{"id":219156,"date":"2010-01-22T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rhrealitycheck.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/22\/there-no-choice-without-knowledge"},"modified":"2010-01-21T21:31:13","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T02:31:13","slug":"there-is-no-choice-without-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/219156","title":{"rendered":"There is No Choice Without Knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tThis post is part of our "What Does Choice Mean to You?" series<\/a> commemorating the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade<\/em>.\n\t<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Knowledge. To have a choice, you need options and to have
\noptions you need knowledge. Not just sex and sexuality education, but the knowledge
\nto weigh your options, to make reasoned decisions based on your socio-economic
\ncircumstances, to understand the law, to understand your rights and what your
\ndecisions will mean for you. Without knowledge, you have fewer options or maybe
\nno options at all, and with fewer or no options, there is no real choice.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt is knowledge that can stop peer pressure from being a
\nfactor when a boy or girl chooses to have sex. It is knowledge that is the
\nstarting point for arming teenagers with the means of avoiding unwanted
\npregnancies and STIs. For a teenager who faces an unplanned pregnancy, she
\nneeds to know whether she can legally obtain an abortion and what she needs to
\ndo to meet the legal requirements, particularly as minor. To make an informed
\nchoice, she needs to know what the procedure will involve, what the legitimate
\nrisks are and when alleged risks are unfounded. With every piece of knowledge, a
\nwoman is better placed to make a decision and depending on her choice, she is empowered
\nto either tackle the hurdles she might face in trying to obtain an abortion, or
\nensure her well-being and the well-being of her future child.\n<\/p>\n

\nDoes a woman living with HIV\/AIDS, who is threatened that
\nshe will not be treated at a hospital unless she undergoes sterilization, have
\na choice? Only if she has the knowledge of her own rights to dignity, to found
\na family and to be free from discrimination, if she
\nknows she can walk away from the hospital and where she can go and receive
\nnon-discriminatory treatment. And for a gay man who fears that his family,
\nfriends, colleagues, employer or community will find out about his sexuality? He
\nneeds to know about the acceptability of all sexual identities, so he can
\nchoose whether or not he wants to \u201ccome out\u201d. He needs to know that his
\nsexuality and sexual expression are neither \u201cagainst the order of nature\u201d nor \u201can
\nunnatural offense\u201d. He needs to know that he has a right to non-discrimination
\nand to live with dignity, but also the legal consequences and risks to his
\npersonal safety if he lives in a society that wrongly criminalizes
\nhomosexuality. And his fears of \u201ccoming out\u201d and the stigma that he may face should
\nnot drive him away from obtaining essential knowledge about condom use and
\ncontracting HIV.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn the broadest sense, where women
\nand men have knowledge, they are empowered to fight for their rights. With
\neducation and knowledge, women can fight for their rights to decent work, to own
\nproperty or to an inheritance, rights which women are frequently denied. When
\nwomen are educated, they have choices. And with choices, they are less
\ndependent on male relatives; they are less dependent on a system that denies
\nthem their rights. With knowledge of their rights, women and men can educate
\ntheir children of the rights of all people to live equally and with dignity.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nThere are some decisions which can be only me made by us as
\nindividuals. These are inviolable personal choices. These are the decisions
\nabout our sexuality and how we will express it, about our bodies and what we will
\nand will not do with them. But to make these personal choices, we need
\nknowledge. And only with this knowledge do we really have the right to choose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of our "What Does Choice Mean to You?" series commemorating the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Knowledge. To have a choice, you need options and to have options you need knowledge. Not just sex and sexuality education, but the knowledge to weigh your options, to make reasoned decisions based on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}