Abortion Reply: the Right to Choose

A piece of graffiti on one of the doors in the women's toilets near the Cafe reads:

The difference between pro and anti abortionists, is that pro abortionists don't say everybody has to have an abortion, but the anti abortionists say that nobody can!

This is what freedom of choice is all about the people fighting for safe, legal and freely available abortion are not advocating abortion as a rule, they are fighting for the principle that it is a woman's right to choose whether she wants an abortion or not. Pro abortionists are fighting for abortion as a real choice and not just theoretically possible under law. This is so that any woman who wants an abortion can get one without fear of being prosecuted as a criminal; without risking her life at a backstreet abortionist and without the legalized inquisition and harrassment by a series of specialists.

Women in New Zealand are still choosing to have abortion even though it means risking their lives to many of them. Support groups like SOS (Sisters Overseas Service) are working to help women escape New Zealand's restrictive legislation but the cost of approx. $750,00 is prohibitive to most. People who support the anti-abortion laws are denying women who cannot afford to buck the system the basic right to determine their own futures.

Women who seek abortion are not a 'silly', promiscuous minority but are in the majority women who already have children and women who through inadequate contraceptive advice or contraceptive failure, concieve.

Obviously the decision to have an abortion is not made lightly, but is a decision that the woman involved should have the right to make. Nor is any one suggesting that there are not alternatives to abortion e.g.: Pregnancy help and adoption, but again the choice is the womans to make.

In New Zealand, women do not have a rear choice, abortion is not a practical alternative. In New Zealand a woman does not have the right to control her own body, she is subject to the decisions and actions of others.

The right to choose is basic to the liberation of women and feminism. It is more than just the choice to have an abortion, although that is an integral part. It means that a woman has the right to determine her own future, to make her own choices about her life and direction. Without the constraint of law, traditional sex role stereotyping and attitude.

The society we live in does not give women freedom of choice; whether your analysis sees capitalism, the patriarchy or consumerism as the cause, the fact remains that women are a the right to choose because they are [unclear: wo en.]

The right to choose means fighting for women to choose whether to have an abortion or not to; to have children or not to; to work regardless of whether she has children or not which means freely available child care; to choose her own sexuality without legal and cultural discrimination; to go out at night without fear of harrassment, attack and rape. To fulfill her full potential without the constant struggle against a system which discriminates against women because they are women. To live her own life in the way she chooses and not as dictated by the society she lives in.

For all this and more, people fight for the right to choose, because a woman's control over her own body is essential to all other freedoms of choice. The right to choose is a step along the way to achieving the basic right of personal freedom — a natural right.

Victoria Quade (WRO).