This blog is rarely a political space. Except for the occasional despair over school funding or bitter little jab at Shrub, I consider this site a place for anecdotes, fiction, reviews, and fun. This site pre-dates the boom in political blogging, or at least my awareness of it, so participating in any sort of cross-blog political ‘action’ seems not to fit Faerye Net.
However, it would be far, far too easy for me to use these excuse to duck out of Blog for Choice day. There are already too many reasons that Americans keep silent about our feelings on abortion rights. The minority who oppose abortion rights are so vocal that we fear immediate vilification if we speak up. The presence of violence in the debate, however fringe we may be assured it is, has a chilling effect. So we don’t put that bumpersticker on, in case we get keyed. We don’t march, in case someone throws a jar of fake blood on us. We don’t say what we believe, afraid that someone will call us ‘whores’ or ‘murderers’ for supporting a woman’s right to choose. We don’t stand up for others’ rights because we don’t plan to have an abortion ourselves. There are too many reasons not to speak up about abortion rights, and too many people not speaking up.
The Blog for Choice topic this year is “Why are you pro-choice?” I will skip over the obvious: over the right for the individual citizen to come to her own religious and philosophical conclusions about the nature of life; over the consequences in blood and tears of unsafe, illegal abortions over the centuries; over the benefits to parents and children of planned, wanted families.
I am pro-choice because the debate over abortion rights in this country is not really about abortion. If it were truly about abortion, the anti-choice side would be in favor of sex education, of contraceptive use. The Democrats who vote pro-choice but wish to reduce the number of abortions would have support from anti-choicers when they try to fund those measures, instead of finding themselves high and dry. It’s about sex, and people, especially women’s, right to have it. The priorities of the anti-choice movement are consistent with the desire to punish women for being sexually active. That isn’t fair to women, and it isn’t fair to the children who would be meted out as ‘consequences’ if they had their way.
I’m pro-choice because I don’t believe I have the right to push my sexual mores on others, or that others have that right. I’m pro-choice because after abortion rights, they want to take away contraceptive rights. I’m pro-choice because I believe women should be considered people, not birthing vessels, and should be allowed to make our own medical decisions accordingly. I’m pro-choice because I don’t believe in Eve. I don’t believe that every woman in America should be pre-condemned to pay for one mythical, forbidden bite.
Comments
Pro Choice
I am pro choice too. But the “choice,” in my opinion, comes a little earlier in the game. Politics aside, what everyone is arguing about really isn’t a “choice.” It’s a consequence—of a choice that was already made, with full knowledge of the risk involved.
But we live in a society where we do not feel responsible for the consequences of our own choices. It’s never our fault; if I’m bad, it’s because my daddy beat me, or my mommy drank too much. We don’t like giving up our pleasures or taking responsibility for our actions.
Perhaps it’s because of the miserable months I spent in the hospital, away from my family and friends, unable to see my other children, trying to save the life of a baby that was, at the outset, still legally abortable.
Perhaps it was the long, lonely, miserable nights when my only comfort was the sound of his heartbeat from the machines in the darkness—“shoom-shoom, shoom-shoom.” It’s been 20 years, but I can hear it like it was yesterday.
Or perhaps it was the weeks I spent hovering over his incubator, waiting for each breath, willing him to live.
Whatever the reason, for me it’s not about political agendas. I don’t want to rob anyone of their birth control, or force anyone to follow some moral code of my own making. The raw truth of it is that I simply can’t justify the taking of an innocent life for the sake of convenience, by someone who wants pleasure without having to deal with the responsibility of the potential consequences.
In the words of Mother Teresa, “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”
There’s my two cents. :)
No subject
Way to start a fire!
I’d be dead if choice weren’t an option. If staying alive hadn’t been an issue, I would have had one miserable child b/c I was well-unprepared. Thirdly, my life would have gone black. Some people like children. I have deep seated issues. There’s my two cents.