Blog for Choice Day

Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and I’m joining many others who are blogging about why they are pro-choice. Click for background on Roe v. Wade.

As a lesbian with many lesbian friends, there aren't many times in my life in which I've been directly affected by the right to choose. But if anything, that makes it more important for me to be pro-choice — just like gays need support from straights to advance our rights, women need the help of more than just other straight women in order to have access to abortions or obtain contraceptives.

It blows my mind that lawmakers believe they have the right to limit what we do to our own bodies. And that some anti-pro-choicers try to teach abstinence-only sexual education in schools — something that will lead to additional abortions when teenagers have sex without realizing the consequences because they are taught only to never have sex, not what to do when they do have it.

I worry about the women who are unable to have the abortions that they desire due to lack of education, or access to Planned Parenthood. Reproductive freedom is hardly widespread, even in the United States, and the absence of available resources means that some women do not even have the option of terminating or preventing pregnancies. This leads to children born into less than desirable circumstances (born from rape, into a family with limited resources and too many children, etc.) or to women attempting abortions themselves, which is unfair and unsafe.

I also believe that women cannot be fully equal to men when men have reproductive freedom and women do not. And that women should be mothers because they choose to be, not because they are forced to be. And as a lesbian who occasionally dabbles with men, I never know when something might happen, and I may need to terminate a pregnancy. If I ever end up in that situation, I don’t ever want someone telling me that I’m stuck having a baby I don’t want to have.