Blog for Choice 2009

January 22, 2009. The 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that gave us freedom of choice. Blog for Choice Day.
It’s no surprise to any of my readers that I’m violently pro-choice. I don’t even discuss abortion anymore if I can help it, because it’s such a hot topic with me. The thought of being forced to carry a pregnancy to term horrifies me on a visceral level.
So, unsurprisingly, when I hear someone say that abortion should be illegal, or only legal under certain circumstances, what I hear is, “I think you should be forced to bear a child you don’t want. To know every moment of every day for nine months that someone other than you has made a decision about your most intimate parts and enforced it, and you can’t do anything about it.” Needless to say, the whole “give it up for adoption” argument doesn’t cut it with me.
Obviously, even if somehow California did outlaw abortion, I have enough money to get myself to another state, our country, or whatever, and handle things. That’s because I’m privileged enough to have money. But lots of women aren’t, and the thought of those women being forced to bear children they don’t want speaks to me very deeply, and I feel that same horror.
I’ve made lots of pro-choice posts here before, and don’t really think it’d be useful to rehash them. The pro-forced-birthers feel their own visceral horror at the thought of abortion, I know. And that’s part of why this is such a fraught discussion. They hear us pro-choicers say “it’s a woman’s right to choose” and they hear “we want to kill babies!”
I sometimes despair of finding a common ground.
But I also keep fighting. For myself. For the desperate teenager in a rural, conservative area. For the single mother of three who can’t afford more. For the woman who desperately wants a child but is suffering eclampsia. For the idealist who is trying to lower her carbon-footprint. For women everywhere.
Some days the fight means giving money to Planned Parenthood. Sometimes it means writing letters to legislators. Sometimes it means voting, and reminding my friends to vote. Sometimes it means telling someone I know casually that I’m pro-choice because it’s my body, and if you can’t make me donate a kidney, you can’t make me rent out my uterus either — and watching them think about that for a minute while I take a calming breath and try to settle my hackles back down.
But I keep fighting.
Happy anniversary, Roe v. Wade. Long may you remain.