During my senior year of high school I read the prophetic writing of George Orwell and his frightening story about life in 1984. He foresaw living in a world where the government (Big Brother) monitored the lives of the country's citizens in amazingly minute detail. Those who refused to comply were "reprogrammed" and women gave birth in what could best be described as baby factories.
1984 came and went and the seeds of reality had already been scattered across the land. Government intrusion into our lives was alive and well. But it was relatively subtle. As the new millenium arrived we began to discover fiction often does become reality. Now we live a life in which we can expect our phone conversations to be monitored, our e-mails perused, our movements captured on camera and tracked by GPS. We have government bureaucrats telling us we must wear seatbelts for our own protection. A pregnant woman is held liable if she so much as falls down the stairwell and injures the fetus. Never mind that she might be hurt or injured. It's all about protection of the unborn.
A concern to be sure and a valid one. But why assume that the woman carrying the fetus to term, the one who is "mom" to the fetus once it is born, isn't capable of making decisions on her own? It is an arrogant and insidious intrusion. And it is often perpretrated by those who can't become pregnant in the first place.
Yes, sadly it is perpetrated most frequently by men.
Recently I read a news article relating how the Missouri Athletic Commission (the state agency responsible for licensing of and control over professional wrestlers and boxers) has now decided to REQUIRE women professional wrestlers to submit monthly a pregnancy exam validated by a physician, indicating that they are in fact, NOT pregnant. The ruling has been challenged by a courageous young woman who is just beginning her pro wrestling career. It's her contention that she's fully capable of determining her own fate and the fate of any potential children she might bear. Imagine that! Women able to think for themselves. Able to manage from day-to-day. Able to be a mom and still pursue a career of their own choosing.
For those who might think a woman's body is fragile and easily broken, consider this. When Mrs. Morgan was wrestling, she had occassion to work and become good friends with two women who continued wrestling during their first few months of pregnancy. Obviously this isn't recommended practice for every woman who becomes pregnant. But these women were healthy and strong and resilient. And both gave birth to healthy, happy baby boys. All done without the intervention of some government bureaucrat hiding in a glass and steel tower somewhere in the bowels of the big city.
