I'm No Lady! - Pro-choice: What it is, what it isn't
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Pro-choice: What it is, what it isn't
I wasn't always pro-choice. In fact, I was anti-abortion until sometime around college.
Abortion hasn't been one of those easy issues for me. When I was anti-abortion, I was uncomfortable. Now that I am pro-choice, I'm still uncomfortable, because I can see both sides, and my Catholic upbringing has left its mark.
I may never be completely comfortable with the issue of abortion. But in the end, I am pro-choice, and I don't think that's going to change. I don't think I'm going to go back to thinking women who have abortions are selfish, or cruel, or murderers. I don't think I'm going to ever vote for an anti-abortion candidate.
So it really pisses me off when people get the wrong idea about what being pro-choice means. I'll probably post this on my personal LJ later, because I've been silent about abortion in the past. The last in-depth post about abortion was made back when I was anti, and I've only mentioned my pro-choiceness in passing.
Here we go.
Pro-choice means believing in a woman's right to choose. Yes, this includes abortion. As I go down the list, I may make it sound like abortion isn't important, or that it's only a small part of the pro-choice movement. In some ways, it is a small part, because there are a lot of other parts--contraception, education, health care, etc. But when it comes to importance, it's big. We cannot be afraid of talking about abortion. Why? Because if we stay silent on the issue, we will continue to stigmatize women who choose abortion. Because if we refer to it only sparingly, or use euphemisms, we will create a new generation filled with ignorance. Because if we don't support candidates who are unapologetically pro-choice, we will be in danger of losing our right to choose--yes, our right. Not just the right of "that woman" who cannot afford to have another child, or "those girls" who don't want to be mothers yet. It means the rights of you and me, which brings me to my next point.
Pro-choice means knowing that this issue affects you and those you love. I don't plan on having children. I plan on using birth control when I am sexually active. If I do get pregnant, I imagine myself raising the child, since I'm not so opposed to having children that I could never see myself as a mother. However, in reality, I do not know. Maybe I would have an abortion. Maybe my feelings would change when I actually realized I was pregnant. A million things could happen between the certain Now and the hypothetical Then. I can't stay silent about abortion just because I think I'm never going to have one. And that's just without bringing other women who are close to me into the picture. If you are condemning women who have abortions, it is important to realize that you could be condemning your friend, your mother, your grandmother, your aunt, your teacher, your boss, your lover, your spouse--your daughter, even.
Pro-choice does not mean you like abortion. I've never met anyone who said, "I really love having abortions!" I've only met a few people who called themselves "pro-abortion." I've met lots of people who talk about women who get pregnant who are poor, or have a lot of kids, or are single, and say, "She should have gotten an abortion. She's just looking for attention/sympathy/tax credits." THIS IS NOT PRO-CHOICE. This is anti-choice and anti-woman. There are pro-choicers who have no problem with abortion, who feel uncomfortable with abortion, or who even think it's wrong.
Pro-choice means being against forced or coerced abortions. To force a woman to have an abortion is sick and wrong. It is abuse. No pro-choicer would ever, ever suggest that a woman should be made to have an abortion.
Pro-choice means caring about the woman and her child once the child is born. I find it strange how so many people who call themselves "pro-life" are quick to stigmatize single mothers and think that only lazy people are on public assistance. Words and phrases like "slut," "whore," and "welfare queen" piss me off. And if you truly cared about the child, you would support more affordable health care and better education for children beneath the poverty line. Focusing only on abortion is like trying to end world hunger by giving a starving child a sandwich. You may have afforded her a few days more of life, but what's to say that her quality of life is going to get any better? This is probably what pisses me off the most about the pro-life movement.
Pro-choice does not mean you hate children or babies. There are mothers who are pro-choice. There are women who want to be mothers who are pro-choice. There are women who don't want to be mothers, but love children, who are pro-choice. There are men who want to be fathers who are pro-choice. There are men who love children who are pro-choice. In fact, hating children is not a good reason to be pro-choice.
Pro-choice means advocating access to contraception and comprehensive sex education. It means explaining to children how their bodies work. It means talking about menstruation, masturbation, and safer sex. It means giving information on places where young people can get free or low-cost contraceptive devices. It means explaining what happens during pregnancy, and it means dispelling pregnancy myths. It even means letting kids know that abstinence is the only completely foolproof way to avoid pregnancy and STIs. However, it also means explaining that "abstinence" may mean different things to different people, and explaining what kinds of sexual contact can result in pregnancy or STIs. Whether you believe the duty of sex education should be in the hands of the schools or the parents, education and awareness is quite possibly the most vital component of reducing unwanted pregnancies.
Pro-choice means seeking to reduce unwanted pregnancies--which in turn, reduces abortions. Although reducing abortions is not the overall goal of the pro-choice movement, reducing the need for abortions is. Now, when I say "reducing the need for abortions," I do not mean "reducing the need for abortions to be legal." That need will never be reduced. Even if only a few women a year have abortions, that option must always be available. But pregnancy is expensive, even if it ends in abortion. It can be painful. And that's to say nothing of the "psychological cost" that comes from stigmatization of friends, family, and religious leaders--or even from complete strangers.
Pro-choice means accepting that some women do regret having abortions. By this, I don't mean it as proof that abortions are bad. I'm thinking more about women who have abortions and then, when they confess their feelings of guilt or regret, have people say to them, "Well, you shouldn't have had an abortion if you were going to feel guilty about it." I know that if I had an abortion, no matter what the reason, I'd feel guilty. That's just how I am. When I do something that is condemned by a large portion of society, I feel guilty. Women who have abortions are not immune to the feelings of society. If you guilt trip someone about anything--having an abortion, being gay, masturbation--most of the time, it's going to hurt. So if a woman tells you that she wishes she hadn't had an abortion, listen. Don't give her your opinion unless she asks it, and say it in the least hurtful way possible. Don't dismiss her feelings or tell her that she's being silly. Every woman will have a different reaction to abortion.
Pro-choice means not setting boundaries on who can and who cannot have abortions. I used to be one of those people who said, "Well, if she's raped, or her life is in danger, or the child has a horrible disease, then she should be allowed to have an abortion." But then I realized how wrong this kind of thinking is. I remember in high school I read a book about a girl who had an abortion. I remember thinking, "She shouldn't be doing this!" until about halfway when it's revealed that she was raped, and then I changed my mind and thought, "Well, it's okay, then." I'm sure there have been plenty of people who condemned women who had abortions, saying, "She should have kept her damn legs closed!" and then shutting up only when they find out she was raped. Where's the sense in that? The damage has already been done. And the entire argument is based on who deserves your sympathy. Hell, with "rape" having such a watery definition in courts, how the hell could this even be enforced? That means every rape survivor who wanted an abortion would have to be scrutinized, tell her story, be medically examined. It's quite possible that the rapist would have to be convicted in order for her to obtain the abortion. Same with "risk to one's life." How can this be decided? Should she only get an abortion if there's absolutely no chance of her surviving? What if she's got a 50/50 chance? Even if she has a 1/10 chance of dying, that's still pretty big. Same with the unborn child. What if s/he'll live, but only for a few years? What if s/he will have a severely reduced quality of life? What if the mother can't handle taking care of a special needs child and will just give her/him up for adoption? Special needs children have an especially difficult time being adopted. Setting these kinds of boundaries on abortion is a slippery slope argument. Women need to have the right to choose abortion for any reason, even one you may personally consider "not good enough."
Pro-choice means respecting a woman's privacy. It means not gathering around abortion clinics with signs and pamphlets. It means not making lists of women who had abortions and posting them on public websites. It means not harassing women before or after they have abortions. It means not questioning their sexual history to make sure they "deserve" an abortion. It means giving a woman the same rights as men in regards to her sexuality. It means not insisting women tell their story if they're not comfortable with it. It means not using women for your political gains.
Finally...
Pro-choice means being pro-woman. It means supporting women in the workplace and in the home. It means speaking out against rape culture and misogyny. It means listening to women of color, transgender women, transgender men, lesbian women, bisexual women, poor women, sex workers, rape survivors, women with eating disorders. It means listening to mothers and grandmothers and wives and sisters and daughters and aunts and nieces. It means treating women and men with the same respect. It means accepting that just because different schools of feminism exist, it does not mean feminism is dead. Feminism is alive and well, in the pro-choice movement, in the sex workers' rights movement, in the anti-pornography movement, in the anti-poverty movement, in the womanist movement, in the transgender rights movement. Feminism is essential to being pro-choice, and bring pro-choice is essential to feminism. If you call yourself pro-choice while being anti-women, then we do not want or need you in our movement.
Wow, this turned into a long post. But I've remained silent for too long on the issue of abortion. I needed to post my thoughts here, because I know that once I start posting it on my public LJ, things could get ugly.
But I'm ready for that. I'm happy that I've finally spoken up about supporting abortion rights, and other reproductive rights.
I'm sorry it took so long. But yes, now I am ready to be unapologetically pro-choice.
Tags: pro-choice
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Yay!
Pro choice is pro-rationality. Nobody likes abortion, but sometimes it is the best of a long list of bad available choices.
However if you post in public, be prepared to be trolled. You might want to create a separate identity or community for those discussions so that if you acquire any actual stalkers you can ditch the thread easily.
| From: | (Anonymous) |
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| Date: | November 7th, 2009 04:06 pm (UTC) |
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While I'm definitely pro-choice myself, I do respect the belief of people who are pro-life, as long as they're smart and consistent about it because they have a strong religiously-grounded belief that they are saving innocent babies from being murdered. I don't agree in the slightest, but I respect that they stick to their beliefs despite the alternative which is sometimes ugly. Even if you believe "it's okay if she was raped" congratulations, you're pro-choice. Because pro-life means no abortions EVER even if you're a 12 year old got raped by your father who has AIDs. Because to pro-lifers, that is still a baby and it deserves its shot at life as their God intended.
What I can't take seriously is people who say about rape, "it's different because it wasn't her fault!" Okay. Aside from the obvious problems I have with the "sex is evil and you should never do it so it's your fault" mentality, how is it any less murdering a baby because it wasn't the woman's fault? That just proves that most people out there either don't really think of abortion as murder (even though they may say to your face that they do), or else they can justify murder. Because I'm sure none of them would look at a living child with aids and a 12-year-old rape victim mother and say "kill him, he doesn't have a chance anyway."
That was me, sorry. Keeps logging me out.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't hate pro-lifers, seeing as I was one myself.
What I do hate is how self-righteous and illogical many of them are. They're also so judgmental, it hurts.
My aunt once said, "I'm pro-life, but I'd rather have coffee with someone who's pro-choice."
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/93331561/22545308) | | From: | ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wulei |
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| Date: | November 7th, 2009 05:44 pm (UTC) |
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I love this. Especially this: Pro-choice means not setting boundaries on who can and who cannot have abortions. EXACTLY! I've always been pro-choice, but I lived in a very socially-liberal family, so I guess the decision came easier for me. But it really pisses me off when people choose to judge women who choose to have an abortion or who choose not to have an abortion. It's the woman's choice, not theirs. Unless the fetus is growing in their uterus, they shouldn't say anything. You talk about women opening up about abortions, and it reminded me of this article: http://community.feministing.com/2009/09/speaking-of-abortion-1.html . Very good read.
I followed you here from the comm you posted this at because I wanted to ask if I could link this (or copy with attribution). It's so thorough, and thoroughly awesome. I have a very on-side flist, so I wouldn't anticipate any problems from it.
Sure, I don't mind. :) Go right ahead. |
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