First read above.
Second, understand.
Third, I apologise for mentioning a certain conversation over here, but it is necessary.
So I'm still a little riled, more at the law than at anything else. Everything is so intensely screwed up in the world. My country, India, the world's largest democracy, a near-third world nation(lets not elude ourselves) does not allow homosexuality. It is punishable by law. Your preference is liable to get you jailed. Yes, we have progressed from the middle ages to the middler ages.
New Zealand is supposed to be an advanced country. What gives them the right to decide what the mother wants? Is it by any chance the government's concern? Is the father a collective set of fogies who sit in positions of power taking decisions on other people's lives? Does the consultant know what the woman might be going through? Is it fair that she reveal her life to a complete stranger and let her wishes become slave to their discretion? And then you call it a free country?
And then, I talked about this to a friend, I respect her views, but I cannot help but say they are wrong. She first said that a person shouldn't get physical with anyone without taking precautions. Agreed. Precautions aren't fool-proof. What then? "She shouldn't act slutty, then". Do you call an expression of love, an act of love, particular, to that person, maybe, "slutty"? Can you judge a person on the basis of a single act?
Then, it was said that the unborn child has a right to live. Of course, it does. Everyone has a right to live. Only is it right for the unborn child to die or one that is born?
I may be stereotyping, but there is a chance that the woman in question could be:
a) poor
b) a junkie
c) not wanting a child
In the first case, will the child be supported by the government? In society, will the child be respected, treated as an equal? Will the people accept the child as a part of the same society that is giving it its right to live? I don't know. Will the child have friends? Will the mother not be looked upon as "a little loose"? Will the fact that she might have done nothing to deserve the snide comments and the stares of society make a difference? I don't know about NZ, but in India, she'll live through hell for it.
In the second case, how might she support the kid? Again, will the environment be conducive to the growth of the child? Will there not be a great chance that it grows up to become like one of its parents, still considered a burden to society? Society might accept that, won't it?
In the third? The child will be hated. By its mother, and if there is a father, by the father. The mother will not want to care for it and will look upon it as a mistake. And I don't know how many people know how it feels to be treated that way. If the child doesn't kill itself, it might just turn into a psychotic of some sort.
Either way, is it not the choice of the woman to decide whether she wants to give birth or not?
Are those not 9 months, and consequent years of her life that she is free to dispose of? Is it fair on to a child, born, because of the decision of someone who doesn't know any of the circumstances leading to the abortion, to face hatred or social anathema?
I'm not a feminist or anything, I believe in equality, and questioning a woman's decision in that manner isn't equality.
I'm ranting, and might not have made sense, but I am mad about the whole situation.
(Old post from other blog)
