What is Life?

I'm puzzled. I wanted to say confused, confused about others' view of what is life, and specifically President Bush's view with the right wing, conservative, religious folks, but I'm not confused. I'm puzzled about their view of life that they say start with conception, really puzzled about what they don't understand about human life that they're willing to put a personal religious view of the conception of life over the life of the mother, or give the mother the right to be in control of her life and body. This has to do with two aspects of the mother and life, one is the life itself and the other is education.

What is it that they're willing to subjugate the life and rights of the mother over the life and rights of the unborn? And do this from the moment of conception? Is their goal to also ban morning after drugs or similar treatments shortly after conception, essentially not allowing a woman access to any type of abortion? It seems that's their eventual goal, but for now they're fighting for restricting if not prohibit abortion after the first trimester, under any circumstance of the mother and the conditions of her pregnancy.

In reality it's easy to see it's not really about life and rights, but control and religion. They want our country to follow their religious view of life, and their view of family. And that's where I'm puzzled. What don't they see or want to see about the state of family in this country? We're not their concept of this beloved, surreal, happy family. We're the diversity of human beings in a diversity of family arrangements and situations. Their "model" family isn't real or appropriate anymore to the common standard of this country, and we need a model that is inclusive.

But in the end, it's really about the mother, her life and rights. I won't hedge any bets or arguments about my view. It's simply it's the right of the mother to make the decisions with professional help to decide for her life. The father may have a say, but in the end, the mother makes the decisions, and should she decide to bring the baby to term, then the father has the obligation to pay for child support until the child is 18. It's not a hard thing to justify, just give her the right to decide for herself with the help of appropriate professional medical help.

And I will go farther. It's about education of children and access to planned parenthood information. These don't foster sex, they don't need information to do that, as we can see in the statistics, but we need to ensure they have the information to help them understand the realities and consequences of their actions. Young people need help, guidence and support to understand, learn and make good decisions about their life, not be limited or prohibited to information.

And I'll go even father. It's about access to abortion. I'm not pro-abortion, nor pro-life. I'm for people making the decisions in and about their life, and if that includes abortion for reasons the mothers deems appropriate to her, then so be it. We don't have to agree with her decisions, but we don't have the right to deny her rights to make that decision and have the appropriate professional care. I'm curious if the situation were reversed, that is men were the sex who gave birth, they would demand no less?

In the end, the choice to me is simple. A woman has the right to decide about her life and body, and have access to the information throughout her life to make the best informed decision, and if she chooses, to have the access to abortion and counseling to make it the right decision. It's an inclusive view that gives a woman the freedom to choose. How hard is that? And to continue the argument.