pro-life

Assuming all women want to bear children is as anti-feminist and reductive as we can get — despite how often I’m on the receiving end of these comments from women who claim to be pro-choice.

A million things happened in the 12 years between the two marches — including learning about my own hypocrisy.

It looked a lot like the photo in 2012. The one of the panel of white men testifying on the Affordable Care Act regulations calling for health coverage of contraception. It prompted New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney to ask indignantly, “Where are the women?”

Until you have stared down that kind of mental anguish and all-consuming darkness for years on end, you cannot judge someone for choosing to escape their torture.

Something had clicked in my head. Suddenly I didn't give a shit when life began or whether or not a fetus counts as a “baby.” I was overwhelmed by the new-found knowledge that pregnancy is unfairly invasive in every single way.

If you believe in bodily autonomy and consent, folks should get to consent (or not) to the process of gestation. Full stop. No caveats.

The anti-choice movement is and has always been about fear and shame. If it weren't, you’d see anti-abortion protestors standing outside clinics with charter buses that take patients to social work centers where they assist them in getting housing, childcare, job support — including maternity leave, enrollment in food programs, and parenting classes.

I live, work,and was also raised in Canada, where abortion has been legal since the late '80s. And before that — since the late '60s — it was legal with the permission of a committee of doctors who would agree whether or not an abortion was necessary for the mental or physical well-being of the mother.

You see abortion, whether you believe in it or not, is a thing. Abortion, whether it’s legal or not, is a thing. Abortion, whether it’s safe or not, is a thing. In all of human history, there have been women who were pregnant when they did not wish to be and they found ways to end the pregnancies.