Betty Yang, Guest Blogger (Boston University School of Medicine '15, Medical Students for Choice)
This post is part of Blog for Choice 2013, launched by Boston Students for Sexual and Reproductive Justice (BSSRJ).
The term “pro-life” sounds like it should have a nice sentiment.
It conjures up the pursuit of health and wellness, the prevention of disease, ambitions
not unlike the themes of the Hippocratic Oath. As a future physician, though,
the words “pro-life” evoke a very different, less wholesome feeling.
I feel scared. Scared for the women in the world who don’t
have access to safe abortions and resort to alternative means. Scared for the
girl who is shamed into a life she is not prepared for. And most personally,
scared for what might happen to me or my family when I stand up for my beliefs
and become an abortion provider. The history of violence against abortion
providers and their communities is long and world-wide. There have been
countless death threats, physical assaults, kidnappings, and even cold-blooded
murders, all in the name of having a “right to life”. Do these abortion clinic
security guards, receptionists, and physicians not also have a right to life?
Are their futures worth any less than that of an embryo that has never “seen” the
light of day?
Wanting all living things to live is a beautiful thought.
And, according to my definition of life—which takes into consideration the life
of a woman unprepared to care for, or to birth and subsequently give up a
child, and the life of a doctor who stands up for a woman’s right to choose,
and a definition which excludes bodies of life that cannot independently live
without a supplemental blood, immune, and digestive system—I am of the same
opinion. But to believe bombing, or suffocating, or shooting others based on
their beliefs, all under the guise of an “Army of God” is where the title
“pro-life” falls apart.
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