AYOBAMI RUTH OLUFEMI-WHITE
My stance on abortions remains that I am pro-life and pro-choice. Fundamentally, I believe all women should be able to make their own decisions.
As a Christian that I must always do the most loving thing even if the second option is not much better the first. For me, abortion is one of those things. I don’t like it, I wish it did not have to happen but in the words of Shirley Chisholm, ‘Women have always had them; they always have and they always will. Are they going to have good ones or bad ones? Will the good ones be reserved for the rich, while the poor women go to quacks?’.
This is the real question Alabama is answering. The law is not protecting life, but reminding us that the life of the mother is less valuable than the life of the potential child.
My problem with the pro-life movement is they address the supply rather the demand side of abortion. As an economics student, I know that if there was no demand for something there would be no need for supply. For too long, the pro-life movement has been attacking the institution that provides abortion. Rather than providing people with contraception and basic sex education, they take these very rights away.
In Alabama code, it is stated that, ‘any program or curriculum in the public schools in Alabama that includes sex education must emphasise the following: abstinence from sexual intercourse outside of lawful marriage is the expected social standard for unmarried school-age persons.’ In essence, they are taking away the preventative-measures which protect people from un-wanted pregnancy as well as taking away the cure.
I am happy that women and men are outraged by this law because it is wrong for men to have so much hold over what a woman can and cannot do with her body. The fundamental comes down to the fact that we live in a patriarchal society where women are viewed as inferior.
As a Christian, a feminist and a woman, I refuse to believe that a select group of men should dictate what a woman can do with her body. We need less division, more equality and mutual respect.