WomenCo.

I'll start by simply stating NARAL's motto: "My mind. My body. My choice."

I believe that being pro-choice gives every woman OPTIONS. I support each individual woman's choice to go forward with or terminate her own pregnancy.

Thought I'd share some pro-choice PSAs, ads, bumper stickers, and cartoons—

Laura, that's GREAT. WOW. So true, haha.

rosalia351 says ...

I am Pro-choice. I believe in the right to decide what is best for you. I believe society should not dictate how or what i do with my body. But honesty, I think their should be limits. Us as woman should have limits. I dont believe abortion should be a means of birth control. I know woman who have had multiple abortions because they are just irresponsible. But the government should not have a say. There are good and bad with anything and although I believe in the choice, I think we must take responsibility and not abuse this choice.

 

I am in 100% agreement!

Honestly - no one - especially government - has the right to tell what I can and cannot do with my own body. The Universe gave me this body thinking I was rational, sane and intelligent enough to make my own SMART decisions regarding it. (Bear in mind - We all know everyone has momentary lapses.... )

If you are going to tell women what they can do with their bodies - aren't you then takeing away our basic Civil Rights?  It is comical how it's men who are behind this when they have no idea what it really entails.  I do believe pregnancy is a beautiful thing as is the gift of a child, but not when I can't afford one or I've been raped.  Then it simply becomes stressful.

We'll get there, ladies.  One day........

As a medical professional, I often saw patients which under some very difficult situations, were being faced with choices which NOBODY could have prepared them for.  There is no way anyone could make those decisions for them.  There is no way anyone else would fully understand those circumstances.

I have seen parents making choices for children. There was a patient of mine which was only a tiny 11 year old and she had hidden her pregnancy until she could no longer.  She had hidden it out of fear from her molester, her uncle.  When her parents found out they nearly would have beat her to death if the ER doc hadn't sedated them.  That 11 year old was pregnant with triplets, something her tiny young body could not survive if the babies were allowed to go to term.  Her parents chose the babies over their daughter because in their religious view, the babies were blameless. The parents could not view the daughter as a child because she was pregnant. 

I could not see how they could not see that the daughter had been violated, and was also blameless.  I went to the head of nursing to ask if there was a patient advocate, but at this religious hospital it had not been felt that one was needed on staff.  Nobody wanted to get involved and I was "advised" to keep away from the parents and the daughter.

The end result?  The 11 year old lost her life and the babies too. She was not given a choice about her life or the babies. How do the parents of this girl sleep at night?  How do they look in the mirror and not see to some degree that the blame was in their lap.  They had not protected her and did not choose to value her life in any way.

I have many of these stories.  They are the parts of the lives that you do not see behind your neighbor's door, the woman in front of you at the check-out line, or the young woman you always see every sunday in services.  You do not know that your neighbor was brutally raped and she physically could not bring herself to have his child.  The woman in the check-out lane is leaving the store to go home to an abusive relationship, but she will not bring a child there were she is not safe herself.  The young woman at church was molested all her childhood and will never be able to carry a child to term because of the permanent damage to her internal organs.   

The one thing I have not seen in many MANY years are the endless parade of women horrifically damaged by botched back-room abortions.  There not many that remember those times.  Many of the women today have had a choice ever sense they were born and have no recollection or memory of women dieing while waiting to be seen in the ER after some hack cut them up trying to give them an abortion. 

This for me is a topic which will never go away, the scenery changes, but realistically choice is something we will always have.  The human race will never go backward.   No amount of emotional, religious, or governmental chest pounding will change that right.

proverud says ...

I do believe pregnancy is a beautiful thing as is the gift of a child, but not when I can't afford one or I've been raped.  Then it simply becomes stressful.

This is the most difficult part of the issue for me.  I have several friends that were adopted at birth, including one that was a product of rape.  She thanks the powers that be every day that her mother was pro-life.  I am pro-choice, but I guess that choice definately becomes more difficult for me, after conception.

rosalia351 says ...

I am Pro-choice. I believe in the right to decide what is best for you. I believe society should not dictate how or what i do with my body. But honesty, I think their should be limits. Us as woman should have limits. I dont believe abortion should be a means of birth control. I know woman who have had multiple abortions because they are just irresponsible. But the government should not have a say. There are good and bad with anything and although I believe in the choice, I think we must take responsibility and not abuse this choice.

 

I agree. I just wish that more women would use birth control to keep from getting pregnant. Unless, of course, they want kids. And teach birth control to their kids so that they don't end up in a jam that may end in an unwanted pregnancy.

whimsey4you says ...

The one thing I have not seen in many MANY years are the endless parade of women horrifically damaged by botched back-room abortions.  There not many that remember those times.  Many of the women today have had a choice ever sense they were born and have no recollection or memory of women dieing while waiting to be seen in the ER after some hack cut them up trying to give them an abortion. 

This for me is a topic which will never go away, the scenery changes, but realistically choice is something we will always have.  The human race will never go backward.   No amount of emotional, religious, or governmental chest pounding will change that right.

I'm in agreement with the remarks already posted here - but this comment from whimsey4 -- at the bottom of it all - this is how I feel as well ... I do remember - and I too don't believe we will ever go backward. 

As with anything in life, there are those that simply fail to have the where-with-all to plan ahead.  Only one form of birth control is effective, but unrealistic in real life. 

I have seen so many different patients..Examples:the one that came in for the "morning after pill" when she had made a particularly stupid decision after a couple of drinks with someone she just met....Let's face it girls...many of us have been there at some point in life but we crossed our fingers and prayed a lot...but that was way back in college and this pill didn't exist then.

Then on the other side of the coin, patients I see that are incarcerated (in prison) and when you ask then how many pregnancies they have had for their medical history file, they count how many times they have been in prison, and that is how they keep track. Perhaps I should explain that one.  When women are doing heavy drugs it effects their bodies, resulting in no periods or no ovulating on a regular basis.  They get busted for one reason or another, then are in the legal system just long enough for mother nature to straighten out, they get out on bail, get knocked up, then go to court for sentencing and show up in prison pregnant. 

But this sad story does not stop here, if they test positive for drugs they are given two choices. 1...Go off drugs cold turkey and do withdrawals which is hard on Mom and Baby  OR 2...Stay on drugs, regulated doses of usually methadone, until they give birth...which means both mom and baby go thru with drawls right after delivery...and Baby almost always has permanent problems.   And then finally, the kid ends up in foster care because they will not sign their rights for the kid away---so no way will this kid ever have a "normal life" now.

I asked WHY they were not allowed to WEAN off the drugs during the pregnancy so that baby AND mom would be more likely to weather this without permanent damage....the answer...money.  The prison system is given a certain amount of funding for those Moms which are on drugs, to keep them on drugs during pregnancy, as is their "rights" I suppose in some sort of twisted way.  They do not offer "weaning off " as an option.  I feel THAT is criminal.  

I guess I should admit I feel that repeat offenders..."repeat drug abuse then yo-yo birthing in prison" is criminal.  Even though I am adamantly pro-choice in every way, I would stand by a judge that says these women should have the birth control implant that is effective for three years.  If they test clean in three years and then want to reproduce then fine.  I would stand by a judge that makes the sentence they serve shorter if they opted for permanent birth control.   I know that may really tick off some people but they have no idea the perpetual revolving door that foster care has become AND the kids ultimately suffer, AND typically follow the same course as the parent.  AND if the parent ever gets custody the kid is just a bigger welfare check for them==more drugs.

whimsey4you says ...

"....

The one thing I have not seen in many MANY years are the endless parade of women horrifically damaged by botched back-room abortions.  There not many that remember those times.  Many of the women today have had a choice ever sense they were born and have no recollection or memory of women dieing while waiting to be seen in the ER after some hack cut them up trying to give them an abortion. 

This for me is a topic which will never go away, the scenery changes, but realistically choice is something we will always have.  The human race will never go backward.   No amount of emotional, religious, or governmental chest pounding will change that right."

I would like to add my little story..... I became pregnant when 18 and in college.  Nothing could have prepared me for the university clinic's reaction... drink lots of milk, take pre-natal vitamins... and when I said "wait, wait, I want an abortion..." I was treated like a pariah... and that was 1973.  The pill had only been available on campus for about a year... there was no clinic in town... until I found one, that no one would tell me about.  While there, I sat with a young girl of 14 whose cousin had attacked and raped her in their barn, in a rural area... She found out about this clinic from an older woman in their area and had a friend drive her 8 hours to have the procedure, then take an 8 hour drive back (not comfortable right afterwards, for the un-initiated) so that her parents would never know. 

I NEVER want to hear a story like that again in a country that is supposedly 'civilised'.  And, as I have quoted above, the story I witnessed was NOTHING compared to what used to go on.  Do we want back rooms again?  To have to go to Canada?  Or will we even be able to get there from here?

The right to choose is unalienable.  this is not a matter for discussion.  It is an absolute must.

I support the woman's right to choose (both to have an abortion and to have a child whether the family likes it or not) because I believe any woman ought to be able to decide what she does with her own body. A fetus violates a woman's philosophical right to own her own body, so it is logical that she gets to decide the fate of the fetus, whether it lives or does not. If a woman says she does not feel comfortable with having an abortion, she has the right to not have one and to instead have the child.

To say that a woman has no right to decide what stays into her body begins an argument of whether she has the right to decide what goes into her body in the first place. Philosophically, if you think abortion is wrong, you may also argue that rape is also not wrong. If she has no right to decide what is in her body and what comes out, why on Earth would she have the right to decide what goes into her body in the first place? Most anti-abortion people do not think this argument out very thouroghly or will even decide that conditional abortions are the way to go. Either a woman always has the right to decide what she does with her body, or she does not. To say that only certain women in certain circumstances have a right to have a choice really means that you are allowing those groups to have a right that women in general do not inherently have. I think that is ridiculous and I completely reject any attempts to argue for partial or no rights for abortion.

Also, my third point, I do not believe women who don't want a child should be mothers. If a woman does not want a child or feels wronged that she must have a child, she will take it out on her child. The child who did not have any choice as to whether s/he would stay or leave the mother's body would then be stuck in an unfavorable, unloving situation. Children who are pumped into foster care do not usually fare any better. On the rare occasion, an adopted child is blessed with a loving adoptive family, but far more often, that child is abused, left in the orphanage, and grows up in an unloving situation.

Essentially, I am for allieviating suffering in the ways that we can. Giving a woman the ability to choose the safest option that will suite her will makes things go more smoothly in the future.

whimsey4you says ...

As a medical professional, I often saw patients which under some very difficult situations, were being faced with choices which NOBODY could have prepared them for.  There is no way anyone could make those decisions for them.  There is no way anyone else would fully understand those circumstances.

I have seen parents making choices for children. There was a patient of mine which was only a tiny 11 year old and she had hidden her pregnancy until she could no longer.  She had hidden it out of fear from her molester, her uncle.  When her parents found out they nearly would have beat her to death if the ER doc hadn't sedated them.  That 11 year old was pregnant with triplets, something her tiny young body could not survive if the babies were allowed to go to term.  Her parents chose the babies over their daughter because in their religious view, the babies were blameless. The parents could not view the daughter as a child because she was pregnant. 

I could not see how they could not see that the daughter had been violated, and was also blameless.  I went to the head of nursing to ask if there was a patient advocate, but at this religious hospital it had not been felt that one was needed on staff.  Nobody wanted to get involved and I was "advised" to keep away from the parents and the daughter.

The end result?  The 11 year old lost her life and the babies too. She was not given a choice about her life or the babies. How do the parents of this girl sleep at night?  How do they look in the mirror and not see to some degree that the blame was in their lap.  They had not protected her and did not choose to value her life in any way.

I have many of these stories.  They are the parts of the lives that you do not see behind your neighbor's door, the woman in front of you at the check-out line, or the young woman you always see every sunday in services.  You do not know that your neighbor was brutally raped and she physically could not bring herself to have his child.  The woman in the check-out lane is leaving the store to go home to an abusive relationship, but she will not bring a child there were she is not safe herself.  The young woman at church was molested all her childhood and will never be able to carry a child to term because of the permanent damage to her internal organs.   

The one thing I have not seen in many MANY years are the endless parade of women horrifically damaged by botched back-room abortions.  There not many that remember those times.  Many of the women today have had a choice ever sense they were born and have no recollection or memory of women dieing while waiting to be seen in the ER after some hack cut them up trying to give them an abortion. 

This for me is a topic which will never go away, the scenery changes, but realistically choice is something we will always have.  The human race will never go backward.   No amount of emotional, religious, or governmental chest pounding will change that right.

I completely agree 100%! I personally work for people with disabilities. Adults and young adults alike that have some bit of a mentla or physical disability and yet no matter how old they are (physically) people often forget tha emotiaonally they are not that age. I know of a young girl in her mid 20s that intellectually she is not in her mid 20s and believes that when guys have asked her to do "things" with them in the past that she felt they really cared for her. She thanksfully was on birth control, however, I can imagine that if the time came and she did get pregnant she would never want to give the child up, and carrying a child or being FORCED to carry a child and then told that due to your mental state you are not able to keep it would not only set her back emotionally but mentally as well. There are many other situations that it would be horrifying to have a government that did not even know me tell me what I can and can not do with my body. Also, as a person that feels strongly in my own religion, I choose to live my life as I see fit, and I would never want to throw my religious views onto anyone else, and at this point I have yet to hear a government official give any merit or discussion of abortion without throwing their religious beliefs into it. Why? Easy, they can't the ONLY reason that seems to be given to why people want to stop abortion is due to their personal religious beliefs and last I checked I was born in a country that was found on people running from religious persecution and the freedom to CHOOSE! I am glad that we all have different religious view points and good for you if you do, but don't put your morals on me or try to make me feel bad for making choices that involve me and only me and my body. Bad things happen to good people everyday, and its hard enough for many people to deal with any kind of violent assualt or attack, let alone have a complete stranger tell you how to handle it after it happens. Those are the main reasons for my pro choice decision, there are many more, but overall, my body, my choice.

I am pro-choice and I decided to have my child.  Pro-choice isn't always about abortion, it's about making your own choices and not having them imposed upon you.  No one or government can tell a person what's best for them.....it's all about individual morality.

I know many women who have made the choice for abortion and it was the best choice they could make for themselves, but it doesn't take away their suffering....it really isn't easier.  When they see a child that is the same age as the child they gave up (people calculate these things), they suffer.  When years later, they're ready to have children and they can't....they suffer.

Whatever your decision (life or abortion), there are benefits and costs.......

Yep you gotta love the bumper stickers....I use them as opportunities to educate my kids.

I finally emailed my church this week and formally asked them to refrain from the onslaught of emails to me reminding me of this rule or that one, who to vote for and who not to, and whether or not I should have a choice.  I looked over the email I had received from them in the past month and not one of them inquired about how my family is doing so I think they have lost touch with what really matters.

People love to tell others what they should or should not do.  My Dad, a retired minister, has a favorite saying "Opinions are like assholes...etc"  That may seem crass to state here, but it is our bodies we are talking about.  When women were finally allowed to have an opinion of their own the rest followed, and that is how it is. The oppressive views of others cannot blow out the light which sometimes they feel blinds them.  Freedom of choice is fundamental, it is the core of who we are and cannot be dictated to.

Many cling to ideals they have been indoctrinated in and cannot fully comprehend the true ramifications of choice.  Americans should travel more.  They would learn that choice, just like many other rights are precious, and that many on this planet still do not have even basic rights.  They would learn why so many die trying to get here.  They would see life from another prospective which is not so narrow.  They would see that the human factor is more important than a failed belief system.