With Sarah Palin making news again, I started thinking about how her views on abortion seem so out of touch with her personal experience.
A couple of months ago, Sarah Palin spoke to a group of conservative anti-choice advocates about her experience when she found out during her last pregnancy, that her son Trig had Downs Syndrome. You have to get about 4 minutes into the video before she starts talking about her experience, but the crux of her statement is that when she discovered at 13 weeks in her pregnancy that her son would be born with Downs, she did, in fact, consider terminating the pregnancy. Not only she did consider termination, but she also felt that she could understand why other women in her situation would consider abortion and perhaps choose abortion. She then goes on to explain that she used her personal faith and experience to make the decision to continue her pregnancy to term. In the next breath she states that her experience in making a personal decision about her pregnancy and family has reinforced her belief that abortion should be illegal, effectively taking away any other woman’s ability to make such an important and personal decision.
I find this pretty remarkable coming from a woman who just stated that she not only seriously considered terminating her pregnancy, but that she felt she could understand why some women would make that choice. And yet here she is, publicly stating that her goal would be to deny other women and their families the ability to make these decisions in their own lives.
This is the part of the anti-choice movement that I simply can’t wrap my brain around. I feel that being pro-choice is about respecting and honoring every person’s ability to make decisions about their own lives regardless of whether or not I personally feel it is a decision that I would make on my own or whether or not it is a decision that I agree with. That someone would deny me or anyone else the ability to make personal life decisions is simply the most un-American thing that I can imagine.
There are times when I am with patients, listening as they tell me their stories and reasons for terminating or continuing their pregnancies, that I think, “Wow. That’s not a decision that I would make,” but I would never presume that I can know what the best decision for another person’s life is better than they do. Could you?
And THIS is where I fall on the whole issue. I’m not sure (though I’m lucky/old enough to not have to worry) that I could personally “agree” with a decision to terminate, but it’s not my place to make these decisions for others.
Right on. And it’s certainly not the government’s place to make these decisions either!