I am pro-abortion, not just pro-choice

[moriah]

38. The reason I prefer "pro-choice" is because ...

Last edited Fri May 17, 2019, 02:00 PM - Edit history (1)

... I believe our country has engaged in economic coercion of abortion procedures -- by making it harder for people who want to have and raise the child they unintentionally conceived have any choice at all besides abortion (or adoption, feeding the baby mill).

1) The three months unpaid leave under FMLA does NOT always cover the full length of time a woman may need to be off work in a complicated pregnancy, and only is effective if the woman doesn't get fired for some other made-up excuse before they've been at their current job a year. And because most employer plans for "short term disability" do not say that complications of pregnancy are a "disability", and even if they do the "short term disability" timeframe is counted as part of the FMLA timeframe instead of aside from it. So there's one reason women may feel they have no other choice but to have an abortion or find a family that will essentially pay them to have the baby so they can get back to work immediately -- that their job and their ability to be self-supporting are at risk if they carry an unplanned pregnancy to term as no one knows what complications might happen.

2) Because of the stereotype that women in poverty (particularly WOC) were deliberately conceiving children just to get welfare benefits, we have imposed severe curtailments to higher benefits for larger families, or if a child is conceived while on public assistance. "Family benefits" if a parent is disabled do not go up at all if more children come into the family. Yet another law that might make a woman feel there is no choice at all but to have an unwanted medical procedure.

3) Most public assistance is not designed with upward mobility in mind, meaning that people know if they do have an unintended pregnancy and try to get public assistance to carry it to term, they are likely to be trapped on said assistance. A friend working overtime to try to show herself worthy of a promotion ended up losing ALL of her childcare assistance because their monthly income went up to $20 over the cutoff -- for about 10 hours of overtime worked that month, just a little time over to make sure shift changes went through properly. She was hoping for assistant manager. Instead of making her have to pay $20, or putting her to a copay vs free, it was a net loss of over $300 she suffered for attempting to succeed.

How many of our mothers *intended* to conceive us, vs had an assault, an accident, or were just not particularly trying NOT to have us? My mother was one of those women who felt too connected to the two pregnancies she had as soon as she became pregnant to consider abortion as anything other than an intrusion of her bodily integrity, but neither of her children were planned.

Unlike me -- I saw the one time I was pregnant as if the embryo itself was the intrusion of my bodily integrity the moment I knew I was pregnant.

That is a VISCERAL reaction I believe that is individual to the woman and the pregnancy, and shouldn't be judged either way -- either by people who think that feeling so connected to a rapidly growing set of cells before it can have the possibility of sentience is a little loopy, or by people who think that the immediate knowledge that "this isn't what is to happen, get this thing out of me now before it grows any more" is sick.

I believe the "pro-choice" movement should encompass policies that allow women to exercise that right over their own bodies either way, whether they are rich or poor. That is more comprehensive than simply the "pro-abortion" side of it, the right to exercise that part of our bodily autonomy in a safe manner with an affordable and local doctor without being shamed or asked to justify her visceral response.

ALL sides of this issue are being attacked by the anti-woman lobby. Access to contraception is being restricted, and the answer from the anti-woman side is "don't have sex if you don't want to get pregnant." Abortion rights are under attack, and their answer is "use contraception or don't have sex". And the right to raise a child you happen to get pregnant with vs abort it or give it up for adoption is under attack because "If you are too poor to have kids without help you should give your kid to someone richer."

All of which supports the view of women and our wombs as objects to be exploited, and all of which must be addressed. Not just one aspect, even if it is under the heaviest current attack. They got most of the attacks against the poor being parents done legislatively in the 90s, but it is still something we need to fix as well.