Blog for Choice Day
Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and the 3rd annual ‘Blog for Choice Day’. I participated last year, when the writing prompt was, “Why you’re pro choice“, as well as in 2006, when I declared that I think that the rights of the pregnant woman supersede those of the unborn child, and that the answer to the abortion question shouldn’t be to outlaw it, but rather, to improve medical care, education, and family planning access so that fewer and fewer women find themselves having to make this difficult decision.
The writing prompt this year is ‘why it’s important to vote pro-choice’. In an election year, especially an election year like this one, I think that it is more important than ever to consider this issue. With so many of the Republican candidates being firmly in the anti-choice camp, it becomes more important than ever to stand up and be counted, to let your elected (or hoping to be elected) officials know where you stand on this issue.
If you consider yourself pro-choice, if you believe that a woman has the right to decide whether to carry her pregnancy to term or not, then you must vote pro-choice. President Bush has had the opportunity to appoint Supreme Court justices who adhere to his anti-choice beliefs, and the Court is close to becoming an anti-choice court.
If you consider yourself pro-choice, you must vote pro-choice at every level, at the very least, at the state and federal levels. If the court does overturn Roe v. Wade, that will not make abortion illegal, but will leave it in the hands of the states. So make sure the people you vote for in your state will reflect your beliefs.
If you consider yourself pro-choice, you must vote for candidates who will improve access to providers. Too many counties (41% of California’s counties, and California is a pretty red state, even though our Governator is blue) have no providers where a woman can go if she needs to have an abortion. If you’re middle class or wealthy, this isn’t such a big deal. But if you’re young and broke, or just plain broke, driving a few hundred miles might be out of the question for you.
If you consider yourself pro-choice, or even if you consider yourself pro-life, electing candidates who will vote for prevention legislation, including accurate and age appropriate sex education (what is age appropriate? BEFORE they need it. When and after is too late.) and access to free birth control, will decrease the demand for abortions.
If you believe that abortion is not for you, don’t have one. If it goes against the morals that you believe your child should have, then teach your children what your morals are, and why you hold them close to your heart. Not all teens are sexually active. Not all teens who get pregnant have abortions. Not all (female) teens who are sexually active get pregnant. Not all abortions are procured by teens who didn’t have information or access to birth control. Our right to decide what to do, or not to do, with our bodies, should be left with the individual, and the state has no right to get in the way of that choice.
If you consider yourself to be pro-choice, it is vital that you remember that on election day. Not just this November, but in every election.
UPDATE: For a great read on this topic, check out this article on Salon.com. Many different voices discussing their own rememberences around Roe v. Wade. Some women who remember life before, others who have grown up assuming it would always stand strong, and still others who wish to remind us that the pro-lifers are disingenuous when they claim to want to prevent abortion, but vote to disallow sex education classes. All very well written. If you’re not a premium member of Salon, you will see a page advertising something or another. Just wait a minute, and you can go to the full article.
13 Comments
Maya's Granny
Excellent post.
Py Korry
“If you believe that abortion is not for you, don’t have one.”
Exactly! That’s what choice is about, but if you listen to the anti-choice people, they often spin choice as “forcing women to have abortions.”
Autumn's Mom
Amen. I will remember this election.
A. Beaverhausen
Standing ovation for you here in Texas.
amuirin
I think you’re brave to write about this very hot button issue, and I agree with you on every point. I think I”ll follow your example and write a post about this, though today lol… today there’s something a little more frivolous up. But the right to choose is under major fire, and even though it’s uncomfortable now is probably the time to speak.
LauraH
Your last paragraph says it all. Excellent entry.
Joan
I don’t think it would have been a choice for me but then again I was never in that situation. What keeps me pro-choice is the horror stories of the illegal abortions.
Jimmy
That’s a tough one for me J? I consider a woman who chooses to kill her unborn guilty of murder.
If I go out and shoot someone on the street, then am I only guilty of not letting their full life come to term?
But on the other hand, if she can live with it…..that’s her business!
I believe any woman that chooses abortion should give up her right to ever have another child, and she should volunteer to have her tubes tied.
Unless it’s special circumstances like rape or the mother’s life is at stake…..then I can see allowances to let her reproduce in the future.
Now here is my redneck cure for the whole problem!
Every male child born should be given a vasectomy at birth!!!!
Then later on when they become an adult and pass rigorous testing to prove they could be a worthy parent……the state will pay for their vasectomy reversal or what ever is needed for the couple to reproduce.
OK……I guess I’m gonna get raked over the coals for this one huh?????
J
You could be in a bit of trouble, Jimmy. 😉 But you have a right to think that way, and a right to vote your feelings on the matter. I wonder, though, if you’re pro-death penalty, and how you feel about sex education in schools? My guess, from what I know of you, would be that you’re pro death penalty, and that you would say that the difference is that an unborn child is innocent, while the person on death row is not. I would guess that you’re pro sex education as well, which in my mind is a big, big deal, and I would applaud you for that, because teaching kids not to have sex really isn’t going to help that much. Not that many folks wait until they’re married anymore, and I say, thank goodness on that one.
What I would ask you to consider, without slamming your views in any way, is whether the mother or the child has more rights. Because if we make abortion illegal, and treat women who get them, and/or their doctors, as murderers, it will not stop abortions, it will only make them dangerous again, where women sneak to Mexico and get dirty abortions, where they are likely to get infections that can kill them. Are we ready to say that the price for sex, while married or not, is so dear? That a woman who cannot bear the thought of a child yet, or ANOTHER child added to her already overburdened family, should risk death rather than end her pregnancy?
I have a lot of trouble with this issue, too. I’m not one of the people who says that life doesn’t begin until x date, or so on. I think a life conceived is a potential life, and to stop it is tragic. But I still believe, with every fiber of my being, that to take the right to control her own fertility from a woman is wrong. One might say she just shouldn’t have sex, but isn’t that an onerous burden we wouldn’t push on a man? It’s a judgment of sorts, I think.
Starshine
I think it is an interesting thing to call someone who is pro-life “anti-choice”. Abortion isn’t fair to the unborn baby who isn’t given a choice at all.
J
I know Starshine, but I don’t think I like the implication that if I’m pro-choice, I’m anti-life. That’s why I use that title. I’m completely pro-life, AND pro-choice, AND pro-family. I think there has to be a way to make these things happen, and the way is to make abortion rare, not illegal.
Jimmy
Yes, I’m for the death penalty!
We are all going to die some day, and if you are a murderer or a child molester……then I say you need to die a little early! It’s as simple as that!
We don’t need those types of folks on the planet, and we damned sure shouldn’t have to feed and shelter them.
I know some innocents are going to be killed in the process and I feel sorry for them, but it’s the best thing to do anyway! Life just isn’t fair sometimes.
I’m not familiar with sex education as I do not have children?
If I was a parent…..I would stress abstinence even though I know it won’t work. But try to get them to hold out as long as they can. And I would stress protection, and responsibility if they screw up and have a kid!!!!
I would tell them that their life as they know it is over once they fertilize that egg!!!!!
Literary Feline
I have trouble with the argument that abortion should be legal because if it’s not, women will do so illegally under conditions that could cost them their lives. I don’t believe drugs should be legalized, which some might say would create a safer and cleaner market for them and cut down on crime. I’m not equating the two, not really, but that’s what comes to mind whenever I hear that reason given. The truth is, I’ve used that argument myself–about legalized abortion, not the drugs.
I have mixed feelings about abortion when it comes right down to it. I am pro-life. I am also pro-choice. I would prefer women choose other options besides having an abortion, but I also know the reality that is out there. When all is said and done, I would rather the choice be available than not at all.
I thought your post on the topic was very written, J. Although the abortion issue is not the number one issue I consider when voting, it does make a difference.