Have you ever been told that a woman will lose all of her rights and become a second-class person, inferior, or subhuman if she cannot obtain a legal abortion? I have, numerous times. And lest you think that this is a fringe viewpoint: in her dissent in Gonzales v. Carhart, the partial-birth abortion case, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that successful court challenges to pro-life laws vindicated women’s right to “enjoy equal citizenship stature.”
As a woman who has been pregnant, I take offense to the notion that I need a “right” to abortion, partial-birth or otherwise, to be an equal citizen. Preventing people from killing other humans does not make those who would otherwise kill another human “subhuman.”
I, as a woman, am more than my uterus. When I was pregnant, I was not subhuman. I could still think, vote, pursue my goals, etc. And I know that pregnant women are more capable than those who deem pregnant women inferior give them credit for. Women are stronger than that. We do not need the “right” to kill in order to be successful.
I find it terribly sad that instead of helping us “inferior” pregnant women achieve success—in our careers, educational goals, etc.—those who say things like that would rather promote abortion. Instead of helping women graduate from college without ending a human life (which pro-life groups are actively working on), they propose that we kill our future generations and obtain our promotions and degrees by sacrificing our defenseless children.
How is it pro-woman to say that we must be allowed to kill our children in order to be successful, to be “equal citizens,” to avoid being “inferior” or “subhuman”? That there is a human within my uterus does not make me less of a human, does not reduce me to such a state that I cannot accomplish anything, that I cannot think or vote, does not “ruin my life.” Those who believe pregnant women are inferior do women a serious disservice.
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As a woman, I neither need nor want the right to kill humans to be equal as a human being. I am a woman. I am strong. I am capable. I am not inferior. And I don’t need the right to kill to be equal.
LifeNews Note: Roni Cairns writes for Secular Pro-Life, where this article originally appeared.
