Blogging for Choice: A Confession - How I went from being "Pro-Life" to "Pro-choice"

For my friend K, because you opened my eyes.



About seven years ago, I was ambivalent about 'abortion', I wasn't pro-choice you could say. At one point I even made it a point to declare that I would never abort my fetus even if it had been born anencephalic. Weird you say? No, it's the truth, this is how I felt at the time - in my early twenties.

In fact despite being agnostic, I felt that it was 'morally wrong' to kill 'potential life'. Of course the only person's life I didn't think about was the woman's.

I became a "feminist" before I became pro-choice, yes, you heard me correctly - I became a "feminist" before I became pro-choice, or at least I thought I was a feminist. I kept this hidden, to myself and never mentioned it in public (until today for the first time) - of course I didn't want to be ostracized by other feminists. In fact, you could say I even hid behind the whole "I would never do it - but if other women do it - it's okay" lie. You know the game where you assume "you're the centre of righteousness" and everyone else who does something differently is a dumb ass.

The truth was I didn't really know what 'pro-choice' meant. I just assumed it was a way for women to get 'rid' of 'babies'. As though women who did this did so because they were stupid, ignorant, selfish, heartless, vain about their figures, promiscuous without worrying about the consequences or were a combination of all of these things. Of course, I was none of those things - but 'these other women' supposedly were.

So how did I become pro-choice? I listened, I thought it over, I realized I wasn't being much of a feminist either - because if I was I would understand that only individual women can decide whether they can have a child or not at the right point in their life.

After some time I understood what it meant to be pro-choice, I understood that it was only the individual woman who knew what her circumstances were. There are many questions that no one can answer for a woman who is pregnant (or for that matter any questions that women need to answer for anyone else!), women's lives are too complicated as it is and many things effect their decision about continuing with a pregnancy:
- are they financially stable
- do they have a partner they want to conceive with (do they even want a partner)
- do they already have several children
- are they currently studying
- are they working
- are they in an abusive relationship (pregnant women experience the highest rate of DV)
- do they have supportive parents
- will they face ostracism from the community they live in (you know the word 'slut' only works one way really)
- will they be able to provide a stable and loving environment for their children (there are many children who need adoption already!)
- are they medically incapable/ will it harm them to have a baby/ will it harm the baby (if it's going to harm the baby - will this woman have the ability/finances/support to take care of a disabled child?)
- did their partner threaten to leave them/already left them
- is it just the wrong time in this woman's life?
- do they just not want a child (why should someone be forced to bear a child if they don't want one? - childbirth should be a joy - not torture!)

All these things came crashing down on me - and I realized I wasn't being much of a feminist at all if I couldn't trust WOMEN to make their own decisions for themselves. In fact I moved away from an ANTI-WOMAN PRO-LIFE rhetoric towards a WOMAN-CENTRED view.

Recently, however, my feminist principles took on a new challenge. A wonderful and dear friend of mine discovered she was pregnant. I have known this woman since she was a pre-teen, sometimes I think I feel a little protective of her - because she is much younger than I am. This woman like myself is a woman of colour, she is and has often been in and out of social assistance programs (as has her family), she also does not have a high-school diploma despite her extreme brightness, she comes from an abusive home and her boyfriend is an utter loser.

My friend came to me for advice about what she should do about this pregnancy because despite the odds and the challenges she really wanted to carry on with the pregnancy and NO ONE supported her in this decision. I cried many times that night, I cried for her education, I cried because I loved her, I cried for her future, I cried about her abusive family, her poverty, her lack of employable skills, her youth - I convinced myself that this woman did not know what she was talking about.

And then it hit me like a tonne of bricks, I was not adhering to a woman centred analysis, in fact I wanted my friend to have an abortion and it was for all the same classist/racist and anti-feminist reasons that I became pro-choice in the first place. My friend came to me because she loved me, because she trusted me, because everyone else had told her not to have the baby - she came to me for advice because she knew I was a feminist and had told her "that I love women".

With much pain, I did the right thing, I told her how I felt about her having a child at this stage in her life - but I also told her that only she knew what was right for her and that I would support her in whatever decision she wanted.

Her family is still not supportive, she's still in poverty, she still doesn't have a degree (BUT she's working on that - I wouldn't let that one slide!!!), she still has a dead-beat, unfaithful boyfriend - but you know what? My friend is also very happy with her decision, she also gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl I know (who've I've already offered to get some feminist books for!).

So what have I learned over the years? Pro-choice means being there for women, knowing that YOU do not live a woman's life for her, that you can't possibly experience/live her pain to know what she is going through. Pro-choice also means providing sustainable solutions for women so that if they choose to have/not have children they have OPTIONS such as universal daycare, health care, education, scholarships, housing, meaningful employment. Like everything else about women's lives - CHOICE does not operate in a vacuum separate from other decisions/realities of women's lives.