The question of what a woman should do when she is pregnant but does not want to raise a child is extremely personal for me.
It is the question that my birth mother, unmarried and eighteen years old, faced forty-three years ago.
This was before People v. Belous (1969) and Roe v. Wade (1973) established a woman’s fundamental right to decide whether to give birth.
Just a few months before I was born, California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the “Therapeutic Abortion Act,” which changed California’s criminal code to permit the termination of pregnancy by a physician when there was substantial risk that its continuation would “gravely impair the physical or mental health of the mother” or when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.
I am not sure whether my birth mother would have qualified for a legal abortion under the “physical or mental health” requirements of the new law, but she could have risked terminating her pregnancy by illegal means – as more than 100,000 California women did every year before the Act’s passage. In fact, Governor Reagan said that he signed the new law to prevent the death and injury of thousands of California women each year from illegal and dangerous “back alley” abortions.
My birth mother decided not to have an abortion, and instead gave me up for adoption.
Of course, I’m happy with her choice – I would not be here otherwise. I was raised by two loving parents who wanted and were able to care for me. I have also had the incredible joy of being able to thank my birth-mother for her decision – reuniting with her and my two younger brothers several years ago.
I received a great gift from my birth-mother’s decision – but I would not have wanted her to have been forced by the government to give birth to me despite being unable at that time to properly care for a child.
Whether or not to have an abortion – or whether to give a child up for adoption – is a deeply personal and often painful decision for a woman or couple to make, and it is a decision they have to make based on their own faith and values, not someone else’s – and certainly not the government’s.
My opponent for the 70th Assembly District believes otherwise.
He believes that he has the right to impose his own faith and beliefs on every woman and family in California. He has vowed to use his position in the legislature “to defend life from conception to natural death” – bringing back the days when thousands of women each year in California were forced to make the horrific choice between having unwanted children or illegal, dangerous abortions. And he has already received thousands of dollars in contributions from groups outside our district that are determined to use the government to impose their particular faith on everyone else.
We cannot allow politicians and outside special interest groups to impose their own faith on every woman and family in California or allow the government to intrude into this most personal of decisions.
That’s why I need your help now to keep the decision whether to give birth a deeply personal decision based on one’s own faith and values, not someone else’s and not the government’s.
Melissa
July 20, 2010
I had no idea. Bravo to Fox for sharing this with the public. I could not agree more.
What a bizarre and internally inconsistent bit of drivel. Fox says she “would not have wanted her [mother] to have been forced by the government to give birth to [her] despite being unable at that time to properly care for a child.” But that’s a patently false choice.
No one advocates forcing parents who are unable to properly care for a child to keep that child. That’s what adoption is for. That is what Fox’s birth mother, to her credit, chose to do. Bravo to her mother and jeers to a would be politician who will not advocate for government to protect the least powerful among us, even when she seems to have benefitted from exactly that protection herself.
Mike,
You missed a key part of Melissa’s post: “she could have risked terminating her pregnancy by illegal means – as more than 100,000 California women did every year before the Act’s passage. ”
Involving government bureaucrats with the intensely personal decision of pregnancy does not “protect the least powerful among us”. It furthers government interference in our personal lives and encourages dangerous, illegal medical choices.
Far better that the choice to remain open and legal so that women can discuss their situation with their loved ones, and perhaps even be persuaded to choose adoption.
Tyler,
Way to spew the traditional liberal talk on abortion. It’s not about a “decision of pregnancy.” It’s a decision to end a human life. What about the decision to have unprotected sex, let alone sex in the first place (yes, I’m generalizing, but most abortions are the result of unprotected sex)? Your argument about keeping abortion legal to encourage a woman to choose adoption is also a non-starter. That choice exists whether or not abortion is legal, and if it is illegal, adoption would be even more attractive than having to go to another state (I am rabidly pro-life, but the legality of abortion should be a states’ rights issue – there is no mythical right to privacy in the US Constitution) or engage in a “back-alley” abortion.
Ms. Fox ignores the life and rights of the unborn child in her effort to paint Don Wagner as some crazy conservative loon. In fact, as a Gallup poll demonstrated yesterday, most of the country is still pro-life (I know Vern, California is the exception), so Don is in the mainstream and Ms. Fox is in the minority. He is not trying to impose his will on women; rather, he is trying to protect the life of the baby who did not have a choice. The woman chose to get pregnant (no, I’m not taking the bait on the outlier rape and incest issues) and shouldn’t be able to terminate a life for her own selfish actions.
“Pro-life.”
I hadn’t noticed Mr. Wagner’s stance against capital punishment; for universal health care and pre-natal care; against unnecessary wars like the illegal invasion of Iraq and the unconscionably long and increasingly pointless occupation of Afghanistan. Kudos to him! Those are bold stands for a Republican.
First, Newbie, come to terms with the definition of “a human life.” If you think a recently implanted zygote is an actual life, you have some complications to deal with. And most of the country is not “pro life” (althought he term ant choice is more consistent)–a majority wants abortion to remain legal, and certainly at the early stages of pregnancy.
Your over usage of the terms “baby” and “unborn child” are the usual inflammatory and disingenuous commentary that deters a real debate on the matter. So when does ” a life” begin? If you think upon implantation, then you’re injecting religion into it, and we can do without that.
Keep it legal and keep it rare. Melissa has more balls than most, and government should support women’s right to choose. When men like Mike carry a baby to full term and deliver it, then I’ll listen to his opinion. It’s been done medically.
Great article by a great candidate! What rabid social conservatives don’t seem to comprehend is that they are free to be as socially conservative in their own lives as they please, but they do not have the right to impose their personal religious views on the rest of society! It’s really simple:
If you don’t like abortion,don’t have one.
If you oppose marijuana, don’t smoke it.
If you think same-sex marriage is immoral, don’t marry the same sex.
Period.
If you believe that life begins at conception, then the only logical response for government is to protect life (including fetal life).
So if you believe in abortion, then you really do not believe that life begins at conception (otherwise you would believe it is OK to murder). So, when does life begin?
Does it begin at the birth canal? That is what the partial birth abortion supporters believe in. If the baby’s head is in the birth canal, you can stick a vacuum cleaner in the baby’s skull and suck her brain out and that is legal today.
At conception that fertilized “egg” has everything necessary (given the proper environment of the womb) to grow into an adult human.
If you use the argument that an “unwanted baby” is the criteria as to whether the baby is allowed to live, why stop at the birth canal? Why not allow a year to determine whether you really want the baby. After all being a parent is one of the few jobs you can get without any prior experience. Why not allow a “test drive” for a year and if you don’t like it (unwanted) then kill it. After all it isn’t good to have a baby that isn’t wanted. How cruel is that!
Really the only consistent and defensible position is that life begins at conception.
Oh and BTW of course this is imposing morality on others. That is what laws are all about. As Jefferson penned in the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,…”
So who is inconsistent? The one that wants to protect life and that life begins at conception? Or the one that wants to determine whether a baby is wanted, before the baby is allowed to live?
I choose the former.
Taxfighter:
Choose all you want. That’s why having the freedom to do so is worth defending. Freedom of CHOICE.