to control their own futures.
to make decisions that they can live with.
to deal with politicians who do not trust women with their own reproductive choices.
Just about a year ago I began blogging about my second trimester elective abortion. I started writing because I wanted to make public my relatively rare experience, but also because I felt so isolated. Trusting other women by telling them was difficult at first. However, the more women I told, the more women I discovered who had also had abortions. I feel sad that a level of trust that allows women to voice their abortion experiences doesn't exist for everyone.
If 1 out of 3 women felt that trust and could make their stories heard, then maybe politicians would realize that they can trust women to make reproductive choices without governmental interference. Maybe the reasonable people on the "other side" would realize that abortion is an endlessly complex choice, as varied as the women who make it, and stop depicting it in such dichotomous terms.
It makes me sick when I hear the paternalistic rhetoric out of the "other side" trying to scare women about abortion or the emotional aftermath. This undercutting of women's trust in themselves is insidious and manipulative.
I cannot say that I live everyday with the choice to have an abortion because honestly I seldom think about it. I can also say that when I think about the hardest moments of my abortion, they are no easier, nor do I think that they should be. However I trusted myself then, and I still trust myself, to live with my decision to have an abortion.
"Trust women" is a theme that honors the courageous contributions and ultimate sacrifice of Dr. George Tiller, one of the rare physicians who trusted women to make the very hardest decisions about abortion. I am honored to participate in this commemoration of his legacy.
"Blog for choice" day also celebrates the anniversary of Roe v Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision on this day in 1973 that granted women across the United States the legal right to control their own reproductive lives without interference from the State. As I write this post, I am pissed that 37 years later, the "other side" believes they have the right to take the right away. The social contract, the very thing that binds us together in a government and a society, rests on the trust that an individual's rights will be protected not infringed upon. I resent the efforts of the "other side" to violate that implicit trust by forcing their religious beliefs on others.
I am proud to use my blog today to bringing attention to reproductive rights. Please spread the word as widely as you can so that the millions of pro-choice people out there can rock the blogosphere. If you have the cash, make a donation to your local Planned Parenthood, to Medical Students for Choice, or to NARAL. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, a man once said, and that applies to the liberty to make your own reproductive decisions.
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