Meet Maricruz.
She's the lady in the wheelchair:
Twenty-one years ago, her mother tried to abort her. This was an attempted chemical abortion; her mother took a pill, which was assumed to be RU-486. It is believed that the drug was being used experimentally in Central America at the time.
To make a long story short, the abortion pill didn’t work. Maricruz was born three months premature. She survived, but was left severely handicapped and must use the wheelchair. Maricruz has three siblings in Central America — and four others who were aborted.
The feminist message to Maricruz is this: it's too bad you didn't die, Maricruz. Your mother needed you dead, and she had every right to kill you, because you didn't live up to our standards of humanity. Your mother's power and autonomy depended on her power of life and death over you when you were in the womb, and she was not able to complete the job, which is really too bad, because her will as your mother is more important than your existence. She matters; you didn't.
That is the message of "choice".
Personally, I want none of it. I want feminists to stop usurping my gender, speaking in my name and stating that my autonomy and my power rest on the ability to kill my unborn child because it's a lie. Sure, the choice to kill and the ability to carry out makes me powerful-- after all, it's the case of the stronger have power over the weak. The lie consists in assuming that because I don't have the ability that I am NOT powerful, not autonomous, not in control.
I would also add that power is responsibility, especially responsibility towards others, and one's children. The right and the power to control one's body does not give one the license to kill the innocent.
