Becoming Pro-Choice

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

When did you all become pro-choice? Have you always been pro-choice, or were you on the other side before you became pro-choice? If you were pro-life originally, what made you decide to become pro-choice?

First of all, I know I already asked something similar in the previous thread with the survey (i.e "How long have you been pro-choice?"). However, this thread gives you more room to expand on your answers compare to the survey (in my opinion, at least). Second of all, I got inspired to make this thread from another pro-choice community :)

Comments

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

I've been a pro-lifer and a fence sitter before I became pro-choice. I was pro-life from the time I was fourteen until I was nineteen, and I was a fence sitter from the time I was nineteen until I was twenty-three.

I wasn't pro-life for religious reasons or my family had a huge influence on me becoming pro-life. I had become pro-life because I believed there was a right to life that existed in nature and I was told abortion was killing babies (which I thought of newborns, not fetuses). So, basically, I thought abortion was infantside. Therefore, I used to be flat out against abortion due to that view.
It was around the time I was sixteen that I found out that abortions took place during pregnancy, so I realize it wasn't exactly newborns being "killed". However, I still wasn't comfortable with the idea of abortion because it was killing a developing baby...but I began to accept it in cases to save a woman's life and rape.

Before I go on...what I'm about to say is going to sound very crazy. However, this was a major turning point for me in this debate so it's vital I say it. I have premenitions occassionally. Most of them have come true, unfortunately and it's usually something that isn't nice. One premenition of mine has been re-occuring (and still occurs) since I was sixteen and that is I'm going to loose my first pregnancy/baby. Most of the time, it's been about me miscarrying a pregnancy and a few times it's been about me loosing a baby shortly after birth to six months after birth. If someone believes that the right to life existed naturally, you would understand why the miscarriage concept upset me greatly as a lifer. The idea of nature taking my pregnancy away from me, when I didn't abort, showed me that there is no right to life in nature. It upset me and unnerved me greatly. So, I stopped being pro-life and became undecided because I supported abortion in some cases...but not all to be pro-choice. I also used to believe that in order to be pro-choice, you had to love abortion and have one yourself.

So, I basically spent four years on the fence researching abortion from medical sites like National Institute of Health and watching the debate from the side lines. After going to the sites of major pro-life and pro-choice groups to see what their views were, I realized I had way more pro-choice views than pro-life. So, I decided to become pro-choice at the age of twenty-three. However, I would best be described as a pro-choice butt in that first year. However, by the time I was a pro-choice for two years, I became more vehement in my position.

[seize.livejournal.com]

We all have our own interesting journeys to our beliefs, but that certainly is a new one to me.

I've been pro-choice for my whole adult life. The argument I came up with for myself starts with the observation that, when we consider abortion, we consider the rights of the mother and the conceptus in opposition, and are forced to choose between the right of the woman to control her body and future and the right of the conceptus (which is often not yet even a fetus by medical definition) to exist. So on one hand, we have a fully grown sentient being capable of memory, emotion, suffering, fear of death, and paying taxes. On the other hand we have something that will not be sentient by any definition until several months after it is born. Because pregnancy is a lengthy, painful and dangerous endeavor that can severely damage the career aspects and social standing of a woman when it is unplanned, and possibly lead to permanent changes in a woman's body and even injury or death, not to mention the production a child for which the woman or society is then responsible, I choose the rights of the woman over the rights of the conceptus. Our highest goal as a society is to promote equal treatment of all human beings under the law, and we cannot expect women to be equal partners in society if society is allowed to legislate the course of a woman's life for nine months at a time - or, better yet, for 19 years at a time, if you happen to have a child that is in some way handicapped or perhaps of color and thus difficult to put up for adoption. (I should add that, after birth, the opposition of the rights of the mother and the rights of the child dissolve, and we are bound to protect the newborn with the same fierceness we would protect the life and rights of any other member of our society.)

I think it is the acknowledgment of the dynamic nature of life and pregnancy that informs both of our identities as being pro-choice. For instance, did you know that, while you breastfeed, your body refuses to allow a conceptus to implant into your uterus? Fertilization can occur, but your body just lets the fertilized egg just float straight out of you because your body is afraid that nursing while pregnant would be too much for you (as it would, nutritionally). You can miscarry if you are hungry every day for two weeks straight or if you severely lack body fat or nutrients necessary for pregnancy. You can miscarry if the conceptus is too genetically sick to develop correctly. You can also miscarry for "bad" reasons - chemical mix-ups made by your body that destroy an otherwise viable and wanted pregnancy, caused by damage (injury) or by your genes. I just learned all that in the last hour - I'm sitting with my laptop in my Reproductive Biology class. All that makes me think is: so my body can make the choice about when pregnancy is safe and profitable, but some people say I can't make the same choice with my mind? Bull! I know what's right for me. And that's why I'm pro-choice.

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

While I never seen the term before, I love your term conceptus.

[seize.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, that is apparently the medical way to refer to anything from a fertilized egg (zygote) to a neonate (newborn) appropriately, regardless of the many stages between the two. Ultimately, it conveys what's so desperately important about pregnancy: that what a pregnancy is, is defined by the woman carrying the pregnancy. To lose a planned pregnancy is a terrible, difficult thing for one woman; an abortion, for another woman, is the relief at the end of a terrifying few weeks.

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

Since I began to frequent the Yahoo Abortion Chatroom, I always see the term zef (which is short for zygote/embroyo/fetus). However, we rarely talk about abortion anymore since the regs know where we all stand on the issue since many of us have come there for years.

I agree with everything else you said.