When I went home to New York a month and half ago, I had an eye opening experience. I was visiting with some old friends after a night out. One of my friends made a comment regarding a resent news story about a women who had had the first ever ovary transplant. The women's identical twin sister had volunteer to donate one of her ovaries in order to help her sister conceive a baby. One of my friends brought up this news story. The conversation went something to this effect....
"Did you hear about the women who had the ovary transplant?" -Friend
"Yes, it's crazy what medicine can accomplish these days." -Me
"Ya, nuts" -and these sorts of mutterings from the rest of the group.
"I am just shocked, I mean why go through all that trouble? I don't understand why these women don't just realize they're not meant to have children. At this points God doesn't want them to be mothers" - Friend
"Ya, their nuts.."-mutterings of the group, which happened to be all male. With my jaw making an awkward thump as it hit the floor.
"Excuse me??? They're not MEANT to be mothers? God doesn't want it? EXCUSE ME? - Me
Big whooshing sound as all the heads in the room snap in my direction, with their jaws now on the floor. A heated argument ensued. Most of the heat coming from me. To be honest, i feel slightly bad for these men. They hadn't a clue they had touched on such a sour subject and quite frankly couldn't understand why I was so passionate about this. Actually i was even surprised by the strength of my reaction. My friend and I exchanged some heated words back and forth with uneducated comments about relaxing and multiple births. Basically these gentlemen regurgitated every overexposed media story ever written. I was trying to figure out how to express my frustration with these statements when it dawned on me and i asked him this question.
"If you got a girl pregnant would you agree to an abortion?"
"Depending on the situation, yes." -Friend, and this was the general conciseness of the group
"So, for argument sake, you would support my choice to have an abortion, you would support me taking advantage of medical advancement to not be pregnant?"
"Ya, so what. What does this have to do with women who wanted to GET pregnant." -Friend, now i am being much more calm here than at the time. I almost slapped him.
"If you take away the opportunity for a woman to do anything she deems necessary to become pregnant, you then take away the right for a woman to do whatever she deems necessary to not be pregnant. They are different sides of the same coin. If you follow my thinking, this takes away your chance to jointly make a decision with a women as well. You no longer have the choice when to or not to start your family. Furthermore, you've take away a women's right to make her own decisions about her body, which is like her, a complete stranger, passing judgment on you if you smoke, get a tattoo or about what you eat." -Me. There was a stunned silence. I am not sure if this was because of what i said or the fact that i looked like a raging lunatic standing on the table screaming.
The next morning I realized how right I actually was. I had been toying with these ideas for quite awhile, but i was never able to congeal my thoughts. It just took a heated argument get my brain to process everything completely. Pro-choice and Pro-Life mean jack shit. Being pro-choice goes beyond the abortion issue. Pro-choice shouldn't mean pro-abortion, it should mean what it says, pro-choice. It should be about supporting women in whatever they choose is best for themselves. Regardless of what the specific situation is. This can mean how they get pregnant, what age they choice to start their families, how they raise their children, and abortion.
The abortion issue obviously receive the most media attention and causes the most serveir reactions in people. But, i think this does a disservice to other issues. It causes mass ignorance and comments like the one above. The pro-choice camp is so entrenched in it's position we lose sight of the struggles of other women. I have been amazed at how truly supportive of me many women in my life have been when they here my story, but these same people can turn to a woman doing IVF and ask her when "enough is enough." This is so wrong. I am hard pressed to blame them though. They don't see the connection. I blame a society that has programmed us to accept my choice and bash another women's. I don't see how this is fair?
I vote for a change in nomenclature, lets call a spade a spade, pro-abortion/pro-(well i guess we can keep it) life. I am in favor of both and that's what's makes me pro-choice.