"Pro-choice" vs. "Pro-life"

Shortly after starting to volunteer for Repro. Choice Australia, I started telling my friends about it - quite a few of my closest friends are strong Christians and "pro-life". I've talked about how I feel about the phrase "I'm not pro-abortion, but...", but this is different. I got nothing but support when I initially told people what I was doing, even from those who disagree - generally, they were just happy to see me doing something I'm passionate about, and I think that still stands. A few days after telling one of my closest friends, I received a Facebook message from him basically saying that while he cares about and supports me in whatever I choose to do, he strongly disagrees with the pro-choice messages I was posting frequently on Facebook (a little ironic, now that I think about, but I digress). To make a long story short, we both agreed to read the articles we get sent from the other, watch the videos and think about what's said with an open mind. We've done that, exchanged ideas and the debate continues. So far? No ones changed their minds.

But ya know what did happen? We realised we might be arguing completely different aspects of the issue. I was arguing simply that sometimes an abortion is the right decision for a woman, and that decision doesn't involve anyone but her (including, by law, the man that helped create that foetus - the law in most places makes it pretty clear that parental rights don't start until birth). He was trying to argue that abortion is just morally wrong, no matter what, based on opinion and religious views.

He was arguing that he thinks its wrong, I was arguing that that doesn't matter.

And maybe that's what's happening on a larger scale - between activist groups and politicians. Last week, NARAL Pro-Choice America started a hash tag on twitter, #menforchoice, inviting pro-choice men to tweet why they are pro-choice.  The point of this was to include men in the conversation - so often they're cut out, but it takes two to tango, and women making hard decisions need support.

That hashtag veeerrry quickly got noticed and, in a sense, taken over by pro-life groups and individuals. One group in particular has been pretty ruthless, posting what they call 'evidence' against abortion - videos of women saying they were forced to abort or they regret abortion, some cases of women who refused to abort being killed by their partners, stuff like that. According to a leader of this group, any man that is pro-choice just doesn't want to pay child support and will very possibly kill you if you don't abort. http://saynsumthn.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/ant-abortion-tweeters-respond-to-narals-menforchoice-campaign/ Let's not even go into how absolutely ridiculous, how absurdly shameful that statement is. Many other people tweeted things suggesting that any pro-choice man is bad, a murderer, not a real man; some even suggested pro-choice men are incestual rapists: http://www.blogforchoice.com/archives/2013/09/look-what-happe.html?utm_source=nar.al&utm_medium=urlshortener&utm_campaign=FB Again, these statements speak for themselves as to their ridiculous offensiveness. 

My point is, we're arguing different things. Pro-choice people are arguing, most simply, that the decision to have an abortion is that of the pregnant woman. Not the decision of any politician, any religious leader, any family members, any friends - only the woman who is carrying the foetus. Cause its her body. Simple. 

On the contrary it seems as though pro-life people are trying to say "well, I think it's wrong, so don't do it" And,  apparently, that if you support women making their own decisions you're a horrible person. 

Those are 2 pretty different arguments. And maybe, just maybe, instead of hurling insults at each other, accusing others of rape, sexual deviancy and irresponsibility we could try compassion! 

I posted a picture about bodily autonomy and abortion on Facebook, only to have someone tell me that was "the most selfish thing" they've ever seen and for another to plead "but what about compassion?!" Yes, what about compassion? What about compassion for the woman who has to choose between her own life or giving birth, which may kill her and the infant? What about compassion for the woman who doesn't want to go through the emotional trauma of giving birth to a child and putting it up for adoption (because guess what? Abortion isn't the only traumatising end to the relationship between a child and its biological parent)? What about compassion for the woman who can't even afford to feed herself, let alone a child? What about compassion for the rape victim whose situation was made even worse when she found out she was pregnant? What about compassion for babies coming into the world with serious health complications and disabilities that will severely effect their quality of life in a society where care for the disabled is already expensive, already over stretched? And that's if the complications don't end their lives within hours, days or a few years. 

For heavens sake, what about compassion for the thousands of children currently in foster care or without a family to care for them?

On that note, here's a poem that played a very large part in solidifying my own opinions: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iI0NAhP-Ku4 This is particularly relevant as, right now in NSW, there's a bill being debated called Zoe's Law (no.2) that would grant personhood to foetus' 20 weeks and above. The bill itself is perfectly ok - it's named after a 32 week old feotus that was killed in utero in a car accident caused by a drug affected driver. Ignoring how we go from the death of a 32 week old feotus to personhood at 20 weeks, this bill makes sense. But there's serious concern over how it could be used in the future to restrict reproductive choice.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that instead of yelling at each other, we should be working together to ensure that a) a woman's body remains her own, to do with what she will and b) women who decide to abort are supported psychologically and financially in every way possible - because shouldn't both sides want that? Maybe I'm wrong, but I struggle to believe that average pro-life individuals honestly think its ok for anyone to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with HER body. 

I'll end on this note, because I think there's a lot of misconceptions about what being pro-choice actually means: Being pro-choice and being an activist for repro rights is about more than saying "it doesn't concern you, you don't get a say". It's about saying I'd rather it be legalised and regulated so fewer women die in dirty basement clinics. It's about saying yes, there ARE strong psychological effects of abortion - but not for everyone, and in some situations there would be more trauma from not aborting. It's about fighting for the women that do experience abortion related trauma to have affordable access to after-care and therapy. It's about saying "I know this is a shitty situation, I know you might not want to do this but you feel you have to and I'm going to support you in every way I can to make sure that you are ok and that this situation doesn't happen to you again". 

It is so much more complicated than you thinking its wrong and therefore no one should be able to do it.