Dear Republicans,
Honestly, I understand that you are pro-life. I can understand your position. I am pro-choice because I believe women should make medical decisions about their own bodies - I don't believe women run around getting abortions willy-nilly. I think in all cases, women who choose abortion do so because they are aware of their own mental/emotional, physical, and financial health and the impact that just being pregnant can have on their lives. But I do understand that you value that potential life. I just disagree that the interests of a clump of cells/fetus (that can't survive outside the womb - and even when it gets to the point where it takes dramatic, expensive medical intervention to keep it alive) automatically take precedence over the health and well-being of the mother.
What I don't understand is why you think it's okay to restrict abortions to the point where they are nigh impossible to get safely. Because, if you think about it, it's actually cheaper (for society as a whole!) for a woman to get an abortion than to carry a baby to term and have to pay for pre-natal care, take maternity leave, and pay for delivery and any neonatal care. Plus, if the baby isn't even wanted, it then enters the foster care system where it is supported by tax-payers (and not supported very well, at that) for up to 18 years. (Other recent anti-woman action makes me question your devotion to "small government" - so small it can not only fit inside a bedroom to prevent gay people from being with those they love, but small enough to fit inside every woman's uterus to prevent them from making their own medical decisions!)
Wanting to defund Planned Parenthood makes even less sense in light of your purported pro-life stance. Planned Parenthood provides family planning and contraception services. Which prevent unintended pregnancies. If women don't accidentally get pregnant, they don't need abortions. I'm not sure why you can't grasp this concept. Opposition to comprehensive sex education in public schools is also illogical, for a similar reason. Teaching teens how to have safe sex prevents teen pregnancy; fewer teen pregnancies lead to a decreased need for abortion. (Nothing I've ever seen has convinced me that teen pregnancy is anything but harmful to everyone involved - the girls themselves get behind in school, as well as the stigma of being a pregnant teen; their families get stuck with an additional mouth to feed that, as far as I can tell, generally falls to the new grandparents to care for; the babies, if they are given up for adoption, get put into foster care, which, as I stated above, is not an ideal place for a child of any age - everybody loses!)
Basically, your actions just scream to me that you are only pro-life until that fetus is actually born. Then you don't care about it - especially if it grows up to be a woman who finds herself pregnant and wanting an abortion.
You baffle me. (And trust me, there's much, much more I could talk about...)
Stay out of my uterus, please.
Sincerely,
Katherine
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