Why being Pro-Choice is so controversial
With the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, as well as what seems like a sudden spike in hate filled rants associated with abortion, I've started to come very aware of how I've never really had any rights to my body to begin with.
As a girl the first two things you learn are that 1) You don't have any rights to your own body and 2) Everybody hates you. Amazingly the anti-choice movement represents just that.
Pro-choice is what it states; it is that you support choices. You support the woman's right to choose to keep her pregnancy (whether it was intended or not), chooses to terminate it, you support reproductive health care for all women, you also support comprehensive sex education, access to contraceptives, and the right for women to have pre-natal and post-natal care so that mom and baby can both leave the hospital safe and healthy. Anti-choice is that you believe women shouldn't have access to contraceptive, no access to sex education, and no choice as to whether she should keep or end a pregnancy regardless of the circumstances surrounding it, or if the mom will die as a result of carrying the pregnancy to term.
As a woman, I find it disturbing that 38 years after Roe v. Wade passed, that there are still people trying to chomp away at it. While I find it disturbing and upsetting, the sad part is that I don't find it surprising. The Anti-choice movement is an excuse for people who hate women to get together and send violence, abuse, hate, discrimination and oppression towards this group. Its kind of the perfect package that they have wrapped up as one that isn't about the women, but rather about babies. Babies who are innocent, knowing full well that very few people would side with a woman over that of a small tiny baby.
They've dubbed abortion the "baby killer" despite that most abortions are performed during the first trimester in which at that point, its also possible for a woman to be completely unaware of the fact she was pregnant, have a miscarriage, and never know it. How do you ask? Because at the beginning stages of a pregnancy a miscarriage looks a lot like a normal period, basically just a lot of blood. The abortions that most women are having and that they are fighting for look exactly like that, a bloody tampon. Its not to downplay any emotional distress that goes with a loss of the womb regardless of how it occurs, rather it is to point out a very important thing. The anti-choice movement has been very good at campaigning these "baby killers" with pictures of basically just that: photoshopped images of severed babies. Yet, that doesn't represent what is actually happening, nor does it make any sense. It would be much more accurate to have protest signs with images of bloody tampons. Seeing that is what is actually happening.
But the whole point of this isn't to be accurate, it's to get together and tear down women. Some women have later term abortions when the fetus is more human-like, than blood like, but these are almost always when the health of the mother is at stake, or the baby that she wanted isn't going to survive outside of the womb. They could also have signs with images of women who died because they didn't have access to a life-saving abortion that would also be appropriate, but that would make them seem evil, and probably not get people to support them.
The anti-choice movement is so controversial because it is at the core of who we are as women. The reason everyone wants to claim rights over our body is because we are powerful. We are these amazing beings who walk around all this time with the ability to create life inside our bodies. Our bodies naturally go through a complicated system of releasing an egg, and than flushing it out each month. Our cycle when unregulated and working properly naturally coincides with the moon. It is as close to being god-like at you can ever get. We have this intricate system that was marveled over during matriarchal times because we could bleed and bleed during our menstrual cycle and not die. Women who were on their periods were considered to be the most powerful beings in the entire society, and were often sought out to perform healing rituals, and to give advice during their moon-time.
We, in modern society, are taught that we don't own our bodies; we don't have rights to them because that is where the power is. As Buffy would say "the bad guys always go where the power is." Men are scared of this power, and thus want to control it. Maybe it brings out a sense of his own inadequacies; since no matter how much you will accomplish in your life you will never be able to do that which comes so naturally to us as women, sometimes even when we aren’t trying to, create life. Since I'm not a man I'm not sure. I do know men spend an awful lot of time trying to either destroy us, control our bodies, or make us believe that we are in fact inferior. The idea that we have rights to this power, and can control it over selves, scares the shit out of people, most of who seem to be men, but some of who seem to be women who are also scared of their own power.
As women in any society begin to get access to their reproductive rights, as we have in this society, and as we've seen it makes us unstoppable. We may not quite be equal in the US, but we will soon not only be equal, but also actually surpass men in basically every segment of society. We will be in charge, and it’s due to having access to things like birth control, and abortion. This is probably the main reason this anti-women hate rhetoric is so largely rearing its ugly head, because we have gotten too powerful. People are scared of this, and want to oppress us. At this stage its too late, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be fighting for our reproductive rights because we owe it to ourselves, our daughters, and every woman on this planet to reclaim and own our power.
As women we have rights to have a healthy happy sex life, we have rights to have a healthy reproductive system, and we have rights to bring only happy healthy truly desired babies into this world when we are ready for them. The anti-choice movement doesn't want that they want women to be inferior, to not have sex, and if they do (god forbid they enjoy it!) they should have to give birth to their "punishment babies". Having an unplanned baby, and becoming a single mom is the easiest way to send women into a vicious cycle of poverty. If we're not in poverty, who else is going to work these low-end shit minimum wage paying jobs, like say those of wal-mart? Given that, lately the anti-choice rhetoric has been targeting the African-American community with their racist antics, referring to the "death of black unborn babies as genocide" and claiming that the "most dangerous place for an African-American baby is being in the womb". I'm not sure but I live pretty close to Oakland, and I would actually say its much more dangerous for the African-American community to be on the streets there, than in a womb. These companies need women to be submissive so they can take advantage of us, which is probably why the Republican Party is always so dead-set on taking away our reproductive rights. I feel like in addition to women becoming too powerful, African-American women who have largely made up this exploited workforce are also taking the world by storm, damn you with all your college degrees, and taking over the white house!
On a more serious note, it all makes perfect sense. Take away all of our reproductive rights, and take those especially away from the ones who have traditionally been the easiest for big business to exploit (women of color) knowing full well that "they're lifers" at any particular company and it all makes sense. They no longer have cheap labor, especially since there has been a huge crack down recently in ‘undocumented workers’ they are really scrambling now for people to fill these disposable positions that allow them to run billion dollar industries at the expensive of workers and human rights. Given that it is harder for these women to get reproductive care in the first place, as well as harder for all women who are poor to get it, and now we can all start to see what's actually going on.
This is what happened recently with this shop of horrors dr. in Philadelphia. I was thinking about how I bet the only reason those women went there in the first place is because there were probably anti-choice activists outside of their local planned parenthood. I was right, one of the women confirmed today that this was in fact the only reason she went to the abortion serial killer doctor, seeing that there were no protesters outside calling her a "whore" and threatening to kill her. Sadly this case represents what the anti-choice people want, they want women to suffer. They want us to go back to be being submissive, inferior beings, with no rights.
As women its time to stand up and say WE WILL NEVER GO BACK!! Remember that you are powerful; no amount of photoshopped-aborted-bloody-tampons-protest signs or “whore” name calling will ever be able to take that away from you.
As a girl the first two things you learn are that 1) You don't have any rights to your own body and 2) Everybody hates you. Amazingly the anti-choice movement represents just that.
Pro-choice is what it states; it is that you support choices. You support the woman's right to choose to keep her pregnancy (whether it was intended or not), chooses to terminate it, you support reproductive health care for all women, you also support comprehensive sex education, access to contraceptives, and the right for women to have pre-natal and post-natal care so that mom and baby can both leave the hospital safe and healthy. Anti-choice is that you believe women shouldn't have access to contraceptive, no access to sex education, and no choice as to whether she should keep or end a pregnancy regardless of the circumstances surrounding it, or if the mom will die as a result of carrying the pregnancy to term.
As a woman, I find it disturbing that 38 years after Roe v. Wade passed, that there are still people trying to chomp away at it. While I find it disturbing and upsetting, the sad part is that I don't find it surprising. The Anti-choice movement is an excuse for people who hate women to get together and send violence, abuse, hate, discrimination and oppression towards this group. Its kind of the perfect package that they have wrapped up as one that isn't about the women, but rather about babies. Babies who are innocent, knowing full well that very few people would side with a woman over that of a small tiny baby.
They've dubbed abortion the "baby killer" despite that most abortions are performed during the first trimester in which at that point, its also possible for a woman to be completely unaware of the fact she was pregnant, have a miscarriage, and never know it. How do you ask? Because at the beginning stages of a pregnancy a miscarriage looks a lot like a normal period, basically just a lot of blood. The abortions that most women are having and that they are fighting for look exactly like that, a bloody tampon. Its not to downplay any emotional distress that goes with a loss of the womb regardless of how it occurs, rather it is to point out a very important thing. The anti-choice movement has been very good at campaigning these "baby killers" with pictures of basically just that: photoshopped images of severed babies. Yet, that doesn't represent what is actually happening, nor does it make any sense. It would be much more accurate to have protest signs with images of bloody tampons. Seeing that is what is actually happening.
But the whole point of this isn't to be accurate, it's to get together and tear down women. Some women have later term abortions when the fetus is more human-like, than blood like, but these are almost always when the health of the mother is at stake, or the baby that she wanted isn't going to survive outside of the womb. They could also have signs with images of women who died because they didn't have access to a life-saving abortion that would also be appropriate, but that would make them seem evil, and probably not get people to support them.
The anti-choice movement is so controversial because it is at the core of who we are as women. The reason everyone wants to claim rights over our body is because we are powerful. We are these amazing beings who walk around all this time with the ability to create life inside our bodies. Our bodies naturally go through a complicated system of releasing an egg, and than flushing it out each month. Our cycle when unregulated and working properly naturally coincides with the moon. It is as close to being god-like at you can ever get. We have this intricate system that was marveled over during matriarchal times because we could bleed and bleed during our menstrual cycle and not die. Women who were on their periods were considered to be the most powerful beings in the entire society, and were often sought out to perform healing rituals, and to give advice during their moon-time.
We, in modern society, are taught that we don't own our bodies; we don't have rights to them because that is where the power is. As Buffy would say "the bad guys always go where the power is." Men are scared of this power, and thus want to control it. Maybe it brings out a sense of his own inadequacies; since no matter how much you will accomplish in your life you will never be able to do that which comes so naturally to us as women, sometimes even when we aren’t trying to, create life. Since I'm not a man I'm not sure. I do know men spend an awful lot of time trying to either destroy us, control our bodies, or make us believe that we are in fact inferior. The idea that we have rights to this power, and can control it over selves, scares the shit out of people, most of who seem to be men, but some of who seem to be women who are also scared of their own power.
As women in any society begin to get access to their reproductive rights, as we have in this society, and as we've seen it makes us unstoppable. We may not quite be equal in the US, but we will soon not only be equal, but also actually surpass men in basically every segment of society. We will be in charge, and it’s due to having access to things like birth control, and abortion. This is probably the main reason this anti-women hate rhetoric is so largely rearing its ugly head, because we have gotten too powerful. People are scared of this, and want to oppress us. At this stage its too late, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be fighting for our reproductive rights because we owe it to ourselves, our daughters, and every woman on this planet to reclaim and own our power.
As women we have rights to have a healthy happy sex life, we have rights to have a healthy reproductive system, and we have rights to bring only happy healthy truly desired babies into this world when we are ready for them. The anti-choice movement doesn't want that they want women to be inferior, to not have sex, and if they do (god forbid they enjoy it!) they should have to give birth to their "punishment babies". Having an unplanned baby, and becoming a single mom is the easiest way to send women into a vicious cycle of poverty. If we're not in poverty, who else is going to work these low-end shit minimum wage paying jobs, like say those of wal-mart? Given that, lately the anti-choice rhetoric has been targeting the African-American community with their racist antics, referring to the "death of black unborn babies as genocide" and claiming that the "most dangerous place for an African-American baby is being in the womb". I'm not sure but I live pretty close to Oakland, and I would actually say its much more dangerous for the African-American community to be on the streets there, than in a womb. These companies need women to be submissive so they can take advantage of us, which is probably why the Republican Party is always so dead-set on taking away our reproductive rights. I feel like in addition to women becoming too powerful, African-American women who have largely made up this exploited workforce are also taking the world by storm, damn you with all your college degrees, and taking over the white house!
On a more serious note, it all makes perfect sense. Take away all of our reproductive rights, and take those especially away from the ones who have traditionally been the easiest for big business to exploit (women of color) knowing full well that "they're lifers" at any particular company and it all makes sense. They no longer have cheap labor, especially since there has been a huge crack down recently in ‘undocumented workers’ they are really scrambling now for people to fill these disposable positions that allow them to run billion dollar industries at the expensive of workers and human rights. Given that it is harder for these women to get reproductive care in the first place, as well as harder for all women who are poor to get it, and now we can all start to see what's actually going on.
This is what happened recently with this shop of horrors dr. in Philadelphia. I was thinking about how I bet the only reason those women went there in the first place is because there were probably anti-choice activists outside of their local planned parenthood. I was right, one of the women confirmed today that this was in fact the only reason she went to the abortion serial killer doctor, seeing that there were no protesters outside calling her a "whore" and threatening to kill her. Sadly this case represents what the anti-choice people want, they want women to suffer. They want us to go back to be being submissive, inferior beings, with no rights.
As women its time to stand up and say WE WILL NEVER GO BACK!! Remember that you are powerful; no amount of photoshopped-aborted-bloody-tampons-protest signs or “whore” name calling will ever be able to take that away from you.
