On my way to the drugstore this afternoon at Broadway and Commercial there was the usual crowded streets with added the addition of protesters on the corner. This is a very colourful neighbourhood and a protest is not unusual but this one was different. The unfortunate thing about this protest is this it occurs a couple of times a year and is so totally ludicrous it makes my blood boil. This was a group of 70+ year olds with "Abortion Kills Babies" etc on placards around their necks handing out pamphlets with religious rhetoric on them.
OK, in my opinion, I am most definitely a pro-choice supporter for the correct reasons. I don't think that it should be used as a form of birth control, but if there is a legitimate reason I think it is the woman's choice. It something that has always happened and always will happen. Women used to die undergoing poorly sanitized and extremely unsafe illegal abortions. Now they are at least given a safe alternative for what is quite likely the one of the most traumatizing moments of their lives. Also, the term "baby" annoys me. It is a fetus, not a baby, until it is born. The size of the fetus is also incredibly small during the term which most abortions occur that the protesters wouldn't even be able to identify it if they were shown a picture
Do these protesters plan on being to be able to stop the continued trauma inflicted on a woman if she is forced to carry to term a child that was conceived during a rape? Are they going to be there to pay for the costs of the pregnancy and for the rest of the life of the child? What about potential complications? What about if the pregnancy poses a threat to the life of the woman if she tries to carry it to term? Are they going to save her life? If she dies, the fetus dies too. Are they going to provide the financial support for the reduction in earning the woman will face? As much as we would like to believe differently the workforce still doesn't have wage parity and there isn't enough childcare out there for a woman to be able to continue her job after having a child. There are way too many things that I could put here to add to this list that I am not even going to try.
What I found most interesting about this protest was the *age* of the protesters (they were also all of northern European ancestry too)! As they stood there trying to hand out religious pamphlets to the passing crowd not one person took anything. Some people however were even engaging them in discussions that they had absolutely no answer to! All they responded with was religious rhetoric. They can't even remotely identify with the demographic they are trying to preach to. The world they grew up in doesn't exist anymore, and for the most part, I am glad it doesn't.
Well, that was my little rant about what annoyed me today.
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