How I became pro-choice, part 3 of ? – Unplanned but not unwanted

Previous posts in this series are here:
How I became pro-choice, part 1 of ?
How I became pro-choice, part 2 of ?

Also, now that I have 3 posts, I’m going to actually subtitle them for easy reference from here on out.

I used to be pro-life in part because I’d been an “oops” baby. I felt that my parents had taken an unintended and not necessarily happy situation and made the best of it, and I’d turned out all right, and if they could, other people could too, right? That was a little naive. My parents had a rough time early on, but there were also hardships plenty of other couples face that they never did. For example, there was never a point when either of them was unemployed, other than my mom staying home for a short time after I was born, and again after my brother was born. There were times when money was tight, and times when their jobs sucked, but there was always at least a steady income. So, what they did, not everyone could have done.

And even with that, I wonder if things might have been different if “continue this pregnancy and start a family now” hadn’t been a choice my mom made, but something she’d been legally forced into. Would it have been harder for her? Would she have felt trapped? Even if it had been the decision she was going to make anyway, what would it have done to her if it hadn’t been her choice.

And what would it have meant to me if my mom had been legally forced to give birth to me. Knowing that I was unplanned was hard enough to swallow–what would it have done to my self-esteem if I’d had to wrestle with the idea that I might not have been wanted.

I’m pro-choice because I think people should get to make ethical decisions for themselves, not be forced into what someone else decides. *Especially* not by people who value the life of a fetus or even a zygote infinitely higher than the life of a pregnant woman.

All those bumper stickers that say “Choose life”? Yeah, there’s something ironic about using that word when you don’t want women to be able to choose anything at all.

How I became pro-choice, part 2 of ?

Things are still going on with HR3 (they dropped the bit about “forcible” rape and left all the other badness intact) and HR 358 is even worse. HR 358 protects doctors who don’t want to perform abortions (yet decided that obstetrics was a good career choice anyway), if they decide to let a woman suffer serious complications or die. You know, in any other field, when people are injured or die because you chose not to do your job, you get fired or sued, probably both. But doctors, who take a fricking *oath* to help people, somehow get a free pass when they choose not to do that. And in cases where the choice is abort the fetus or let the mother and the fetus both die, somehow two deaths are seen as the “moral” choice. Like the hospital that lost its Catholic status and had the nun who heads its ethics committee excommunicated because they saved the life of a woman who was 11 weeks pregnant. On what magical sci-fi planet are these church leaders living that they think an 11-week fetus is going to survive the death of the mother, or that someone too sick to be moved to another hospital is going to somehow make it another couple months so the fetus has a (slim) shot?

So, because of this, I wanted to link a couple really good posts on the subject and also talk about my own pro-choiceness.

One of the things that made it clear to me that women need to be able to end pregnancies was when I actually started getting treatment for my anxiety. Lexapro has been a godsend for me. I still have the occasional panic attack, but the general inclination to worry obsessively about everything ever has subsided. And usually I have enough time before full-out crying and hyperventillating meltdown to notice what’s happening, step back, and do some sort of relaxation exercise to prevent a full scale panic episode. Which is really nice, because they suck.

So, what does this have to do with abortion? Well, Lexapro causes birth defects. So I’m really really not supposed to get pregnant. When the husband and I decide we’re ready to reproduce, I’ll wean off the Lexapro gradually before going off birth control.

This was the first time that I had an inkling of how, even married and with a good job, pregnancy could be a really problematic condition. I coped with anxiety most of my life without pharmaceutical help; I could probably do it again if I absolutely had to. It’s kind of a scary thought, and it’s one of the reasons that the hubby and I have put off the kid thing for so long. But learning about mental illness also helped me understand that the crossed wires in my head are *mild* compared to what a lot of people deal with. I’ve never wanted to kill myself. I don’t have panic attacks for no reason, or ones that I don’t fully recover from for days. Plenty of people have those issues. For plenty of women, an unintended pregnancy would mean they have to choose between going off sanity-restoring meds or risking serious birth defects. Or, ending the pregnancy.

I know that if you believe completely that human life begins the instant egg meets sperm, this seems a little “off.” Better to risk birth defects than to kill the kid outright, right? But the thing is, that’s just it, a belief. There’s no way to prove it, no way to measure when a soul comes into being. Someone who believes that might well decide to go off the meds to protect the kid, or to take their chances with the meds. But to require someone who doesn’t believe that to go through a pregnancy that’s deeply damaging to her mental health, based on something you can’t prove–that’s wrong.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe that life begins at conception. I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to define the start point as quickening, or viability, or any number of other possibilities. What’s unreasonable is to force others to adhere to the most extreme definition, without any regard for their own physical or mental well-being.

Even if a fetus–or an embryo–is a person, it’s worth pointing out that a pregnant woman is a person too.

In which I rant about HR 3

In the next few days, I hope to make a couple more thoughtful posts about abortion, women’s rights, and the religious implications of those things. But at this point, I really don’t have a whole lot of thoughtful in me.

Trigger Warning–lots of disturbing stuff about rape and abuse.

So, here’s what HR 3 does and why I’ve already written to my representative saying I hope he votes no on it, and have started writing to the Democratic sponsors of the bill to say basically “Um, guys, what the heck???”

• Prevents any federal money paying for abortion unless the woman was “forcibly raped.” So just being raped–by drugs, by threats, by being too young to legally consent–isn’t enough. “Forcible rape” is also never defined, so the exemption is pretty much unenforceable.
• Prevents “discrimination” against health care facilities that don’t provide abortion. In other words, a Catholic hospital that lets a woman die on the operating table rather than abort a pregnancy that’s killing her is still welcome to get taxpayer money.
• Prevents tax breaks for companies providing health insurance if the coverage pays for abortion.

So, if an abortion is medically necessary, but the doctor isn’t 100% sure the pregnancy will kill you? Better hope you’ve got a healthy savings account. Not only will Medicaid not cover it, your insurance probably won’t either. Oh, and while you’re arguing with a dozen bureaucrats to try to prove that your life is in danger from the pregnancy–not only are your risks going up, but the clock is ticking on your ability to actually get that abortion. You probably have a decent chance in the first trimester, but push it to the second, and there are fewer providers who will perform that procedure. Go past the 21-week point and there’s pretty much no one. Probably having something to do with the fact that domestic terrorists tend to murder the doctors who do perform these abortions.


And if you’re a pregnant victim of incest who just turned 18? Or a minor who was raped by someone not a relative? Or a rape victim who decided not to fight back against a rapist who was larger and stronger? The official position of the Republican Party is apparently “Sucks to be you.”

The “conscience” BS also makes me angry. What it means is that hospitals can deny emergency health care and still get government money. An example of how messed up this is is St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix–the doctors did the right thing by saving the woman’s life, and as a result, the hospital lost its Catholic status. They were supposed to let her die, apparently. But that’s cool–you go right ahead and ignore the health of pregnant women and you can still qualify for government money.