A Woman's Right to Her Body Santiago Dumlao, Jr.

You say that the "real issue here is the God-given right of a woman to use her body in any way she likes". From this premise, you therefore affirm, "I will have a child when I want to at the right time and the right place. Or none at all." I held an opposite view. You cannot, because you "own" it, use your body in any way you like. In the first place, you don't own it in the ownership sense of being able to use and dispose of it as long as you me without inhibitions or restrictions. You cannot kill yourself, for example, or physically wound or dismember yourself simply because you want to. In other words, you don't own your body or life to do as you please. There are limits we should recognize, limits imposed by society, and more importantly, by the sacred nature of our bodies. Other people have a stake over your body (i.e. by extension, your life), to keep it healthy, secure, nourished, protected. Your parents who brought you into this world certainly have a stake over your body and life, in its continuation or cessation. In fact, the state has stake over a stake in you body (and life), in its continuation or cessation. In fact, the state has a stake in your body (and life), in its preservation and protection under our kind of civilized society. That is why we have rules of conduct, and penalties for inflicting on others physical injury to the body or even emotional injury (e.g., mental anguish from libel). So there are persons or entities aside from and outside of you who have some rights to and interest in what you do with your body. Just to drive home the point some more, does the wife have the sole right to do what we believe must be done with our bodies" (as you say), totally ignoring the desire of the husband to have a child? Wouldn't this be a wife's very selfish insistence on what she wants do, violating the covenant of marriage, certainly (in the least) the intention of procreation, implied in the act of marriage? Perhaps where we really are poles apart is in the way we regard the human body. You seem to regard the human body as essentially physical matter, to be possessed and handled simply as a functioning anatomy. I happen to be a Bible-reading, God-fearing person. And I believe that the human body is the temple of God. As scripture says: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy." I also believe that we are made in the image of God and should all try to act in that image. "Do you not know that the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?" You may dismiss this as gobbledygook from someone writings of dubious credibility, inappropriate in an enlightened age of resurgent womanhood. "God has given us intelligence to be able to think," you say. But intelligence unaccompanied by wisdom can sometimes mislead, don't you agree? 1. Does a woman have absolute right over her body and bodily functions? 2. What does the Bible say about our human body? 3. What should be the primary concern of couples especially the woman to avoid unwanted pregnancies or abortion? 4. Why is pre-marital sex objectionable in our culture? 5. What is the author's idea about life? about our right to our body? Do you agree with him? Why or why not? 6. What is the authors purpose for writing the article? 7. What is the theme of the selection?