Cognosco

About a year and a half ago, I was asked to speak to a group of high school students about the Roe v. Wade case from the pro-choice point of view. I was informed that there would also be pro-life person there. Silly me, I thought that we were going to talk about the court case from our legal perspectives (which I knew little about until I spent the preceding weekend doing nothing but reading legal briefs…and I am not a lawyer).

Anyhoo, things did not stick to legal arguments or anything of the like. She opened her speech by passing around plastic fetuses.

I was stunned, and unprepared, and pissed off because I had been duped.

If there are any pro-choice folks out there ever asked to speak alongside a pro-life person, no matter what the topic is, be prepared to argue against a lot of visceral tricky arguments that have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

She argued that abortion was wrong under all circumstances. She argued that a woman who is raped is not likely to get pregnant because you have to be relaxed to conceive. She argued that to carry a rape baby to term can help the woman heal. She argued that even if a woman already has children to care for and there is an extremely high risk that her life is in danger if she carries another pregnancy to term, that she should say the hell with the other children and not be permitted to have an abortion.

In short, for all of her rhetoric about life, she was one of the most uncompassionate people I have ever encountered. I was disgusted.

I was first pro-choice because that’s just how I was raised. When I faced an unplanned pregnancy and abortion as a teenager, my mother told about her abortion experience. Abortion was legal at that time under some circumstances in California. It was a pre-Roe era. She was forced to come before a panel of 4 doctors, all male, and plead with them to let her follow through on a decision about her body. She was forced to convince them she wasn’t crazy, but that she would suffer mental anguish if not allowed to have the abortion. She was humiliated. She said the worst thing about the whole experience wasn’t the procedure or any residual feelings. It was the memory of having to beg to be allowed her own autonomy before a panel of strange men.

I have been pro-choice for as long as I can remember, which doesn’t mean that I have not questioned my beliefs or tried to see the other side. I am now 35 weeks pregnant. I have been feeling my baby move inside of me for 17 weeks now. When does it become a baby? I say, when it is wanted. I know that pregnancy is magical. I don’t know how this power is called forth from the abyss to grow from a cell to a sentient being. I just know it is amazing. And to me, it is far too precious a gift to be wasted.

I know that there are people who could never choose abortion. I know that there are people who could never put their baby up for adoption. There are women who, against all odds, are determined to keep and raise their babies. And I support those choices as much as I support the right to terminate a pregnancy. I support access to prenatal care and resources for women to keep their babies, which is something many of those who oppose abortion are all too willing to cut funding for.

I have realized recently that choice is about birthing choices too. The right to choose to have an unmedicated birth free from intervention. The right to have a VBAC at home (which is not legal in Arizona if you want to be safe and be attended by a midwife). Being pro-choice, to me, is about being pro-woman and trusting that each woman knows what is best for her body and her reproductive well-being. It is about trusting a woman and her own relationship to her conscience and the divine.

I am pro-choice because I believe that women make tough decisions based on many factors that other people may not understand. Because I believe that no one is more qualified to tell a woman what to do with her body than the woman herself. No politicians. No doctors. No one.

I am pro-choice because I believe it is the compassionate position, and the pro-choice activists I have known are some of the most compassionate people I have ever met. I am pro-choice because I trust and believe in women.