Why am I pro-choice?

Because every woman has a right to privacy in her personal decisions. The choice is hers and hers alone.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

This!

Catholicism has made many people abandon religion completely. I am one of them. Those communion wafers are YUMMY though. I ordered some a few years ago on line and served them with dip at a party...ooooohhhhh noooooo...I guess this Atheist won't be seeing any Pearly Gates in her future (ha ha).

"Did you know they have gluten free Communion wafers?" she asked me. We laughed at that for the rest of our hike.

I was raised Catholic, and got pregnant at 19. Faced with a difficult decision, it would have been heart-breaking either way. Long story short, I decided not to get an abortion, and got married instead. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, but I recognize that it could have just as easily gone the other way.

Every woman has to decide for herself whether she is ready to be a mother, or if she even wants motherhood. It should never be forced, because the results will be terrible for the mother and child. A woman needs to know that a safe, private abortion is available to her if the need arises. I believe that adoption can be suggested and considered, but never pushed, on the single pregnant woman. It must be her decision and hers alone.

My niece had an abortion, after agonizing over it.

I took her to the clinic and supported her.

The very fact that you could seriously consider an abortion made your decision to get married a strong one, not just something you were forced into.

There was a time when the phrase "She had to get married" was relatively common, and referred to the young lady in question getting pregnant, and with abortion almost totally unobtainable, the only choices were to get married or to slink off somewhere to have the baby in secret shame and give it up for adoption. I recently read The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler, and the stories are heartbreaking, because almost every single one of those women were pressured into letting their babies be adopted. They were given no choice in the matter, and it seems that most of them never got over it.

Women absolutely need to make their own decisions about such things, and no one else should judge the woman for her decision. Ever.

Many pro life people i know, don't always practice what they preach, and like to have all the options on the table for any life changing matter.

what a woman discusses with her doctor and what she decides is right for her and her body and beliefs.

i'm a man BTW. never going to be pregnant, and completely unqualified to be injecting myself into the privacy of someone elses's doctor's appointments.

her body
her business
her choice

Wish more men would understand.

making decisions about what i can and can't do with my body. Everyone deserves that understanding.

I didn't always understand by the way........ i was, for a time.... pro-life.... what changed? Educating myself, reading, forming opinions based on facts, actually LISTENING to women and why this matters so much to them. DU was a major influence.

I was actually pro-choice in my youth, but got married to a pro-life woman. Her belief was based on religious dogma. Now we are both pro-choice and proud to say we've passed that on to our daughter as well.

I bettered myself and learned I was wrong......... What a world we would live in if everyone did that.

I am divorced. But I was married to a devout Catholic. We never agreed on that issue.

... she's dedicating the next 20 or so years of her life to nurturing and caring for that child. Not every woman understands this or is ready to make the decision at 19 (or whatever) years of age. In my case as I told my story above, I had to quit my college early and I never did get the chance for a degree. But my husband didn't have to sacrifice his education. When we got married I was 19 and he was 21 with still one year to finish his degree.

There are many trade-offs and future benefits when a woman decides on motherhood. However the sacrifices cannot be avoided or abrogated. Giving up my chance for a college degree has affected my earning capacity for the balance of my working life.

What bothers me about the religious fundamentalists (and the Catholic Church) is how do they think legislation of abortion would ever improve the quality of motherhood? It's such a personal and individual decision to make.

That's a choice every single person should have to make individually based on their circumstances.

Oh, and I'd be dead if the pro life crowd had its wildest fantasy of, "let God decide" the fate of the mother. It wasn't Gods will that my spontaneously aborting fetus should mean my death. It was however, the medical intervention of a rebel catholic doctor who did my life saving DNC that kept me alive. The radical "pro life" crowd would have happily let me die.

My family is, too. They'd be lost without me and they love me dearly. I'm the glue that keeps them all together during hard times they say. That stuff falls outside of the scope of the "anti choice" crowd, though. They can't see the forest for the trees.

Love your avatar, by the way. I am as anti-Trump as I am pro-choice. Which is VERY.

The Church is anti-choice because the priests want a supply of kids to prey over.

Yeah, the pun is deliberate.

... but sadly it seems to have ended up exactly the way you say.

The type of men who are attracted to the life of priesthood are unfortunately likely to have that tendency. The Church wasn't careful enough to weed those men out when they had the chance (i.e. during their seminary years.) It's a sad situation because the Cardinals who are making decisions now are protecting their own careers and also the predators. I believe this will change though because it has to.

If women were allowed into the priesthood, we'd see so many changes in so many areas.

Because a woman who cannot make her own personal decisions is not free

I saw my father have to tell his best friend that he had just taken the friend's teenaged daughter to the hospital for complications of a botched back-alley abortion.

Getting rid of legal abortions would just put hundreds of thousands of young (and not-so-young) women back at the mercy of these butchers, so as a middle-aged man (with no children of my own, but with many friends who have daughters of various ages), I believe that abortion should be safe, legal, and none of my damned business.

When I was a young girl, my father decided that it was OK to have sex with me on a regular basis. I tried several times to stop it, but had no ability to do so as he was in complete control of my life and no one believed me. So, I saved my money from babysitting and made a plan, just in case the worst happened. When I was 18, I went to college and never looked back.

But the other point is that abortion has always been with us, it always will be there and it can be safe and legal or unsafe and illegal. If it is going to happen one way or another, it should be widely available, legal, and safe.

If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one, but your religious beliefs should never have any legal rights over what I do with my body. (You/me etc. all meant in the general sense, obviously).

Religious freedom? ...

Cool: I must / cannot do it because of my religious beliefs.
..... I decide for myself.

Cool?: You must / cannot do it because of my religious beliefs.
..... I decide for you.

Uncool?: I must / cannot do it because of your religious beliefs.
..... You decide for me?

answer A only.

I decide for me, you decide for you, Joe decides for Joe, Sally decides for Sally and so on.

Even though I do believe that religion is probably the most toxic thing humanity has come up with...it creates far more problems than it solves.

I use that all the time, but the die hard religious folks don't care. They honestly believe they have the right to tell others how to live.

I chose not to impregnate anyone during my lifetime. At age 72, it appears that my choice will succeed.