Blog for Choice!

Today is Blog for Choice day. I’m late posting, but couldn’t let the anniversary of Roe v. Wade go by without posting. Women’s reproductive rights are under siege in this country — even my home state of California was a target in the 40 Days of Forced Birth. Even the supposedly libertarian-minded Ron Paul is an “unshakeable foe of abortion” (read: thinks pregnant women should be forced to bear unwanted children to term) who has tried to define life as beginning at conception in federal law.
A few of the many reasons I am pro-choice, and vote accordingly:

• The government shouldn’t be able to force anyone to have a particular roommate, let alone a particular person inside her body.
• The government shouldn’t be able to have a say in anyone’s medical decisions. Whether to have an abortion or not, and what kind to have, is between a woman and those she chooses to include.
• Pro-forced-birth folks aren’t actually about saving babies, most of the time, they’re about controlling women’s sexuality. You can tell by the way they react to questions about how to punish women who get abortions in places where it’s illegal (and another great link: here).
• If abortion is made illegal, the next thing on the chopping block is contraception. Plenty of pro-forced-birth movement folks are trying to get rid of contraception — look at the hoo-hah over emergency contraception and the pharmacists who won’t fill prescriptions for it. Or the doctors who won’t give birth control pills to unmarried women.
• Nobody should be able to force a woman to bear a child she doesn’t want. Full stop.

A note: Safe abortions will always be available to women with enough money, like myself. We can always go out of the country or wherever we have to.. But women who can’t afford safe abortions will be likely to die if abortion is made illegal. I’m fighting less for myself and more for the women who don’t have the advantages I do.
For more on what a nation where abortion is illegal is like, read this article on El Salvador. I’ve linked it a zillion times, but it’s worth reading.