I’m a sexual health educator tasked with educating youth about the potential risks and consequences of engaging in unprotected sex and arming them with the tools that they need to protect themselves should they ever have sex. Working in the state of Nevada, a state leading the nation in unplanned teen pregnancy rates and rates of contraction for STIs/STDs, I believe this work to be important.

The conservative pro-life movement has come out of the woodwork swinging, attempting to dismantle every single medical provision that would work to protect women or give them any semblance of power or control. Congress is currently debating a bill that would reinforce an already existing law allowing medical professionals to legally refuse to give a woman an abortion, even if the operation would save her life. The great and wonderful state of Pennsylvania, touting that it’s the “State of Independence” , looks like it will pass their ironically titled “Women’s Right to Know Act” mandating that woman are shown an ultrasound of their developing fetus to scare, shame and guilt them into reconsidering the option to end their pregnancy. Finally, in the forward-minded state of Mississippi, a “Personhood Amendment” is being introduced to the state’s constitution. This “Personhood Amendment” would ban all abortions, regardless of the situation (rape, incest, etc) but would go above and beyond by banning the morning after pill (used to prevent pregnancy), many forms of hormonal contraception, and some IUDs (inter-uterine devices). To top it all off, the amendment would ban in vitro fertilization. There is even a school in Canada that is granting middle-school aged children extra credit for engaging in anti-choice protesting. The war on reproductive rights is escalating to new and moronic heights.

I have a question for the pro-life moment. I recognize, though don’t agree with, your beliefs that a bundle of cells could and should have the same rights and protections – if not more – than the woman carrying said cells to term and then subsequently taking care of said child for the rest of her life. So if life is so important, so much so that Mississippi is currently defining a “person” to include a fertilized egg, where is the nationwide mandate for prenatal vitamins and preventative care for all pregnant women? Would we then arrest pregnant women who are drinking, smoking, doing drugs or eating unhealthily for they could be putting their child at risk and potentially causing a whole host of life-altering complications for the child. Oh, that might be a little expensive and intrusive for the laissez-faire mentality of Republicans. We wouldn’t want to interfere in the lives of our citizenry; especially if that intrusion costs the government money for social services. Ok, what about the all those teen moms that you valiantly protected, by shaming them into a having a child that they cannot afford nor take care of; are we going to start paying mothers for having children to subsidize their expenses and make sure they can adequately care for their child’s life that we spent so much time and energy saving? No, they wouldn’t do that. Well, let’s at least give that child a world class education that is free of charge. I mean we protected this child’s life didn’t we? Let’s ensure that this child does something beneficial to our society, since we heroically swooped in to save the life of this child and mother. No the pro-life movement would never go for that. How dare education be an accessible right to all? In fact, isn’t the conservative base advocating for funding cuts to the public school system, eliminating teachers’ right to collective bargaining, denying them domestic partnerships or civil unions for them and their partners, and forcing schools to adopt an abstinence-only sexual education curriculum in order to receive much needed Federal funding for supplies?

It seems to me that the pro-life movement cares only up until the point where the child is delivered into world. Once they are sure that the plans of the creepy liberal baby-killers have been thwarted, they leave the mother and child alone, patting themselves on the back for a job well done. They do not care about the resources available to this child (ironic that it is the conservative base diminishing these precious resources), the environment where the child lives – whether that child is born into a house of drugs, alcohol and/or abuse – or what kind of future this child might have. It seems rather contradictory to me. For a political party that cringes at the idea of “big government” and its constant liberal interference into the lives of morally decent tax-paying Christian citizens of America, they seem to want to have complete control over a woman’s reproductive choice and deciding how one should lead their life. Oh that’s right; conservatives believe it is a religious mandate from God to interfere in political manners only if they are relevant to maintaining the core, family-centric values of America. Let’s regulate the gays, the promiscuous abortion-seeking women and those pesky illegal immigrants attempting to steal the jobs that no one wants. However, everyone else living their white, Christian, suburban lifestyle should be allowed to conduct their lives without the government stepping in – whether they have gay scandals, are addicted to prescription pills, or hire illegal workers that they do not pay.             

I hope that this massive spiritual and cultural awakening that I have heard is rumored to happen, will eliminate people’s general stupidity and moronic tendencies. Or …. A portal to an alternate dimension transports them to a land far far away from here could work as well.  

When does life begin? If and when do we as human beings begin to have souls? At what point do we as a society begin to make judgments on the value of said lives? The novel “Unwind”, written by Neal Shusterman, tackles these questions in this gripping novel. The United States has just recovered from its second Civil War; known as the Heartland War, this war was fought over reproductive rights with the pro-life movement and the pro-choice movement waging the battle. A document, entitled the Bill of Life, was born as a compromise between the two factions to end the war. The Bill of Life simply stated that:

“Human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen. However, between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, a parent may choose to retroactively “abort” a child … on the condition that the child’s life doesn’t “technically” end. The process by which a child is both terminated and yet kept alive is called “unwinding”. Unwinding is now a common and accepted practice in society”.

Enter Connon, Lev, and Risa – the main characters of the story – who, for all very different reasons, are sent to be unwound. Connor, a troubled youth, prone to fights and temperamental behaviors, feels betrayed by his parents when they decide to give up on him and sign away his life to a harvest camp. Lev, from a religious background, is the tenth child in his family and therefore was destined from birth to serve as a tithe and be sacrificed for the greater good. He openly accepts his fate and welcomes it in fact. Risa, a beautiful pianist, has no parents and has grown up in a state home her whole life. However with more children finding their way into state homes and the increasing costs of maintaining these homes, state home boards often send children they have deemed to have reached their potential to a harvest camp – to make room for more children.  A tribunal, comprised of “suits”, effectively ends Risa’s life and she has no control or say in the matter. None of them did in fact. A series of bizarre circumstances puts these three children on the run as they try to survive to eighteen and thus evade the dreaded unwinding process. Through the unwinding process every single part of the human body is recycled – organs, skin, brain tissue, limbs – and given to those in need. What is striking is that though the body is disassembled and distribute to patients around the world remnants of that person’s soul, muscle memory, consciousness remains within the limbs and organs.

The story, narrated from each of the main characters at various points, relates their journey as they travel from safe house to safe house on their way to a safe haven known only as the graveyard. The graveyard, which is a desert of decommissioned jets in Arizona, serves as a refuge for Unwinds – a place from them to reach eighteen and re-enter society under a new false identity. All of them are striving to stay alive and remain whole.

It was an interesting and novel concept; parents can get rid of their “problematic” children and are absolved from guilt because the children don’t necessarily die, but are recycled to make the lives of others better. One part that was particularly poignant was, while fleeing to safety, Connor and three other boys find themselves sealed in a cargo crate and with nothing else to do, begin to examine the unwinding process. What unfolds is a philosophical discussion told through children using the rhetoric of pro-lifers and pro-choicers, and the overall effect is incredible. Is it such a stretch of the imagination for something like this to happen? Will the divisive polarizing politics of the United State eventually lead to a scenario such as this? Classified is young adult fiction, this book shows us all a potentially and entirely plausible future where life is both valued and discarded just as easily.