I think in any other situation, we fight to have the power of choice and the availability of options. And since life is complicated and difficult, you need to have choices to navigate, because almost anything in this world is not one size fits all.
So in this instance, we’re primarily talking about victims of rape or incest; situations that they had no control over in the first place, situations that [made] these people basically crime victims. So if they couldn’t choose the circumstances, you have to give them the options with how they turn around and they actually deal with these issues. There’s no other option for that. Taking away that option is almost like a second kind of victimization for them.
I think that people also forget that by allowing choice, that doesn’t mean that you’re supporting these things. It doesn’t mean that you would take these actions yourself. It simply means that you’re seeing that people need to have options. You also have to realize that within the 14 states that have banned abortion and the nine others that are restricting it, the federal laws, if set into place, supersede the state laws. So, if we’re going to allow these buildings to support these choices and allow these procedures, then it makes sense that you would have some sort of security on-base for that as well. These people have to be protected if we’re going to give them these options.
Cate Meighan is an award winning documentary filmmaker and journalist.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
