Why am I pro-choice? I am pro-choice because I am the mother of daughters. I wish for my daughters a world in which they respect and celebrate their sexuality. A world where they can make their own informed decisions about sexual activity without the regrets or repercussions wished on them by some elements of the anti-choice movement. If I were the mother of sons I’d want the same world for them.
Despite unrelenting rhetorical efforts to paint it so, pro-choice is not pro-abortion. I’d be thrilled if a combination of comprehensive sex education (knowledge), easy access to effective contraception (protection), and healthy respect for male and female sexuality (lower rates of rape and incest) reduced unplanned pregnancies to a bare minimum. I’d be ecstatic if better access to general health care as well as prenatal care meant that every expectant mother and fetus came through pregnancy and delivery with flying colors. I’d be over the moon if our society’s concept of “right to life” no longer ended at birth.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in the ideal world I’ve imagined, and even if we did, there would be still be circumstances in which a girl or woman might choose to terminate a pregnancy. It is important to preserve her right to make that choice and also to preserve the medical knowledge and experience necessary to make the procedure as safe as possible.
Those who oppose abortion in all circumstances (except those abortions that involve their own pregnant daughters or their own sons’ pregnant girlfriends — and my doctor friend assures me these people exist in significant numbers) have, perhaps wisely, chosen to chip away slowly at reproductive rights. First they went about limiting access through social pressure or even the threat of violence. When that approach began to turn off those in the middle, they started limiting access for girls, demanding parental consent even when the parent may well have caused the pregnancy. Then they began demonizing “partial-birth” abortions, trying their best to outlaw a procedure that’s primarily used to allow a pregnant women with a dead or dying fetus to end the pregnancy immediately rather than waiting for her body to expel it naturally.
Now, they’re starting at the other end of the process, attempting to deny access to birth control by claiming, in some cases, that it is equivalent to abortion and, in others, that it isn’t effective (e.g. spurious claims about condoms). They’re pushing abstinence-only sex education and counting on the inexcusable level of scientific ignorance in this country to persuade the general public that a fertilized egg is wholly equivalent to a woman, with all the same rights and, in fact, veto power over the woman’s rights should they conflict. And some of them make it quite clear that they believe sex itself a shameful act, something for which a woman deserves to be punished — with an unwanted pregnancy, with a sexually transmitted disease, perhaps even with cervical cancer.
Anti-abortion groups have done a very effective job of controlling the rhetoric in this country since the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade 34 years ago, but I think they are — finally — overreaching with their attacks on sex education and contraception. There are too many moms like me out here who want our children to have the ability to make good, well-informed choices for their lives. Too many mothers of daughters and sons who want them to grow up and lead healthy, balanced lives, welcoming children when and if they decide to be parents. Too many fathers who agree. And plenty of daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, and friends who want the same things for their own lives. Those of us who fall into these categories, and we are legion, have a responsibility to speak up.
If we don’t, we’ll have nowhere to go when our doctors are too afraid to prescribe contraception, when our pharmacists feel free to refuse to fill legal prescriptions, when we no longer have the information we need to protect ourselves.