...In which our heroine takes a stand.

Friends, I'm really worried. The rash of recent anti-choice laws, including South Dakota's bill to make killing abortion providers a justifiable homicide, Georgia's bill to make miscarriage criminal, and Ohio's bill to make abortion illegal within the first heartbeat of a fetus, as well as Congress' proposed cuts to Planned Parenthood are making me nervous to be a woman of child-bearing age in America.

For most of our beliefs, it's difficult to trace a specific source from which they came. But when it comes to reproductive choice about my own body, the decision was made for me at an early age. I don't remember how old I was when I watched HBO's exploration of abortion, If These Walls Could Talk, but I can tell you I remember the feeling I had after watching this scene in my grandma's basement:


The failed back-alley abortion Demi Moore gets is horrifying to me as a 21-year old, so as a child, it was nightmare inducing for weeks. Watching her struggle to call for help in that pool of blood decided my views on abortion for the rest of my life. There was no morality left in the issue: no woman should ever have to die that way, alone, and scared, simply because she did not want to have a child.

I'll never argue that abortion isn't ending a life, because it is. Abortion stops a life before it begins. But for me, bringing a truly unwanted child into the world is a sin far graver than not giving it that chance. Over Christmas break, my mother and I were watching Teen Mom, and she asked me what I would do. My answer was so honest, I left her speechless. If I found out I was pregnant tomorrow, I would get an abortion because at this stage in my life, I do not have the capacity to care for another life. She asked how I could live with such a decision - wouldn't it haunt me for the rest of my life - and I have no doubt that it would, but still, on a personal level, I have no business having a child right now, so why would I should subject it to a life that it doesn't deserve? Sure, there's adoption but in an overpopulated world, we don't need more unwanted children.

And to the same extent, I totally understand the moral objections to abortion. While I certainly wouldn't call it murder, it isn't as casual as some make it. Prevention is key. With that being said, there can be no legal objection to abortion. Make it illegal, and we go back to a state where women will go to any means necessary to obtain them anyway. Hell, you can walk into any natural foods store and buy a variety of herbs that might cause miscarriage...or dire hemorrhage. Ending the legality of abortion will lead to the deaths of many, many more women than need be.

This isn't even an abortion only issue: 97% of Planned Parenthood's services are non-abortion related, for preventive care for things like birth control and cancer screening, and for 60% of their patients, it's the only medical care they get all year. I have plenty of friends who rely on PP for the pill so they don't need to rely on them for an abortion. Cutting funding means fewer women who can prevent pregnancies, HIV, and cancer, which ultimately means more deaths for women in America.

I am thankful everyday for a world in which pills in varying shades of blue give me the extra reassurance that having sex doesn't have to mean a baby I don't want. And you know what, there have certainly been times that for whatever reason, I have no doubt my access to birth control prevented a pregnancy.  One of the organizers of Columbia's student feminist group, FEMMES, had a shirt that said "I FUCK TO COME, NOT TO CONCEIVE." While (hopefully) most men would be at least concerned that their orgasm could result in unwanted pregnancy, women should be afforded the same luxury that their sexual pleasure shouldn't come at the risk and cost of a child they do not want.

Even if you're against abortion, I would hope you at least would want women to have access to birth control. The last time I went to buy condoms, they were in a locked case. Don't tell me that doesn't deter people from being shamed into not buying them. I highly doubt that any women, once in a cold room, with feet in stirrups, thinks "gee, I'm SO glad I get to be having this abortion when I could be do just about anything else." It's undoubtedly an unpleasant part of life, but if we can prevent abortions with contraception - the very thing Planned Parenthood is trying to do -  we prevent the loss of more life.

It's my body, and my choice whether I want a child or not. I'm scared at what a world where this choice is taken away from me may look like. I'm scared for my fellow women, women who aren't lucky enough like me to have a regular gynecologist and an $8 birth control prescription. A woman shouldn't have to sacrifice sex, the most natural act on earth besides being born and dying, because she's so terrified of what the outcome might be.

So if you like me, or any ladies in your life, which I'm sure you do, please take a minute and sign the petition to make Congress reconsider cutting their federal tax dollars for a preventive care organization. 

I thank you, and my sisters, mothers, friends, nieces, and aunts thank you.

These are scary, scary times folks, and I certainly don't think we should bring more innocent lives into them without them being truly wanted. As my father says, "every child should be a wanted child."