Life is one of the most important things to us as human beings, whether we

recognize it or not, we would be nowhere without it; but what is life, compared to

living? In the text “Lucky Girl” by Bridget Potter, speaks about pregnancy and abortion,

and how the creation of life effects the living. To begin with, there are multiple ideas on

what life could be, some may view it perfectly as a scientific process of things that

contain life, be it a virus, a deer, or a human all are alive. However, philosophically

some view life as having the ability to recognize self and enjoy the experiences that

occur. To me, that is the difference of being alive, or mere survival, to living which is a

much more important distinction. Someone who does their best to pursue and attain

happiness is living, while someone who is in a coma may be alive but not living. Potter

speaks of their personal experiences of attempting to attain an abortion, and the mere

fact that it was illegal in the first place is, in some ways, a failing of democracy in the

US. Democracy is supposed to be representative of the people and not the politicians,

and frequently in US history, Congress and the laws they pass and decide on benefit the

politicians and not the people, and it gets even worse when looking at the power they

hold and how every single congressman is a career politician, instead of a living

example of their own constitutions. If politicians reflected the people, then the issue of

abortion would not be an issue, it would be without hassle and has accepted has merely

wearing a condom, or looking both ways when crossing the street.

Potter gets pregnant early in the account, but at every turn Emily attempts to

help, a friend of Potter’s who did everything they could to help Potter with their issues

and seems to have experience with it, such has them knowing someone who knows
someone, an extremely unreliable metric but one that adds to the air of mystery and

desperation that comes with attempting an, at the time, illegal procedure. While Potter

doesn’t declare any official stance on the legality of abortion or not, it’s very clear she is

pro-legalization by the consistent use of death has imagery in regards to people seeking

illegal operations to do so, and the frequent usage of statistics of illegal abortions and

their death counts, these deaths can be easily preventable, because banning abortion

doesn’t stop the abortions, it just makes them less reliable and more deadly to those

who are already living. Potter is a “Lucky Girl” purely because they were able to handle

their situation without dying frankly, while obviously it would’ve been best to have not

had to deal with it in the first place, they’re connections lead them to a place where the

procedure could be done somewhat more safely than would be normal, and because of

that and the fact that they weren’t forced to have the child, Potter could keep on living

their life without any burdens or shackles that would’ve ruined their life.