Pro-life or Pro-choice: it all depends on the situation

If you are going through an abortion as a result of selfishness, it is wrong. If it is due to some medical restraints, incest, rape it is not wrong. Period! I am in total support of my colleague Sunny Ntayombya’s opinion on abortion. As a Christian and a priest’s daughter for that matter, I do not support killing, neither do I support selfish motives in abortion but there is so much more in abortion than meets the eye. Definitely, men will never know how it feels to have an unwanted pregnancy. Unfortunately, in our Christian fanatical and traditional way of thinking, we just want to label abortion as murder and move on. Traditionally, women were locked in their role as mothers and there was nothing like unwanted pregnancy since they didn’t have the right to choose a spouse to begin with. The abortion topic has polarized women; we are not in agreement on whether to be pro-choice or pro-life. How can we, as women, fight for our rights if we are so divided? Collin Haba wrote “If you support abortion I suppose you also support killing all poor, disabled, or just unwanted babies and children. There is no difference.” As a woman allow me to call it the right to interruption of an unwanted pregnancy. He also highlighted on the guilt that a woman has to live with for the rest of her life after according to his friend the ten minutes ordeal. What is worse? Living with a baby who reminds you of the horror you went through during a one hour gang rape, or remembering a ten minutes doctor’s operation? Call me cynical but think about it. According to some doctor’s report, pregnancy and childbirth do not benefit women in almost anything except for some reduction on the incidence of breast cancer and I will also add and the joy that comes along with experiencing some new kind of love towards the baby. In Kenya, abortion is illegal as well unless the mother and the fetus’ life are in danger. What happens to the healthy pregnancy which as a result of rape, what should happen to the girl who is impregnated by her own father? Should we encourage young women who unfortunately get pregnant, most likely from their teachers, to quit school keep their pregnancies? Well many say that it’s not the unborn child’s fault but it’s not the girl’s fault either. Why do people want to make the choices for women? We know that it is an undeniable medical fact that pregnancy and child birth slightly damage women because, there is an already risk of death, physiological overcharge and they distort their bodies and stretch their tissues, which do not always return to normal during and after birth. Of course you will say this is senseless, selfish and does not matter but what I am trying to say is that if the wanted pregnancy is not as comfortable, why force women to do something that might harm them physically, psychologically, and even emotionally permanently? karuthum@gmail.com