After months and months of debate and deliberation, the Casey Anthony case has come to a close with the verdict of not guilty. While onlookers argue over the injustice of the verdict, I can’t help but to consider the obvious elephant in the room. Why did this woman even have this child?

Recently Wisconsin defunded Planned Parenthood in the state. Wisconsin will join Indiana, Kansas and North Carolina in passing similar legislation. Each cut funding to the health care and abortion provider earlier this year. The state’s Legislature passed the $66 billion budget on June 16. That includes a $1 million cut to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a resource for women and young girls who cannot afford to go to a private doctor. Medical insurance is not needed to be provided with services and often times the services are either free or at a low cost. They provide women with affordable birth control, abortion services, and vaginal exams. They also can connect women with unwanted children to adoption services. You might be wondering how do these two scenarios coincide you might ask? Simple. Somewhere in Wisconsin there is a young woman who is pregnant and does not possess the nurturing skills, financially stability, mental maturity, or sheer patience, needed to be a full time mother. However, she now feels that she has no choice but to continue with the pregnancy because she has limited access to affordable assistance programs. Programs that could help her make the best decision for herself and her unborn child. Contrary to popular belief not every person born with a vagina has mothering instincts.

With that being said, I am a firm supporter of abortion. Yes, LJ Knight, supports abortion. I support a women’s right to choose. I think that a woman should have the right to make a decision as to whether or not she is ready to become a mother. I also believe that not every woman who becomes pregnate should be forced to have the child.

When I hear about situations like the Caylee Anthony case, which in my eyes, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder could both see that the mother obviously killed her own child; (I disagree with the verdict) that perhaps if she never had this child then this situation would never had occurred. Perhaps she never wanted to be a mother but felt pressured by her family to keep the child or that she had no other options.

It is obvious from the scenarios described by the witnesses and even the defendants own parents, that Casey was often more interested in partying than mothering. Some even made accusations that she seemed to be jealous of the amount of attention her daughter received from her own parents. As a young woman these conflicted feelings are to be expected. As a mother, it is not accepted. She was expected to get over whatever feelings she was having and raise her child. A child that she clearly did not want.

This is why I would have preferred for her to have aborted the pregnancy early on rather than to kill her child and then leave her body to decompose in the back seat of a car for days like a forgotten piece of fruit. I would rather the child’s life end before it could even form a thought as opposed to it being forced to trying to understand why mommy is so mad at them? Why is mommy hurting them? The lack of options for young women with unwanted pregnancies and the killing of young children are directly related. There simply are not enough affordable outlets for women to not only discover ways to protect themselves during sex but also to make educated decisions when it comes to their bodies. This world needs places like Planned Parenthood. Defunding them should not even be open for discussion. What they provide is an essential service to women of all ages.

Every year we hear stories of parents killing their children. Stuffing them in dryers, leaving them in closets for days to starve to death, setting the house on fire with their children in it. The type of stories that would make Stephen King cringe. Every time I hear these stories, the reoccurring thought of where is an abortion clinic when you need one comes to mind? As crude as that may sound, I would much rather a child’s life not begin as opposed to seeing it end horribly by the hands of its own parent. Granted, not every parents knows that they will be a shi**y parent before they have the child. Some people are happy and even ecstatic about the pregnancy initially. Sometimes the stress of parenthood doesn’t hit them until much later. It is safe to say that not every parent can handle that stress.

No child deserves to die. They definitely don’t deserve to die by the hands of their own parent. The people who are suppose to love them the most in this world.

Sidenote: In no way am I defending this woman’s actions or making an excuse for her. I am simply debating the alternatives to her frustration with having a child vs. it coming to this end.