Why I'm Pro-Choice

Until I visited Lulu's blog, I didn't know today was the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and I'd never heard of Blog for Choice Day. I guess I'm a bad feminist.

Abortion is one of those topics I generally don't see much point in discussing. Most people have pretty strong feelings on the issue, and either people agree with you -- which doesn't make for particularly interesting conversation -- or they REALLY don't --which doesn't make for particularly productive conversation. But since the good folks at NARAL invited us all to do so, I figured I'd share my thoughts on why women's access to abortion should not be restricted. (I am not, however, going to get into any ridiculous abortion-related pissing matches in the comments section. See "doesn't make for particularly productive conversation" above.)

I don't know when life begins (and neither do you). I've watched enough In the Womb to know that something magical happens when sperm meets egg, and if I WANTED to have a baby I'd be pretty stoked on that little ball of cells slowly transforming into a little human inside me (although now that I put it that way, ewwww). Of course, I DON'T want to have a baby -- at least not right now -- so up to a certain mysterious point it's difficult to think of that little ball of cells as anything more than a little ball of cells.

Fortunately, I've never had to pursue this dilemma beyond the abstract. From the time I knew enough about sex to have it, I knew about and had affordable access to contraception.*

When politicians and religious fanatics are ready for the government to actively promote contraception and provide access to birth control, when they're willing to ensure that poor girls receive the same education and access (at the same price) as not-so-poor girls, when abstinence-only programs are scrapped for sex-ed programs that actually make sense, when teenaged girls aren't encouraged to pledge their virginity to their daddies, THEN I might buy into the anti-abortion argument about the sanctity of human life.

Because it's not that complicated. As I said a year ago when nobody but my brother and my friend Steve read my blog, if we did a kick-ass job of promoting and providing access to birth control, there would be far less abortion because there would be far fewer unwanted pregnancies. But you can't have it both ways: you can't deny women the opportunity to prevent conception and also deny them the right to terminate a pregnancy. Unless, of course, you hate women.

Which brings me to why I'm actually pro-choice.

I don't think the anti-abortion argument is really about the sanctity of human life at all, the deeply-held religious convictions of many pro-lifers (both male and female) notwithstanding. I think opposition to abortion is perpetuated by the male leadership of patriarchal religious organizations whose goal is to ensure women's inferior status. I know that sounds a bit conspiracy-theory-ish, but if we really wanted to eliminate abortion we wouldn't allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control.

I think Roe v. Wade rests on pretty shaky ground, constitutionally speaking (the 9th amendment, which essentially says there may be some rights the Founding Fathers didn't initially think of -- combined with the 14th amendment's guarantee of due process -- implies a right to privacy, and for a woman that privacy includes the right to terminate a pregnancy) but until all women enjoy complete and equal reproductive freedom, I remain pro-choice.

*Also I've been lucky. Which is not to say that I'm a tramp. I'm totally not.