Pro-Choice for Life

I post something on Twitter that was pro-choice. It was a picture that said “Being pro-choice doesn’t meant your pro-abortion. It means you think the choice is yours, not the government’s.”

Before the end of the day I’d been called a murderer and a dumbass by two different men.

I respect a man’s right to have an opinion on this issue. My complaint comes from men who think they have the right to act like an authority on this issue. Any man who gets worked up about this and gets in women’s faces needs to shut the fuck up right now.

This is an issue no man can ever hope to understand, especially ones who don’t try. Pregnancy lasts for 9 months. Think about the last thing you did that took 75% of a year. Imagine not being in total control of your body for that entire time. Pregnant women have to watch what they eat, drink, and do that entire time. 

Your body is constantly changing and expanding. You have to keep buying new clothes you’ll never wear otherwise to accommodate your changing shape. And those bits about ‘getting your body’ back? A lot of women say their bodies are never the same after their first baby. 

Lest we forget all those doctor’s visits that require time off work and maternity coverage on your health insurance. An alarming number of health insurance plans don’t include maternity coverage on women’s health care plans. Mine didn’t even give me the option to add it. If you’re pregnant before you try and add that coverage, a lot of health insurance companies will deny you and make you pay for everything out of pocket.

Of the women who have abortions, a surprising percentage are mothers. Someone women have had all the kids they can afford but still like the idea of sex with their husband. Caitlin Moran actually talks about having one because she had two children and that was all she could handle raising. 

Remember all those cases where pharmacists can refuse to fill birth control because it goes against their religious beliefs with no regard to the beliefs of the woman with the prescription? What’s worse? Forcing a woman into a place where she needs an abortion or not letting pregnancy happen at all. Birth control pills tend to be cheaper than an abortion.

Outlawing abortion will do absolutely nothing but have women purposefully falling down stairs or being sterilized or bleeding to death in back alleys. Keeping it legal keeps women safe and healthy. Let me repeat that, outlawing it won't stop it. It didn't before and won't in the future.

I can conceive of no scenario that a man can relate to based on the criteria above let alone one that ends in a lifetime commitment. I have no respect for men who say ugly, hateful things on the internet to women about things they have never tried to understand. I think if anyone could make these men empathize, it would change their world. All they have done is made me think less of male pro-lifers as a whole. 

I still don’t think ending a pregnancy before it’s viable is murder and I never will. Abortion goes against nothing in my spiritual code or my relationship with God (as I understand it). I will always view this as a ‘my life, my body, my future, my problem, my choice’ issue. Until it personally affects the people who scream hateful things on the internet or outside of clinics, I’m not particularly interested in what they have to say.