Schizophrenic Pro-Choice World & A Question of Autonomy

Recently in New York, a pharmacist was convicted of first-degree murder of an unborn child, aggravated assault of an unborn child, aggravated assault and various other charges, when he apparently slipped his girlfriend an abortifacient drug, without her consent. Slipping misoprostol pills into her drink, and even internally during an intimate encounter, the pills then caused the woman to have a miscarriage and her baby died.

Marie Smith, Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues stated, "The criminal conviction and sentencing of this pharmacist for forced abortion is welcome news and should send a strong signal that coerced abortion will not be tolerated. Misoprostol is a powerful drug that is open to misuse and abuse," she said. One wonders how many other women have been the victims of this? When we consider that there are drugs out there, such as Ecstasy, which can easily be slipped into a woman's drink at the local bar; should we be surprised that an abortifacient drug can just as easily be slipped to a woman.

But of course, the murder charges which were levied against this man, and rightfully so, are nevertheless a schizophrenic aspect of the abortion issue, where a woman can kill her unborn child, legally by "choice"; while anyone else who may cause the death of her child, either through an act of violence, or in the sneaky manner which this pharmacist used, is considered a murderer. Again, the double standard here makes little sense to those of us who reverence life.

We know that when a woman wants it - it's a child ... and when she doesn't - it's a fetus, a product of pregnancy, a choice. Conversely, when a man wants it, it's none of his business - and if he slips her an abortifacient drug in her drink, he's a murderer. It's a schizophrenic society that calls one person a murderer, while the other is simply exercising her prerogative of choice. Whatever happened to the old saying, "whats sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose"?

Either way, women better think twice before taking a drink from a man, after she has had intimacies with him. If she wants to have so much autonomy over her body, she should remember that sexual relations, in and of them self, involve momentarily relinquishing part of that autonomy to another. And men should remember, that as it stands right now, legally, they have no choice - one way or the other - regarding whatever issues from their union with a woman. Perhaps men themselves should start being more aware of what is theirs, before giving it away so easily through an act of pleasure, to someone else who will have total autonomy over it.