Let me start by saying I'm pro-choice. All the way, and I really really am disgusted by some of the methods more extreme pro-lifers use/have done.
I also thought that their argument was...unrealistic let's say. Wanting no abortions, but then they say no condoms. Which is kind of like shooting themselves in the foot.
But it was really refreshing to see this blogger say. "I know, I know, it's a little strange. And it hurts our cause. " And tell us, reason by reason, with references, "addressing the pro-lifers who think all contraception is unacceptable."
I like to give people the benefit of the doubt sometimes. I also like to be an adult and converse with other adults in a calm manner. Even if I disagree. Incredibly so. But I don't really get to see many pro-contraception pro-lifers.
Especially ones who say this: "Look, I understand that a lot of the people who object to artificial contraception do so based on religious reasons very dear to them. I am not saying you must accept artificial contraception or even that you must stop speaking out about your problems with it. I am, however, asking that you make a distinction between a religious basis for being against artificial contraception, and a so-called "pro-life" basis. A minority of pro-lifers are against all forms of artificial contraception, but people don't have to be against all forms of artificial contraception to be pro-life. And people don't have to be okay with abortion to use artificial contraception. Kindly stop conflating all of that."
I might get a lot of flack for this. But I just want to put it out there that there is a gray area.
On Reproductive Rights and Minding Your Own Damn Business
Here is the thing. I cannot recall a time when I was not 100% pro-choice. I also can never really recall a time when I didn't know what abortion is or how it worked or what happened, but surely I learned it at some point, said, "Huh, okay," and went on about my life. Like you do.
This is why it is so difficult for me to understand people who are anti-choice and seek to control people's reproductive rights…in the name of a loving god and the ideals of freedom and equality.
What?
Where is the disconnect here? I just finished reading When God Was a Woman, and it's pretty evident that most Judeo-Christian teachings are explicitly anti-woman from the get go, most likely in order to stifle the worship of female deities and end matrilineal society. My question is, and always has been, and always will be, why?
Why do you hate women so much that you see pregnancy as punishment to be meted out to atone for sexual intercourse (which is kind of necessary to further the species in addition to being a natural, zesty enterprise) that hasn't been certified and approved by the laws of some higher (read: masculine) power?
Why do you hate women so much that you don't believe they should be allowed to make their own decisions regarding their health and therefore their lives because they're too dumb to realize that it's not a food baby in their tummies from too many burritos, but OMFG an actual baby?
Why do you feel the need to control the private and personal decisions of those around you so desperately, especially when they affect you and your private, personal decisions in precisely no way whatsoever?
This is what bothers me the most about all the bullshit that goes down in terms of religious freedom and oppression and First Amendment rights and all that fantastic talking head fodder. Just because you're Christian (or Jewish or Muslim or Atheist even) doesn't give you the right to be a dick about it.
If as a Christian you're opposed to reproductive freedom, that's your deal. You have the right not to believe in that. I don't have to agree with you, but I'm also not going to blow you up or harrass you because I think you're wrong. By the same token, however, you do not have the right to tell me, someone who does not believe in the same things you do and does not ascribe to the fallacy of religious morality, that I cannot do as I please with my body and my life and my very destiny. I'm sorry, you just can't. Deal with it, grow up and move on.
Honestly, now. Is it really because you see fetuses as actual human beings with rights that trump those of the already-viable human being carrying them? I find that extremely difficult to believe, especially since most anti-choicers stop giving a fuck about children as soon as they're out of the womb, especially if they're poor children of color.
If someone gets an abortion–someone you've never known or met, who lives hundreds of miles away, living a completely different life with a completely different set of circumstances from you–how does that affect you, personally, in any way? How is that stranger's private life any of your business at all?
It's not my business, so I don't judge them for it or try to tell them what they should or should not do because they didn't ask my opinion, and it's also not my business to decide what's best for anyone besides myself at the moment. I am genuinely want to know why some people feel that the individual choices of total and complete strangers are indeed their business, to be opined on and legislated and regulated like it's even up for discussion.
It's the same for people who think gay marriage destroys the sanctity of all marriage. Why do you even give a shit? WHO FUCKING CARES? I just don't understand, and I've yet to see any anti-choice argument that makes sense in any way, shape or form as an option that does not severely restrict the rights to personal freedom and privacy that we are supposed to be guaranteed in the United States of America.
So even though I've never known a time in this nation where Roe v. Wade has not been in existence, I also feel like I've never known a time where it hasn't been systematically dismantled so that while abortion may be technically legal, access to it has been so severely restricted that only ONE STATE (thanks, Oregon!) has no added legislation restricting what is supposed to be a constitutional right.
As I've gotten new jobs, moved around, changed insurance coverage and whatnot, I've had to address the fact that there are almost no independent, non-Catholic healthcare providers within about a 100-mile radius of where I live. There is the University-affiliated hospital and nowhere else. Every other provider has "St." or "Christ" or "Mercy" in their names. Every. Single. One. This includes emergency rooms, and primary physicians.
At my last gyno visit, there was a mini-van covered in anti-choice bumper stickers in the parking lot and a bible enshrined on a table right by the entrance to the waiting room. (Fun fact: the bible is also considered "Non-Fiction" on Amazon.) All I wanted was a checkup and to get my birth control refilled. If I had been pregnant and needed an abortion to survive, would they have given it to me? Or would they have preached at me about the sanctity of life as my own slipped away?
I am not afraid of death or dying itself, but I am afraid of how I will die, and being allowed to die without intervention on the basis of someone else's religious beliefs is one of those nightmare scenarios. Along the same lines, being kept alive against my will under the guise of a religion not my own as my body expires is not exactly my idea of a good way to go.
Someone please just help me understand WHY.
Why would a politician from my state add language to a Domestic Abuse support law describing abortion as such, when there are already-born children and adults suffering from real Domestic Abuse statewide?
Why is this attempt to dismantle a private, legal medical procedure is more important than, oh, I don't know, the millions of people who cannot afford basic healthcare?
Why do the three states in which I've lived have nearly every single abortion limitation allowable within the confines of legality, which are apparently none too constrictive at all?
Why is there always an old man with hideous propaganda trolling outside the local Planned Parenthood offices, and why is it almost lways old men I see with anti-choice bumper stickers (I make a point to try to make eye contact with the driver if possible, even though I will probably get shot as a result)?
Why is it unacceptable for me to terminate a pregnancy but it is acceptable to terminate IRL children as collateral damage in warfare, or kill a man via an untested injection that may or may not be cruel and unusual punishment, or take away food stamps and unemployment support from those who need it most in a culture that sets us up for failure from the start unless we're rich, white, heterosexual, cisgender Christian males?
I've only got a couple of those things going for me right now as a white cishet, but I know very well I could have it so much worse, and that many, many more do.
I just cannot wrap my brain around anti-choice thinking because it makes absolutely zero sense to me. That is why I am pro-choice, pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-family, pro-marriage equality, pro-IVF, pro-adoption, etc.
Because your individual rights and freedoms, reproductive or otherwise, are nobody's fucking business but your own.
