struggled to grow up and to learn how to play the game of life as she was expected to teach her own child how to follow in her footsteps. My half-brother is less than put together. He fathered his first kid at 16 went to Juvenile hall for a year for armed assault and robbery, and in the process got his first bullet through his leg. By the time he was 22 he had fathered his second and was submerged in the gang life in Houston and pimping to make a great deal of money. He constantly would venture back to jail and so far he hasn’t been able to keep a clean record for more than a couple of months. He’s a bunch of statistics at this point. My brother isn’t the reason I believe women should have a choice about terminating a pregnancy, but he backs up why I think women are blessed to have the opportunity. If she thinks she’s got it in her to fight just as hard or harder for another life as she would for her own. Yes, I know all the counter arguments; “isn’t it their fault they got there in the first place?” “Whoever gets an abortion is a murderer!” But is it fair to bring a baby into the world when the mother knows she can’t provide for the child as she thinks it deserves?
Works Cited
Boland, Barbara. "Planned Parenthood Did 1 Adoption Referral Per 149 Abortions." CNN News . N.p., 13 Jan. 2014. Web. 13 Jan. 2014. <http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-boland/planned-parenthood-did-1-adoption-referral-149-abortions>.
I flip through the news section of my computer until something catches my eye; a CNN news article with the headline: “Planned Parenthood did 1 Adoption Referral per 149 Abortions.” It catches my eye for a couple of reasons, one; I’ve been following the struggle Texas recently went through for keeping women’s rights to contraceptives and abortions (here’s a link to the Wendy Davis’s filibuster in the Senate that lasted over 7 hours! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62pUAp_S6Bs) secondly; adoptions right up my alley. I clicked on the title and found myself reading a pretty biased (from my point of view) article on how Planned Parenthood performed 327,166 abortions this year. That’s what caught my attention. At first my heart skipped a beat. That’s a lot of abortions. But then I started thinking, that’s a lot of people who were saved. Maybe not the one that some might think is the most important in that situation. But a life in some ways was probably saved. I’m pro-choice if you couldn’t tell by now even though when my birth mom was 19 she had her first child. In fact she kept on having kids and by the time she was 27 she had four children and one more on the way. Her life would have been easier if she had chosen to have gotten an abortion. She chose adoption instead. I am thankful for her choice, but growing up, every time I would visit her I could see it was painful. She missed out on raising me even though she knew that I would have a better life, a better chance if she found a new family for me. None the less, I am pro-choice. I understand more than most people what happens if a mother is too young to sufficiently raise her child, I’ve seen the product of a teen mom who struggled to grow up and to learn how to play the game of life as she was expected to teach her own child how to follow in her footsteps. My half-brother is less than put together. He fathered his first kid at 16 went to Juvenile hall for a year for armed assault and robbery, and in the process got his first bullet through his leg. By the time he was 22 he had fathered his second and was submerged in the gang life in Houston and pimping to make a great deal of money. He constantly would venture back to jail and so far he hasn’t been able to keep a clean record for more than a couple of months. He’s a bunch of statistics at this point. My brother isn’t the reason I believe women should have a choice about terminating a pregnancy, but he backs up why I think women are blessed to have the opportunity. If she thinks she’s got it in her to fight just as hard or harder for another life as she would for her own. Yes, I know all the counter arguments; “isn’t it their fault they got there in the first place?” “Whoever gets an abortion is a murderer!” But is it fair to bring a baby into the world when the mother knows she can’t provide for the child as she thinks it deserves?
Works Cited
Boland, Barbara. "Planned Parenthood Did 1 Adoption Referral Per 149 Abortions." CNN News . N.p., 13 Jan. 2014. Web. 13 Jan. 2014. <http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-boland/planned-parenthood-did-1-adoption-referral-149-abortions>.