Dear President,

This has been a topic of dicussion for quite some time now. Should abortion be legal or illegal?

I'm a seventeen year old high school student. I make very good grades, I have a job, and I am currently waiting for an admissions letter to the college of my dreams. By chance, if I were to get pregnant now, I would not be able to keep the child. I'm not financially or emotionally stable and I know that I wouldn't be able to provide a enviornment for that child to grow in.

Sure, abortion is "always an option," but what would the 415,129 children in foster care say about that? What will this child do when it's of legal age and can no longer rely on the system to keep them fed, keep them healthy, and keep them off the streets? What happens if my kid is never adopted or placed in a good family? Are you going to adopt my child? I wouldn't expect you to. I dont blame you for not wanting to care for a child you didn't ask for... because I don't want to either.

What if I were raped? Would you grant me the ability to get an abortion then? Would you force me to carry a child that I didn't want, by a man I never gave consent to my body? How will you prove I was raped? Does proving my innocence means allowing another person to prod and inspect my body? What if I couldn't prove I was raped? Will I still have to have the baby? Will I have to look down at my growing stomach everyday for nine months and see the reprocussions of someone else's actions? Will you make me look into the eyes of my child everyday and see nothing but the man who took from me my self worth? By saying I can only get an abortion if I can prove I've been raped, are you saying I only have rights over my own body after someone else violates it?

Fast forward a few years. When I've hit the 32 week mark and we learn that giving birth to this child will kill me, would you let me do it then? Would you instead rather me go home and tell my mother I will no longer be a part of the family I've waited 32 weeks to be a part of? Would you rather me hold my weeping husband while he apologizes over and over? Would you rather my husband have to come home in a couple months and tell our other two children that mommy isn't coming home? Is this fetus worth more than my life? Worth more than the life of a mother's only child? More than the life of a loving husbands new bride? The life of two little girls' mother?

I've always been told that abstinence is key, but if I never want children, am I suppose to go against human nature and never have sex? What if I finally made the biggest step towards my career goals and I find out I'm pregnant? What if I just got my dream job? What if the work I do is too dangerous for a child to grow inside of me? What if my job doesn't give maternity leave, but without that paycheck I can't pay rent? Do I have the right to an abortion? Do I get the option to put my future ahead of an unborn child? When do I get the chance to choose myself over a fetus? When do I get to pick my career, my financial stability, my own life, my relationships over a clump of cells?

Since when is MY body a political discussion? Keeping abortion legal, is keeping abortion safe and sanitary. Making it illegal, despite the many reasons not to, just means people will find ways to do it without doctors and without the needed medical supplies. Is that worth an unborn fetus? Where do you cross the line? Which has the right to a full life-a teenage girl with goals and potential to accomplish them, or a 13 week old fetus?

"Pro-life" includes my life, too.

Sincerely,

The seventeen year old with potential