Opinions and Decisions
I want to open this blog with a question that I hope makes us all think a little about how we engage in debates about other people's lives;
Do you think having an opinion is enough to determine how someone else lives?
Photo by Amine M'Siouri from Pexels
If you know me well enough, you know I’m about to say something about the recent abortion conversation. To do so, I should first say I’m not from the US. I am, however, from Trinidad & Tobago, a country where it is similarly illegal to perform an abortion for any other reason than to preserve the pregnant person’s mental or physical health.
That means, here in T&T, it is also illegal to terminate a pregnancy on the basis of it being the product of rape or incest, fetal impairment or socioeconomic inability to raise a child. In fact, in the case which provides precedent for our local anti-abortion laws - Rex v. Bourne of 1938 - it was apparently argued that a 15 year old girl becoming pregnant as a result of a gang rape by British soldiers was not enough grounds to terminate her pregnancy, but rather it was only acceptable if her doctor reasonably believed that carrying the fetus to term would negatively affect the girl’s health.
Lemme ask my previous question again; do you think having an opinion is enough to determine how someone else lives?
I’ve got lots of opinions, including opinions about abortion. Mind you, I said opinions. Personally, I’m against abortion - that is to say, if I had my own womb (and, since we have to specify these days, the ability to make decisions about it) I’d never have one. If someone asked my opinion, I’d share it. If someone wanted help with such a decision, I’d lean towards my own opinion, obviously…
But, politically (and especially since I don’t have a womb, duh), I think people should have the right to choose.
Photo by Janko Ferlic from Pexels
Opinions, of course, are delicate things. To have one is to believe in a particular way the world does, or can, or should work. It’s a kind of belief, a kind of small-scale religion, almost. It’s the reason that folks don’t like vegetarians - we believe that the world would be a better place if people ate less meat. So, to those who like a lil KFC at least once a week, it feels like we’re subconsciously saying that they don’t want the world to be a better place. Of course, that’s not true (for me, at least), which is why I go out of my way to let folks know they can eat whatever they want, once they don’t try to put it in my mouth. My opinion isn’t enough to determine how someone other than me lives.
But, since the abortion conversation blew up around the world this last week, there are a lot of who have not only strong opinions, but strong opinions about strong opinions. Sorry, let me make that simpler -
There are lots of people who think that their opinion should be able to decide what happens to people they’ve never met, about organs they’ve never had, in a circumstance they’ll never have to experience ever in their lives.
When I put it like that, it sounds kinda harsh, doesn’t it…
Image Credit - Holly
Now, let me be clear - it’s totally okay for a man to have an opinion about abortions. Not just because they can impregnate someone, but because they exist in a world where abortion is a hot topic. We should have a right to share opinions about that, just like we can share opinions about whether this new season of Game of Thrones is trash or Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’ is actually country music. I got opinions about those things, for sure. But I can’t decide whether someone else likes Game of Thrones or what Lil Nas X gets nominated for in the Grammy’s. I can only decide what I do about those things.
My opinion isn’t enough to determine how someone other than me lives.
I want to be more fair to those who have opinions about things that affect a world of other political decisions. My opinion about war or vaccinations, for instance, should be large enough to affect the politics of the day. But that’s because, if my country goes to war or my neighbor’s child isn’t vaccinated, that will likely affect how I live. If other people make that decision for me, which I think they shouldn’t be able to, that affects how me and people I care about live. But abortion doesn’t fit that criteria - that’s a decision that a particular person has to figure out how to live with. Which means that it’s okay to think whatever crap you want about that decision...once you acknowledge that it’s a decision that they have to make, then everything’s fine.
Unless you think that your opinions are enough to determine how others live their lives...which is an okay thing to think…
As long as you think that our opinions are enough to determine how you live your life, too.
So...do you?
