My mother was the strongest woman I have ever met. I say “was” because she passed away three months ago at the ripe age of 99. Till the end she wanted it “her way”. What made my mother strong were her undying convictions in her faith, her family, and herself. She did not take parenting classes but raised seven children: three during war time. She did not walk the streets with picket activist signs; but she knew how to send a message through her stern and often stinging retorts. She did not need women’s rights organizations to tell her that some things were not right when it comes to gender bias; but she stoically continued her strong Christian life and faith that kept her on the straight and narrow, and kept us; well disciplined and behaved. Her generation fought and won wars without excuses or apologies because her generation were intelligent enough to realize that wars were not pretty but often necessary. She did not need main stream media or the intellectual 30-something tweeting twits to tell her how to lead a relevant life. My mother was the most relevant woman on earth. How then have we as women, progressed or rather digressed into a state of stupid? What has let loose a generation of whiny entitled self-centered women to take on hollow activism that is not only counter-productive to our identity, but close to being third-world barbaric? When did we morph from being ladies to being vulgar? At what point in time did we lose our sense of right and eagerly embrace wrong? When did we become liberated without a sense of responsibility or common sense? Why aren’t we content to be blessed for being who we are?

What has sent me on this tirade is something equally inane but nonetheless poignant in a sense that it clearly reflects today’s women’s activism movement. A short social media post by a women’s rights group boldly stated that because they are pro-choice they are not pro abortion. How convenient! I retorted that would mean that because I smoke dope I am not an addict. The answer to my retort was well expected: “not the same”.  Really? No one has ever explained the term “pro-choice” to us regular folk, however, the term has only been referred to the politically charged “women’s body rights”. Now I must admit that I have never heard gun lobbyists use the term “pro-choice” for packing. Probably because there is a difference between the right to bear arms and the politically adopted right to abortion. It is the activists themselves that conned the term “pro-choice” and they decided to own it. It is these same activists who fight and claw for the “right” to end a life without provocation.  Where are the signs for “Unborn lives matter”?

What mind boggles me is the incongruity of the loud “pro-choice” mantra because contraception is as available as a Big Mac, and children are taught about sex, transgender, homosexuality, and other politically correct genre before they can read, write, or even identify their own country on a map; you would think that unwanted pregnancies would be rare rather than the norm. But here we are today, almost a quarter century into the millennium and we still have kids having kids, and we still think that getting rid of the “problem” is the answer to women’s rights. Some disingenuously disguise it as women’s health!  It seems that  women’s rights groups only activate their “rights” when it comes to forcibly removing an unborn from a woman and profanely call it “pro choice”. At least in Cambodia Pol Pott’s soldiers had the decency to kill the babies when they were born rather than before! They took the babies and smashed them against trees to save on ammunition. These places are now aptly called the Killing Fields. In our country we call them clinics. Our female sense of justice has been warped into a sinister acceptance of the unthinkable and barbaric. This generation has more feelings for a gorilla who was shot to save a child than the child who was in danger. Vigils  behind prison walls are kept in protest of capital punishment, but we think nothing of hauling an unborn forcibly from a mother’s womb and then conveniently call it: pro-choice.

At what point in time is the unborn going to have a voice? Who will speak for him or her? And more important: who are we aborting? Could it be the next scientist who finds a cure for cancer? The next engineer who discovers new life and new civilizations? A new Shakespeare? The next  Mother Theresa? How about the philanthropist who revolutionizes alternative energy without fossil fuel?  What about the next woman philosopher, poet, writer, and mother? “Pro-choice” is genderless and eradicates without remorse because there is no one to witness the “choice”. It is nameless and faceless. This is very similar to what regimes did in the gulags of the old Soviet Union, the prisons of South America, and the Killing Fields of Cambodia.  The born and unborn become dispensable and unwanted by the few for reasons beyond decency.

I am a woman. As a woman I am appalled that my unprecedented gift and ability  to bring life to the world has been hijacked by those who regard pro-creation with disdain. To regard motherhood as an inconvenience is beyond incomprehensible and downright evil. To pretend otherwise is an affront to my womanhood, and, yes my “pro-choice”.  We are slowly and systematically moving toward total apathy and organized extermination of the unborn. For many years, the Chinese government aborted girls or locked them up in orphanages under the pretense that they were not productive to society. The west was stunned! Really? Why don’t we take a look at the trash in our own back yard?

My mother gave birth to seven children. She nurtured us and loved us unconditionally. She watched us grow and go our separate ways knowing that she had done her very best to raise us right. I doubt that she did not face days when running away from a house full of kids seemed attractive; but if she had such thoughts she sure never shared them with anyone. She was the true activist who made choices that impacted our lives down the road. I never heard her say that she regretted having any of us. Till the very end, she loved us and her role as a woman and a mother.

Following in her footsteps; most of us siblings eventually had families of our own. We are surgeons, nurses, marketing executives, bankers, engineers, administrators, teachers, photographers, and volunteers. Each in our own way has contributed to our generation and our children have in turn contributed to theirs. If we had opted to choose not to have these wonderful children the world would have been without: a surgeon, a nurse, a teacher, a marketing director, a business woman, a graphic artist, a self-employed marketing executive, a journalist, an editor, and an entrepreneur. Men do not have the ability or luxury to carry a breathing living being. That is a privilege  only known to women. Why are we discarding it like yesterday’s pizza? If women’s rights groups want to really practice “pro-choice” then they should encourage women to choose doing the right thing before getting pregnant and not afterwards. Now that’s a concept I have not seen on any ballot!