The letter I’m about to share I’ve been saving in my inbox for about three months now, waiting for an appropriate time to call it out.
I think this week’s insightful cover story from writer Timaree Schmit makes for a good time as ever since the notion of overturning Roe v Wade and essentially eliminating a women’s right to choose could be at stake. I’m realizing more and more that it’s at stake because of men living in the Stone Age when it comes to women’s rights in general, and this letter is the personification of the patriarchy at work.
Let me start by saying this letter infuriated me and it took everything I had not to respond, but as aforementioned, I was waiting for the right time to shed light on it. This person clearly has no clue as it pertains to the aftermath of giving birth and raising children and all you need to be prepared for to raise a child. He also lost sight of the fact that carrying a child and then giving that child up for adoption is a guilt a mother will take with her for the rest of her life — unless she’s a cold-hearted individual, then maybe and only in that instance does this letter have a sliver of merit.
As a man, I’m tired of hearing a man’s thoughts on what a woman can or can’t do. It takes a sick fuck to refer to an abortion as “birth control of convenience,” considering that not all sex is consensual and frankly, not all people are ready to be parents. I read this letter and thought I was reading an op-ed that would’ve been in the pages of some conservative magazine from 1950.
Except, it’s 2020 and this is still how many Americans think.
I don’t have to reiterate to anyone reading this column that we are in a very unique time in our country right now. The division politically and socially, in my opinion, has never been more fractured. I’m all for differing opinions, life simply wouldn’t be fun if we all shared the same brain, but the following opinion to me just comes off as really archaic and is the type of closed-minded insensitivity that spreads from a lack of knowledge.
So give this a read and I’d love to know your thoughts. Hit me up via voices@philadelphiaweekly.com and let me know if you think I’m way off base or if we truly need to be afraid of ideologies like this.
Catch you next week, Philly.
Dear Editor:
Life begins at the point of conception.
No one can deny that after a human being is conceived it will develop into the very same being as those debating this issue. What astounds me is that those who favor abortion went through an identical development stage as the being they are condemning to death. Would these very same people agree that a similar choice should have been made about their own existence? How many human lives have been lost that could have added to our society in so many ways?
Abortion today is used primarily as a birth control of convenience because people are too self-centered to take precautions. They prefer their own pleasurable self-indulgence over the care and sanctity of the life they created. What ever happened to taking responsibility for one’s actions in this country? Is it too much to ask a woman who has conceived to place the child into adoption? Nine months of discomfort is nothing compared to life in prison for voluntary manslaughter!
And what about consenting to sex with a male; is that part of the equation too? Or has abortion just become another extension of the women’s liberation movement started in the late ’60s, which coincidently boosted membership on or about the same date as Roe v Wade?
Does the father of the child have a say in this? And what about the constitution of the United States? Are not all people conceived in this country deserving of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? I believe abortion is a crime against humanity and should be outlawed. We need to overturn Roe v Wade and get back to cherishing life in this country.
For a country that murders its children cannot be far from self-destruction.
