A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE?

The "Right to Choose" catchcry has been marketed so intensely that almost everyone is aware of the phrase. However as women of the new millennium we must look below the surface of slogans and appreciate the full impact of this so-called 'choice'.

Whilst the 'right to choose' sounds desirable, the freedom to exercise that choice must be tempered by its impact upon the fundamental rights of other people. The fact is that the woman is not the only one affected. Advances in medical science have proved beyond doubt that the human embryo or foetus is a separate living human being from its mother. What about the child's rights? Abortion kills an unborn child and thus removes his/her body from the woman's womb. It is not the woman's body.

Being a woman with a strong sense of justice I firmly believe in equal rights but I certainly cannot condone the taking of unborn children's lives in the name of a one-sided exercise of just one person's 'right'.

A society that allows abortion is denying the most fundamental human right - the right to life - to one group of human beings, unborn children. Both the woman with an unplanned pregnancy and her baby within the womb are of equal importance and need love and genuine support. We cannot measure a person's importance and value by age or size as that is discrimination. A society in which every human being has full equal protection should be enshrined in our laws.

A woman is pregnant with a living human embryo from the moment of conception.

Nothing more can be added to this new unique individual, as all of who you are in human terms is present when the male's sperm meets with the woman's ovum.

A doctor recently conveyed this message in the following way using an overhead of an ovum with two cells within and multiple sperm outside.

"Life is marvellous and breathtakingly wondrous as a whole new life is forming within the security of his world - his mother's womb. It is awesomely captivating as we are privileged to be able to document the first months of life through the advances of technology. A whole new individual person has begun his journey of life. You can see sperm outside the ovum - they are the frustrated suitors as there is no entry now. The composition of the ovum has changed. They are locked out as it is private what is happening within. One ovum, one sperm and the symphony of life has begun!"

A woman does have a 'right to choose' whether she will conceive or not - however, once conception has occurred a new individual has been created. A woman does have a 'right' to decide whether she will parent or place her child for adoption.

It is indeed an indictment when society has not been able to help a pregnant woman through her time of crisis with life-giving compassionate alternatives. Yes, it takes an incredible amount of our time, to give genuine care and emotional support. But every woman deserves that commitment especially when she is at her most vulnerable.

It is ironic and tragic that women who have laboured so long and so hard for equal rights with men turn around now and totally discriminate against their unborn children (many of whom are female) and count their lives as worthless.

We, as women today in the 90's, enjoy the wonderful success of our earlier counterparts' struggles and great achievements. Please, let's not deny the humanity of our children - their right to life, their right to see a sunrise, their right to smell a flower. It is senseless and violent to turn on our own flesh and blood in the sanctuary of the womb, they who cannot yet speak for themselves. We are able to cope with whatever comes our way if we so desire, because we, as women, have proven we are not inferior or of less worth than men.

Rosemary Bottcher, Feminist For Life and environmental chemist, in 1985 said, "Pro-abortion feminists resent the discrimination against a whole class of humans because they happen to be female, yet they themselves discriminate against a whole class of humans because they happen to be very young.

"They resent that the value of a woman is determined by whether some man wants her, yet declare that the value of an unborn child is determined by whether some woman wants her/him.

"They resent that women have been "owned" by their husband, yet insist that the unborn are "owned" by their mothers.

"They believe a man's right to do what he pleases with his own body cannot include the right to sexually exploit women, yet proclaim that a woman's similar right means that she can kill her unborn child."

No-one has the 'right' to kill another human being. A woman has no 'right' to kill her 'terrible two year old' and has no 'right' to kill her 'terrible teen'. Why should a 'right to choose to kill' at any stage of human development be given? The fact that the unborn baby is small - silent - out of sight - does not mean that he/she is disposable in the name of choice.

Abortion - a woman's right to choose to kill her unborn baby - must have no place in our society or in our legislation. On the contrary, our unborn babies need laws which will actively protect them and their mothers, when both are at their most vulnerable. Our actions need to be anchored in understanding linked with compassion to care for both mother and child.

Wendy Priebe