Dear Future President,

Currently, the Women's Congressional Health Board is made entirely of men. This means that there is a group of 60 something men telling me and millions of other women what we can and cannot do with our bodies. Even though they are obviously unfit to do the job considering the fact that they are not. Some of the decisions these men make can really change the lives of many women whether or not contraceptives are allowed, the taxes on feminine products and they can even make sweeping decisions on topics like abortion.

Topics such as abortion tend to be pretty tricky, but in my opinion, if a woman is the one who has to birth the child than she has the right to decide whether or not she is ready. If she chooses to keep it then that is her decision and we should respect that but if she decides she does not want to have a child as a society, we should respect her wishes regardless if we agree with the situation or not. There are also many valid reasons why a woman can choose to get an abortion other than the fact that she made a mistake. For example health issues, such as Patau's Syndrome, Ectopic Pregnancies, Cytomegalovirus, an unintended case of toxoplasmosis, severe clotting, Group B strep, and many other possible complications that affect both the baby and the mother.

The mother's pre-existing conditions can also dictate the outcomes of pregnancy and whether or not she should be having children. Some of these conditions include heart murmurs, alcoholism, addiction, Cancer, obesity, HIV/AIDS, Epilepsy, Coronary Heart Disease (a possible side effect of obesity), diabetes, clinical depression, anxiety, bipolar, and any other mental health issues as well as many more heart complications. If a mother has any of these conditions then it may be best to avoid having children. In a situation like this giving the mother the chance to decide what she thinks is best for the child is better that requiring her to have this child despite the fact that she has deal with the aftermath just because some politician doesn't understand the basics of freedom and allowing people to make choices should not be  valid reason to keep a woman from making decisions for her own body.

We should also be aware of the fact that rape is still very common in America (the state I live in being amongst the top 6 according to the FBI crime stats from 2012). Why should a woman have to birth a child that she was forced to have in the first place? Or even to want to raise the child as her own knowing exactly how the child was conceived. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which includes crimes that were not reported to the police, 232,960 women in the U.S. were raped or sexually assaulted in 2006. That’s more than 600 women every day. Women have already enough to deal with aftereffects of being rate, the fact that they will have to give birth to the child of the rapist being one of the last problems they need on thier list. Abortion should definitely be an option for these women after such a traumatic event and trying to rid them of that choice is just downright horrid.

Finally, financial problems are also another reason why some women choose abortion over having the child. For a single mom having a child is a very difficult task. Figuring out how to take care of the child while trying to make money is even harder. There is also still the existing wage gap that affects how successful a woman can be on her own in contrast to a single male. For example, the average white American woman makes about 78% of what the average white male makes. The average black American woman making only 64% of the white man's pay. In other words for many women having a child is not even a viable option after taking into account their financial situations.

The differences in these, although they may seem small, can greatly affect how much money you have in order to spare money for a child. In the best case scenario the white man would make around 100 dollars a day leaving white women with 78 dollars a day and black women 64 dollars a day there is a dramatic difference between 100 dollars and 64 dollars. If a mother has to wrangle the wage gap while in order to make enough money even for herself then how is she going to manage to care for the kid that she really didn't intend to have in the first place. The child may not be provided for properly despite the mother's efforts to do so.

I am not all for abortion, however, I do believe in choice because choice is a freedom that few have. By giving women the choice to abort we allow them to own their bodies and to make decisions for themselves and for the health of their unborn children.

In order to fix these issues, as a president, you should consider giving people the right to make choices like this because ultimately the women are the ones who will have to deal with the outcomes of their decisions. As the next president please consider what I have said carefully.