A Woman's Right To Choose

I would like to say a word about a woman’s reproductive choices.

In the U.S., an adult woman can choose to marry, or not.  If she wants to marry, she can marry whomever she wants, male or female.

An adult woman can choose to have sex or not, whether she is married or not.  If she is not married and chooses sex, she can have sex with whomever she wants, male or female.

If she is married and chooses to not have sex, she may not stay married, but that would be part of her calculation.

If a woman wants to have sex but not get pregnant, she has a cornucopia of contraceptive choices.  She can choose permanent contraception or temporary contraception.  Sterilization is a permanent form of contraception.  There are a couple of options here, too.

If she choose a temporary form of contraception, she can choose physical barriers, chemicals barriers, and hormonal barriers.  Physical barriers are the male condom, female condom, diaphragm,  IUD, cervical cap, and the cervical sponge.

Spermicidal jelly is a chemical barrier.

Hormonal barriers come as pills, implants, patches, and injections.

Contraception methods may be combined.  Eg, a spermicidal jelly may be used with a cervical sponge.  Also, some IUD’s release a hormone.  There are many possible combinations.

Finally, there is the “Morning After” pill, which exists in a gray area between contraception and abortion.

An American woman can choose to get pregnant, whether she is married or not.  And, she can get pregnant whether she has sex or not.

If the woman wants to get pregnant without sex, she has at least two choices:  artificial insemination and in-vitro fertilization.

A woman can choose to have a baby, without carrying it, by hiring a surrogate for the pregnancy.

If a woman delivers a baby, she can choose to keep it or not.  I am not saying the decision is easy, but there is most definitely a choice.

There is finally, this question:  can a pregnant woman kill her baby to force an early end to her pregnancy? Do keep in mind that every pregnancy ends, in nine months at the latest, so the question is entirely one of convenience.  Opinion is divided.

Clearly, when it comes to reproduction, American women have a blizzard of choices.  Does anybody else think it is strange that a major political movement is motivated by this one need for abortions of convenience?  And, they claim to fight for “reproductive choice” as if, without abortions of convenience, none of the other choices matter.