I Never Wanted to Be Pro-Choice

It’s true. I NEVER wanted to be pro-choice. NEVER. I was raised Catholic, by very conservative parents, and even as I grew older and increasingly left the teachings of the Church and my parents behind, I still held fast to my pro-life beliefs. Even as my latent feminism finally stopped being latent, I continued to be vehemently and steadfastly against abortion, in all cases, without exception. It has been one of my core beliefs, a truth as universal and real to me as the sun rising each morning.

Until now.

Do I still hate abortion? Certainly, I do. I don’t think anyone “likes” abortion, despite the media-fueled stereotype of the bra-burning, man-hating bitch who delights in the idea of reckless, consequence-free sex that culminates in the destruction of an unborn child. The fact is 35% of women will have an abortion during their reproductive years. Do all these women hate children? Are all these women “loose?” Are all these women evil?

The answer is emphatically, unequivocally, NO. The fact that over a third of women will have an abortion during their lifetimes shows that this issue crosses all religious, racial, socioeconomic, political, and cultural lines. Rich women, poor women, educated women, illiterate women; women of faith and agnostic women, they all have abortions. We have abortions to save our lives and to save our families. We have them to maintain our autonomy, to exercise responsibility. No woman I know who has had an abortion came to the decision capriciously. To suggest otherwise is an vile lie.

I find it staggering that the most outspoken lawmakers on the abortion issue are largely male. Males will never, ever be pregnant. It is an issue they will never have to face personally. And yet they stand in halls of legislature and presume to make law regarding female reproduction. It boggles the mind. In 2011, a Georgia state representative actually backed a bill to criminalize miscarriage; he sought to make it the law of the land that women would have to “prove” they actually had a miscarriage or face murder charges. Murder charges. Georgia is a death penalty state. I know I’m not the only one who actually becomes cold with terror at the thought of having my body put up to government scrutiny. It’s barbaric. And it’s a standard that has no parallel in the male population, no similar circumstance in which men might be subjected to such intrusive government regulation. At first blush, maybe the 20 week abortion ban sounds like a reasonable thing, even to some  abortion supporters. I mean, if a woman can’t figure out before 20 weeks that she wants to abort, that’s just her too bad, isn’t it? But that idea stems from the belief that there are legions of irresponsible, 20+ weeks pregnant women trooping to abortion clinics to end their pregnancies on a whim. The data simply does not bear this out. 88% of abortions occur in the first trimester; less than 1% take place after 21 weeks. In fact, half of all abortions are performed in the first 8 weeks of pregnancy. Again, the idea of women selfishly “changing their minds” in their third trimesters is simply not true. Most later abortions occur in cases where the woman’s life is in grave danger. These women should be denied life-saving care? Their lives ended by legislative fiat? Their other children should be left motherless? Their partners bereaved? Their illnesses subjected to bureaucratic or judicial review? Do we really value the lives of our mothers, sisters, and daughters so little? How can women ever be treated equally to men if their lives are open to such blatant, cruel intrusion?