Where i stand... do we stand together?
There are a bunch of my friends who are posting pro-choice and anti-choice ("pro-life") links, articles, and images. Rather than post in reply to each one - here is where i stand.
Pro-choice says that every child should be wanted and born into a safe and loving environment - the choice to have a child or not have a child is a sacred and personal choice. Pro-choice people support women who choose to have children and keep them. Pro-choice people support those who have children and give them into loving, adopted families. And, Pro-choice people support women who make the decision not to carry a child to term.
The other end is anti-choice. They are not pro-life. They don't believe every child should be born into a safe and loving environment and should be wanted by the parent(s). They think that every chance fertilization - whether through force, lack of education, or mischance - MUST be carried to term... after which very few show care about the quality of life the child (or its parents and/or siblings) will endure. They are not pro-life... they think that children should be used as a punishment for women who are "sluts" or "loose" or "cheap" - and damn the child right along with the woman. They don't offer to pay for all the women's and infants' and children's medical, living, and educational expenses. i don't see the anti-choice people standing out in front of clinics with their homes and checkbooks open, offering each woman a safe place to live, food, work, education, and a guaranteed safe place for her child (what do you mean you can't afford another child, a disabled child, a mixed-race child, a child of incest with a high likelihood of genetic problems... that you are too young, too old, too poor, or just not able to be a parent... THOSE obviously aren't good answers - if they don't apply to the women walking up, they don't apply to you). No, they work with shame, degradation, and abuse - not loving care for children. And let's not even discuss the torment and pain that many women do experience being forced to carry a child to term against their will...
This isn't about pro-choice v. pro-life. This is about making women (and children) chattel - objects of abuse and ridicule and shame in order to support a power-over system that ignores reality for a misogynistic fantasy.
This is about supporting women in all their choices (pro-choice) and those who care for nothing but forced breeding and think women should be nothing but brood mares (anti-choice).
If you are pro-choice, we stand together.
If you are anti-abortion for yourself and know that any egg within you that gets fertilized will be born, no matter the situation, because you know for you it is the only choice - AND acknowledge that others can and do make other choices and that is their right and you'll support them, then we stand together.
If you are a forced-birther (meaning you feel that every woman should be forced to give birth every time an egg is fertilized); if you feel that the choice that is right for you is the ONLY choice (and then it isn't a choice, is it?) and that you will do all you can to keep women from making sure that every child is wanted, then we do NOT stand together. Please remove yourself from my friend's list and my life.
I fully support women who choose abortion. I fully support women who choose adoption. i fully support women who choose to give birth and keep their children. If you are a friend who could never choose to abort a pregnancy, I support you, too. Even women who should not be allowed to raise children (and by that I mean actively abusive parents - you know the ones who make the news for starving, beating, raping, murdering their children) should have the right to choose whether or not they give birth. Period