Anti-choicers on women who get abortions “for convenience”

I had to laugh when I saw this headline over at RedState (I especially appreciated the sub-head):

Apparently blogger Lori Ziganto was scandalized by a recent post I published about a pro-choice New Yorker who changed an anti-choice subway ad. Here’s the ad after it was pro-choiceified:

Ziganto writes:

Want to go to college, but there is a pesky baby growing inside of you? Abort! A life is far less important than your co-ed fun and career plans, right?

…Jessica Valenti called the abortionchangesyou.com ad “heinous.” Do you know what she said about the defaced ad promoting abortion for convenience? She called the vandal a “pro-choice hero” and then said: “Love. It.”

Loves encouraging abortion for convenience. Loves encouraging abortion because a baby, a human life, doesn’t fit in with your super fun college plans.

…But you want it to be safe, legal and rare? Baloney. Willy nilly matters of convenience are not part of that definition. You have devalued life to the point where *convenience* over-rides a life itself, in your minds. (Emphasis mine)

Going to college is a matter of “convenience”? Really? Women want higher education for “co-ed fun”?

I always wondered what anti-choicers meant when they said women get abortions “for convenience.” Did they think that women were procuring lunchtime abortions so they could go out and booze it up that night? That women didn’t feel like gaining weight and that ending the pregnancy would be so much easier? I figured that they had this bizarre fictitious woman in their minds and that they didn’t recognize the complex, personal, and often selfless reasons women decide to get abortions. But I was wrong.

It isn’t that anti-choicers don’t understand why women get abortions – it’s that they care so little about women’s lives that any reason given to obtain an abortion is seen as “convenient.”

Some things that are convenient: Providing for your existing children. Going to college. Having enough money to eat, pay rent, keep the electricity on. Not dying.

So yeah, I guess I would “rejoice” over women obtaining abortions when it’s convenient. (The inaccessibility of abortion for too many women makes actual rejoicing impossible.) Whether it’s for health, financial, and educational reasons – or simply not wanting to have a child yet – it would absolutely thrill me if women’s life decisions were respected, accepted and supported.  But instead, we live in a world where a woman’s desire for something as basic as education is mocked as selfish.  And we’re the ones who are “anti-woman”?  I think not.