Why I’m Pro Choice And You Should Be Too

One of the most misunderstood and oversimplified words of the 21st century is the term “pro-choice”. Too often, it is equated with being pro-abortion. Being pro-choice has nothing to do with whether one would choose to continue on with a pregnancy or terminate. It has nothing to do with whether one would encourage an abortion or not. It has everything to do with whether or not one supports a woman’s right to bodily autonomy.

I am pro-choice because I respect a woman’s right to decide whether or not she wants to go through with a pregnancy. I am pro-choice because I understand that the decision to have an abortion is fueled by more than it just being an inconvenience (as it is so often framed by the pro-life movement). Going through with a pregnancy comes with not only physical but also mental, social, financial and emotional consequences. Not everyone has the ability to safely go through with a pregnancy (and I’m not talking about merely life or death scenarios).

We, as a society, need to understand just how serious pregnancy is and we need to stop scapegoating women who are forced to terminate a pregnancy due to reasons outside of their control. No sane person wants to have an abortion. It is a need bred out of necessity, not selfishness.

Why Are Women Held More Accountable For Preventing Pregnancy Than Men?

Women are mostly the ones expected to take care of contraception. Which is stupid since a woman can only get pregnant once during a nine month period. A man can impregnate different women an undefinable number of times a day. If preventing pregnancy was a such a huge issue, why isn’t the pressure on men to be on long-term forms of contraception? Why are there so many different types of contraception for women but not men? I know the risk factors are different as men cannot get pregnant but surely we could find more long term solutions for men if adequate research was done.

It’s not about preventing pregnancy. It’s about the fact that historically a woman’s value has been dependent on her ability to produce healthy children. The toxic ideology that women only have sex to get pregnant has existed for much of history. A woman being able to enjoy sex and even desiring it is a relatively new concept. And it has led to a society that believes that a woman who embraces her sexuality and right to the intimacy provided by sex deserves to get pregnant. Is even asking to get pregnant and if she does get pregnant, it’s her own fault and she doesn’t deserve an out except in exceptional circumstances.

From a purely biological standpoint, sex is a way for a species to continue its existence. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so pleasurable. However, from a human perspective, sex is also a source of pleasure and intimacy. It is an activity we have partaken in for the sake of pleasure and intimacy since the beginning of civilization. Abstinence only education doesn’t work. What works is sex education and effective contraception.

And effective contraception shouldn’t simply be made for women, they should also be made for men. It takes both a man and a woman to make a baby. There is no logical reason for why only women should be held accountable for preventing pregnancy.

Statistics

The abortion rate for 2016 was 11.6 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years, and the abortion ratio was 186 abortions per 1,000 live births … The majority of abortions in 2016 took place early in gestation: 91.0% of abortions were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation; a smaller number of abortions (7.7%) were performed at 14–20 weeks’ gestation, and even fewer (1.2%) were performed at ≥21 weeks’ gestation. In 2016, 27.9% of all abortions were early medical abortions (a nonsurgical abortion at ≤8 weeks’ gestation). The percentage of abortions reported as early medical abortions increased 113% from 2007 to 2016, with a 14% increase from 2015 to 2016.

CDCs Abortion Surveillance System FAQs

Let’s get one thing out of the way first. No one is waiting up until just before the baby is born to have an abortion simply because they changed their mind. Late term abortions happen with babies that are wanted. They happen because they are either not viable or going through with the pregnancy is a significant risk to the mother’s life. As shown by the statistic above, 91% of abortions happen at or before 13 weeks and 27.9% happen at or before 8 weeks.

Preventing Abortions That Are Fueled By Reasons Other Than It Being A Life Or Death Scenario

To me, that 91% represents mostly women who had an unplanned pregnancy and found they could not support it. If we as a society want abortions to decrease dramatically, we need to target women who fall into that percentage. And by target, I don’t mean shaming these women, I mean helping them.

In order to reduce that number we need to ensure everyone has access to comprehensive sex education and contraception because let’s face it, abstinence only education does not work and never has.

We also need to provide universal health care (which is actually cheaper than paying for health insurance so I don’t know why anyone would oppose it). There are risks associated with pregnancy and in order to have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby, women need access to affordable medical care and medication.

We need to fix the foster care system and hold adoptive parents accountable so that more women see adoption as an option.

We need to have a reasonable length of paid maternity and paternity leave. For some people, pregnancy could mean losing their job. Losing their livelihood. That is not merely an inconvenience. No one should be forced to go through a pregnancy that can put them in either poverty or make them homeless just to bring a baby into the world who will suffer the consequences of poverty and homelessness. Yes, it is life but so are cells and bacteria. Life does not equate into personhood. A fetus can be alive without ever developing thoughts and emotions and the ability to see the world around them.

If all life matters then what about pregnant women? Do their lives not matter. Why should they be forced to endure 9 months of pregnancy and then excruciatingly painful labor (which can last hours or days) just to bring into the world a baby that never would’ve even known what it was missing in the first place? Choosing not to create a human being or choosing to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus can become a person is not murder. And it’s not selfish or immoral.

There’s a huge difference between killing someone who was already alive and did not depend on your body to survive and ending a pregnancy.

No One Can Force You To Donate An Organ

Bodily autonomy is a value and a human right within our society. We recognize bodily autonomy even after death. Even though a dead person has no use for their organs and those same organs could save lives, we recognize that no one has a right to take those organs away from them. I had to register to be an organ donor and if I hadn’t, no one could’ve (legally) taken my organs from me. Not even after death.

And yet living people are expected to donate not only an organ but their entire body in order to sustain and grow a life that they did not ask for (consent to sex does not equate into consent to pregnancy).

Think of it this way. Your friend asks you for a restaurant recommendation. You recommend one. On the way, they get into an accident and now need an organ donation. You are the only person who can donate the organ they need. If you donate your organ, it will have short and long term consequences for your physical and mental health. Even if you donate the organ, there’s no guarantee they’ll survive. There’s no guarantee you’ll survive. If they survive, you get the satisfaction of saving your friend and having them around for longer than you would otherwise (which is a valid reason to do it).

In this situation, no one can force you to donate an organ. Your friend surviving may bring happiness to more than just you but you are the only person who will have to go through with the organ donation. You are the only one who will face the consequences of donating an organ.

If you still donate your organ, that is incredibly selfless. But if you choose not to, you are not selfish. Your mutual friend cannot demand it of you. You may have been the one who gave the recommendation but you did not mean for that person to get into an accident and it is therefore not your fault.

This is the closest analogy that I can think of. But even then, it’s imperfect and does not fully represent the situation. You may, in actuality, have more drive to donate the organ because they are someone you already know and love. They are someone who has lived. Who can think and feel and has developed relationships. Who will actually lose something by dying.

The same cannot be said for a fetus (not one that is 13 weeks or younger). At 14 weeks, brain impulses begin to fire. At 19 weeks, senses develop. Brain development doesn’t even start until after 20 weeks. They don’t become a person who can think, feel, see the world around them and develop relationships until after they are born. Terminating a pregnancy is ending something that has the potential to be a person. It isn’t selfish and it certainly isn’t murder. I recognize that the unborn have value but that isn’t enough to make me forget that women also have value.

Reducing The Number Of Late Term Abortions

Late term abortions do not happen because a woman changed her mind. Late term abortions are a result of severe complications: either the baby is not viable or the mother’s life is in danger. They are painful, both physically and mentally. The babies aborted at this stage are babies who were wanted. One or both parents had probably already spent a significant amount of time planning for the birth. They may have even built a nursery at this point. May have even picked a name.

The last thing the mother wants to do at this point is to abort her baby. Someone she has already built a bond with. She is only aborting because she has to. Whether that’s to save her life or to end a pregnancy that would only produce a stillborn.

It is absolutely horrifying and I wish women didn’t have to be put in this position.

So how can we prevent late term abortions?

Well, for starters. By investing money into women’s reproductive health. By conducting early screenings and improving healthcare for pregnancy. By allocating funds to further research on the issue. By destroying the idea that women’s reproductive health is a personal issue rather than a societal one. Women are responsible for producing the next generation. That is something that should be respected rather than simply labelled as a personal issue.

Australia, one of the safest countries in the world to give birth and a country with universal healthcare, has six stillbirths a day. This is a major issue and should be treated as such. One way of making sure women’s issues aren’t invalidated would be by having more women within politics who can advocate for themselves and their gender.

Only then can we take away the need for late terms abortions. But in the meantime, try to understand that the women who go through them experience an incredible level of pain. We need to do whatever we can to avoid this tragedy. And the worst thing we could do for women who go through this would be to traumatize them further with ignorance.

Final Thoughts

I want to reduce the number of abortions that happen as much as the next person. I don’t think any woman takes the decision lightly. Pregnancy is not a simple or everyday experience. Access to safe abortion is a human right. That should not be taken away just because we don’t want abortions to happen.

Women who have abortions are not monsters or murderers. They are merely people who had to make a tough decision. A decision that can cause them trauma and they may even live to regret it. But regretting something afterwards doesn’t mean that the decision wasn’t valid or necessary at the time that it was made.

Access to abortion should not be taken away. What should happen instead is that we actively work to fix the problems that make abortions a necessity. That means comprehensive sex education, easy access to contraception, universal healthcare, improving the foster care and adoption system, not villainizing women who choose to have a baby and, increasing maternity and paternity leave. There are so many issues that drive up the number of abortions that happen each year. We need to address those problems if we ever want progressive change.

Criminalizing abortion would only drive women to extremes. Women would have unsafe abortions that may even kill them. I would much rather a pregnancy terminated than lose these vulnerable women. They don’t deserve to die simply for being in a position where they cannot support a pregnancy or a baby. It’s not selfishness, it’s desperation.

If, at the end of this article, you’re about to respond by saying that making these positive changes would be too hard and women should just not have sex irresponsibly, you are part of the problem. You don’t actually care about people. You care about birth and maybe not even that. Maybe you simply think women shouldn’t have sex and if they do, they deserve to be pregnant. If that is the case. If you are one of those people who, rather than driving positive change and bettering society, would much rather villainize a vulnerable group to feel like you’re actually doing something then you are an arsehole. I hope you never get into a position of power because you would not better society. You would only contribute to its destruction.

Resources

CDCs Abortion Surveillance System FAQs

Chapter 2 Stillbirth in Australia—an overview

Fetal development week by week

Whether you’re pro-choice or not, the abortion debate is not about you