Abortion protests at my college

Yes. You heard me correctly. A group of people came to my college today, a place with many 16-18 year old boys and girls, and held up pictures of aborted babies and told us abortion is wrong.

This actually happened and I had no idea how to respond. I was shocked that these people had the audacity to impose these opinions of theirs on us. That being said, I had a conversation with one of these people and we shared our opinions in a polite way. I don’t feel as if I’ve made a difference since I probably did nothing to change her point of view, and she definitely did nothing to change mine.

The only things that I learnt from this protest were:
1) How to have an argument without raising my voice and shouting and how that helps get your point across more effectively
2) How mad I am

I’m very very mad. They didn’t know our stories or anything that we’d been through and yet they showed us these horrific images in an attempt to emotionally blackmail us and I just feel the need to summarise their arguments against abortion to summarise our main points against it

- "Babies born with disabilities may have a worse quality of life but does that mean a bad quality of life is a life not worth living?"
Of course that’s not what it means! But if you can spare the suffering, and if the mother thinks it would bring suffering on her, then why shouldn’t she get an abortion.

- "The mothers quality of life won’t significantly decrease if she had that baby."How would you know? It may do, depending on her situation, and if she has the ability to have a better quality of life, then why shouldn’t she take it? How can anyone have the right to say that another person has to sacrifice their quality of life?

- "The baby is just a child." Potentially, so is the woman. In a teenage pregnancy, the mother would just be a child. So who do you pick? The child who is already existing, already living and has already established a life for herself, or the child that is currently growing inside of her with nothing? The baby has no life, and nothing to lose, whereas the woman has everything to lose.

- "Can you pick one human being over the other?"Imagine there was an accident in the ninth month of pregnancy and the doctor’s could only save either the mother or the child. Who would you pick? Would you not pick the mother? The woman with a life, friends and family, or the baby? How would you tell her family that you saved the baby because you believe abortion is wrong, and you allowed the woman to die.
Effectively the same thing happens if someone stops an abortion. You let the baby live, but the woman has to live with this feeling inside of her, and maybe she’s physically alive, but how alive is she emotionally?

I’m pro choice and have been ever since the moment I sat down and really thought about it (I must have been 13 or 14).  But of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I just feel as if sometimes there is a way to express your opinion, and this was not the way.

They don’t know who’s had abortions or miscarriages or who’s in that situation themselves right now and to show these pictures was tactless. It was emotional blackmail and abuse. To come to a college with 16-18 year old’s who are only just growing up (let’s face it, we’re still kids really), and who only started to understanding situations like these in the past few years, was tactless.

This whole protest was tactless, and I can guarantee you that none of those people had ever been in that situation where they've had to consider having an abortion (especially since some of them were men).

I am really very mad at these people but it gave me a sense of hope:
People from college came in groups and started arguing with the protesters. Everyone was respectful and no fights broke out, as far as I’m aware; it was mostly just conversation. The majority of the college heard about this and argued against it. (We also had a fair few laughs. I remember one guy standing next to me saying “so do you think it all starts with ejaculation then”…. I didn't hear the rest of his point since I was laughing so hard.)

No matter what our government says, our future is in safe hands because the majority of 16-18 year old’s have more sense than these adults who run our country, and we are not scared to stand our ground.
We are not scared to fight.

And we will fight.

It's rant time

I saw these pictures on Tumblr (I'll only include a few)

and these pictures has the following caption: 

"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible"

I responded with this following rant:

I’m not a Christian, and I’m not arguing that any of these quotes are justified because they are in no way justified, but I’m getting incredibly sick of this religion bashing on Tumblr.

I have met Christians, I’ve met a very large number of them. Some go to church every Saturday and some have never set foot in a church, and I can say from personal experience that none of them are like this. Most of them haven’t read the bible this thoroughly and if they have they chose to ignore these parts of it, because nothing is perfect, and the majority of Christians realise this about their religion as well.

In fact many are gay or bisexual or lesbians or trans or anything else, and one of the main arguments against Christianity seems to be that “they all hate gays”
That belief isn’t for everyone, but it helps some people and it lets them have faith in their own existence. That is essentially what religion is: faith that you have a reason to be here, and what is wrong with having that faith no matter what the means to reach it were?

THIS IS NOT TRUE. THEY DO NOT ALL HATE GAYS. I DON’T DENY WHAT IS SAID IN THE BIBLE AND I DON’T DENY THAT SOME CHRISTIANS TAKE THIS TOO FAR BUT NOT ALL OF THEM, AND DEFINITELY NOT MOST OF THEM.

I think what Tumblr and the internet in general needs to realise is that everyone has their own life and their own problems and they need different ways to deal with them. Many people turn to music, books, TV shows, fictional characters, comic books etc. But many people also turn to religion. Is there something wrong with that?

They’ve found something they believe in and you don’t only have to believe in music. They’ve found something they can trust and something they feel gives them a purpose in life. I’m not a Christian but I have no trouble understanding that some people chose to turn to Christianity in their time of need because it reassures them that someone greater than them is watching over and has a plan. It’s reassuring to know you have a higher purpose in life and that eventually God will help you reach it.

There are different people in the world and many have their own ways of coping, so here’s an idea: Stop putting people down because they chose to have a little faith in something different to you.

Like I said, there are issues with some of the things mentioned in the bible and some of the people involved, but what happened to there’s no need to stereotype groups of people? Does that rule exempt the religious?

I would like to add that there is no way I’m saying everyone should follow a religion, I’m just saying that everyone who wants to, should be able to do so without their belief being referred to as a disease which requires a cure, because isn’t that essentially what many people used against homosexuality? Didn’t they call homosexuality a disease? Was it nice? No. What makes it nice the other way around?

Also, everything I’ve said applies to every religion not just Christianity and I can say this because I’m a Muslim who’s tried to find hope in many different things and has found it in music and books but also found it in the Islamic belief that all humans are “khalifahs” (i.e. stewards/stewardesses or the Earth put on the Earth to look after it and the people on it).

To conclude: Equality works both ways.

So far, it seems as if only one person seems to agree with me.

It seems as if only one other person thinks religious people have rights.

I really hope this is not true.