I'm for CHOICE.
It's not just about a CHOICE I, personally, might make, even if I can't imagine myself making that choice, or about my human rights.
It's that CHOICE is also about other people and their human rights. I believe other people should have rights to choose what I might not, determine their own life choices, rather than that I - or anyone else - should determine their life choices.
I think this is the definitive difference between a liberal and a conservative and overall a function of Democracy.
That is why I call myself a liberal, even though there are all sorts of things that 'liberals" are 'for' that I, personally, am not, or can't imagine wanting for my life. I'm liberal enough to allow that other people will call themselves Republicans and go against me.
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But also, it makes me crazy when some person, without sympathy or empathy, says "everything" in life is a choice, and therefore something is all a person's responsibility or their fault. I believe this attitude is some sort of corruption that is rooted in the "New Age" movement, in particular the "Positive Thinkers" who believe that Thoughts Can Make You Heal and just the opposite, that Thoughts Can Kill You. I think constantly restating, against your feelings, against truths, is denial.
When I hear someone being dismissive of the lack of choice many of us have experienced, some far more than others, I wonder what is missing in them.
Think of all the people who were just living their lives a few months ago, civilians, who are now dead, or maimed and disabled for life, or who have lost family - children - in Ukraine. Think of all those people, mostly women, who have been raped by Russian soldiers - thousands, and try to argue that they had a choice. Those soldiers were not planning families with those women. They were not loving. They wanted to use their bodies as weapons to ruin the enemy - not just that woman but every person in her life including her family - her existing partner and children - and try to tell me what is expected then of a raped woman who against her will becomes pregnant.
Do we expect them to become loving mothers and celebrate a Happy Mother's Day someday?
C 2022 Christine Trzyna
