Ever since 1973, when Roe v. Wade ruled in favor of a woman's legal right to an abortion, the right to choose has been a prevalent and inconclusive issue across the political spectrum in the United States. Most widely known arguments are the "pro-life" stance stating that abortion is just as immoral as killing another person and the "pro-choice" stance which focuses on a woman's natural right to do with her body whatever she chooses.
Of course, the descriptions I just offered of these stances are quite narrowly explained and far too condensed to serve as a proper summary of the debate on abortion rights. My descriptions in this case, however, serve sufficient to background Virginia State Senator Steve Martin's recent Facebook post. In response to a message he received from the Virginia Pro-Choice Coalition asking him to rethink his position on abortion, he wrote a lengthy backlash against their argument. One quote from his post reads, "Once a child does exist in your womb, I'm not going to assume a right to kill it just because the child's host (some refer to them as mothers) doesn't want it."
Upon receiving an extensive amount of negative feedback regarding this comment, Martin did eventually change the word "host" to "child-bearer." However, in my opinion, referring to a mother as anything other than that which literally means "mother" is highly offensive. Even so, his original comment raises multiple questions in regard to his ethical definition of motherhood. Defining pregnant women as merely a "host" of the child she bears is at once extremely sexist and completely immoral, both in liberal and conservative terms. While I am not bothered by Martin's decision to post his pro-life opinion on his Facebook page, I condemn his demeaning definition of a woman's right to motherhood.
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