Blog for Choice/Women’s Lives
Anti-choicers have got one thing right. Abortion is ultimately an issue much more about life than about choice. On this 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, those of us dedicated to protecting reproductive freedom need to remember this critical point: beyond the common rhetoric surrounding the right to choose, millions of women’s lives are at stake.
The March for Women’s Lives of 2004 (originally the March for Choice) was apt to call themselves such; Planned Parenthood rightly pointed out that the name change better reflected “the urgency of the issue”. Countless theoretical reasons may certainly be more than enough to justify the need for reproductive freedom, among them gender equity, “the rape exception”, the right to bodily integrity, and the dire necessity of being able to choose exactly how, when, why, and if a woman becomes a mother. But painting the issue solely in these terms overlooks what is simply the most important, critically urgent fact of the matter: when abortion is legally restricted, illegalized, and criminalized, women die.
We all know that criminalizing abortion does not reduce the rate of abortion. We all know that criminalizing abortion is entirely ineffective and counterproductive to a truly “pro-life” cause. We all know that criminalizing abortion does nothing but injure, maim, and kill women; and we all know that criminalizing abortion is inherently classist, racist, and ageist, as the women being injured, maimed, and killed are mostly young women, poor women, and women of color.
Abortion rights have been slowly slipping away for the past 35 years, and only through pro-choice legislators can we gain those rights back. It is more vital than ever before to vote for pro-choice leaders, and here are some reasons why I vote pro-choice.
Pro-choice leaders fight against oppressive and ineffective restrictions on abortion access, such as waiting periods, parental notification/consent, and mandatory “counseling,” all of which function purely to restrict women’s access under the dishonest, patronizing guise of “protecting" women from themselves.
Pro-choice leaders work to repeal the destructive Hyde Amendment, which has been around 30 years too long, and the appalling Global Gag Rule, which has had devastating impacts on far too many countries.
Pro-choice leaders fight against the terribly misinformed, so-called “Partial-Birth” Federal Abortion Ban of 2007, which does nothing but force women to forgo the safest possible way to terminate their problem pregnancies and seek more dangerous methods.
Pro-choice leaders are the only ones making valuable efforts to actually curb unplanned pregnancies through the only methods that have ever proven effective. Pro-choice leaders promote access to contraception and comprehensive sexual health education programs - the only measures which have been proven to improve children and adolescents’ sexual health and reduce the rate of unplanned pregnancy. Pro-choice leaders fight against the continued reckless federal funding of useless, dangerous abstinence-only propaganda that gambles with the health of our youth.
Pro-choice leaders work to stop the dangerous tactics used by so-called “crisis pregnancy centers,” which put women’s health and safety in jeopardy by lying to them and manipulating them.
Pro-choice leaders have worked to improve access to emergency contraception, and continue to fight to ensure that all women, including those under 18, may easily access this vital medication.
Pro-choice leaders understand that our lives, and the lives of the women we know, love, and care for - including our mothers, sisters, daughters, and lovers - are infinitely more important and in need of protection than embryos that do not think or feel; embryos that do not have hopes or dreams; embryos that do not have mothers, sisters, daughters, and lovers to care for and love.
For these and a million other reasons, I vote pro-choice. Pro-choice leaders are pro-women. Pro-choice leaders are pro-life. Pro-choice leaders work to protect women’s lives. It is of the utmost importance that we help them to do so by voting for them; by voting pro-choice, pro-life, pro-women's lives.