UO Thursday

WinchesterGirl

@EmilyA724 You do make a very solid point about limited support once the child is born, and that is something that I take issue with and hope changes. If we as a people want women to make the pro-life choice, there then needs to be support for that choice and that child when it is born. Obviously I as one person do not know how to solve that complex problem, but I can point out many areas where we can and should do better as a country. 

Expanding WIC to include diapers, not just food stuffs. Expanding childcare options/income requirements. Our state already has good insurance in place for pregnant women and children in low income, but I know that varies. 

I think the increased childcare credit was a step in the right direction this year (similar to the EITC) but on its own is not enough. 

EmilyA724

@WinchesterGirl I very much agree with you. If more support and less stigma was offered, then I do think more people would feel comfortable choosing to carry the pregnancy. As well as job security and paid maternity/paternity leave. Often women fear losing their jobs and income if they carry a baby, and that is not okay.

There also needs to be more comprehensive and accurate sex ed, as well as free birth control. Being pro-life but limiting birth control availablily is just cruel and makes no logical sense. 

There are are a lot of factors that go in to it, but restricting abortion but not fixing pre and post pregnancy issues, is just inhumane.

olivemomma

@BigBadWolf12 but it still is a woman’s body that our government it trying to control and force to do something. Again, I hate the idea of abortion - I have a child who was born with 2 mutations for cystic fibrosis - a child who I realize may have been aborted in certain families. The idea makes me cringe and sick to my stomach. However, there is no possible way I could ever tell another woman that she should be required by law to carry a pregnancy to term. In my utopian world, of course this would be limited to cases of rape, insist, and medical necessity, but as @WinchesterGirl pointed out that’s a slippery slope. I could also never look a teenage girl in the eye and tell her I voted on legislation to control her body for the next year of her life and possibly change her entire future due to a mistake she made one night - while her boyfriend or one night stand goes about his life as if nothing ever happened. And how do you then address issues where couples do everything right and use birth control only to have it fail? Do we force these women down a path they were responsible enough to try and avoid? The idea that an abortion can be used as a get of jail free card for irresponsible women is a hard pill for me to swallow, but the alternative has very dangerous ramifications for women in our society. I have a beautiful daughter who I pray never faces a situation where this is considered, but if one day that happens I want her to be able to make the best possible decision for herself with access to safe and compassionate care. I do not want a bunch of rich men she has never met making this decision for her, and I hope the rest of our society doesn’t want that either.