Says You.
The line-in-the-sand that separates my body from your concerns
Let’s go back in time with a few what-ifs and hypotheticals in order to view the conversation from multiple angles.
You have concerns for the unborn life inside me: the life that has been put in my charge, via nature not creating life that can sustain itself without me.
Maybe I choose to enjoy an alcoholic beverage while pregnant. Should this be illegal? Of course not. What if I enjoy one every day? Or two? Should that be illegal? “No” to that, too.
What if I choose to take illegal drugs? Should this be illegal? It already is. Should I be punished additionally for taking illegal drugs while pregnant? This, too, has already been adjudicated: no. I am not guilty of child abuse until there is a child, and a fetus is not a child under the law — both human law, and nature’s.
Let’s now say that I find out I’m pregnant. While the circumstances need not be heroic or totally cleansed of personal accountability, I want to make it easier to consider this point of view; I find out I’m pregnant to my utter shock, because we had carefully discussed and used birth control. It failed. I didn’t take the morning-after pill, because we used contraceptives. They failed. I did not run to take a pregnancy test on the earliest of opportunities because I thought it was the flu, stress…
