I’ve never had an abortion. I don’t think I would have one, although this kind of a hypothetical is always useless. However, I’m lucid enough to realize that I can say such things because I have the incredible good fortune of having a great support system, a stable income, a wonderful partner, an amazing profession, and access to the best medical services one can imagine. Because of these things I know that an unintended pregnancy will not devastate me emotionally, psychologically, economically, professionally, and health-wise.
I belong to a very tiny minority of women in the world who have the luxury of not needing to consider abortion. It would never occur to me to judge other people from my position of good fortune.
People who want to make abortion illegal or hard to obtain terrify me. I cannot even begin to imagine what kind of hubris, what kind of contempt and deep-seated hatred for actual living, breathing, thinking human beings one needs to have to believe that one has the right to make such a decision for them. If you have principles, beliefs or religious convictions that make you find abortion unacceptable, then don’t have one. But don’t you dare try to impose your religion and your beliefs on others. Trying to inscribe your views on the bodies of other people is one of the most immoral, disgusting, vile things anybody could ever come up with.
Roe vs Wade brought this country into the ranks of civilized places that don’t see women as inanimate objects whose destinies have to be decided and whose bodies need to be managed by politicians who never even saw them. If you do not support Row vs Wade, if you believe that you have the right to invade and manage other people’s uteri, then I have news for you: you are a horrible, disgusting individual. There is no excuse for you. You deserve to be shunned by every normal person with a shred of humanity.
Those of us who respect women enough to let them decide what to do with their own bodies seem to have some unhealthy fear of offending anti-abortionists. They scream “baby killer!” in front of clinics and we try to reason with them and treat them with respect while doing so. In the process, we betray all of those women who will die or be mutilated in back-alley abortions if abortion becomes illegal in this country.
I propose we stop coddling these hateful creeps. I propose we start telling them exactly what we think about them. I propose we stop trying to reason with them because they speak from a place of unbridled, unconstrained loathing for female bodies that they want to invade.
If you are anti-choice, shame on you.
If you support choice, you need to know that we will prevail. There are still many struggles ahead of us but, in the end, reason will overcome barbarity and we will find ourselves in a world where women will be considered by everybody to be valid human beings capable of making their own choices about their own bodies.
Believe in women. Support choice.
Clarissa's Blog 
Here here! I like that you aren’t apologetic for the pro-choice position and that you directly critique the so-called “pro-life” position. I get so annoyed by politicians and other pro-choicers who say things like “I am personally against abortion but believe it should be legal.” That kind of rhetoric makes abortion seem like a moral failure or a necessary evil. It is morally reprehensible to challenge abortion rights and we need to make that case as clearly as possible!
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>>I propose we stop coddling these hateful creeps. I propose we start telling them exactly what we think about them. I propose we stop trying to reason with them because they speak from a place of unbridled, unconstrained loathing for female bodies that they want to invade.
Over the years, I’ve discovered that those who express an enormous amount of difficulty either understanding me or my position are using their failure to understand as a strategy for political steamrolling. In Western society, the onus for assuring effective communication is on the speaker, so there is an additional psychological element to this claim not to understand. One is actually blaming the speaker for one’s failure to be able to hear.
That is why, these days, when I meet a flaming right winger I exert little or no effort to “understand” them. If they have something to say, they’ll make it clear to me over the years. They can try to find a way to frame their ideas which would make my left libertarian ears more receptive to their ideas.
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We are supposed to be understanding of these folks in hopes of trying to convince you. Like there is a hope in hell of convincing somebody who doesn’t even see you as fully human.
“One is actually blaming the speaker for one’s failure to be able to hear.”
– Exactly! This is a brilliant manipulation strategy that people very often use. It took me a while to catch on to it but now that I have, I will not participate.
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I support abortion.
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I support abortion.
P.S.: I would not support a law that bans abortion, though.
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I support abortion!
P.S.: I would not support a law that bans conception, though.
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“understand”
In the South, “I don’t understand” means “I vehemently disagree / disapprove, and I want to register that, but I do not want to discuss this matter.”
Elsewhere “I don’t understand” is sometimes straight-up verbal abuse. It means: I refuse to listen, and I will also consider you incoherent unless you agree with me. Very condescending.
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