Roe v. Wade: My Personal Department of Homeland Security

Today is the 34th anniversay of Roe v. Wade, and even these moronic comments by Dubya can't get me down. So I guess this is my blog for choice.

I see Roe v. Wade as a second birthday for all women. January 22nd is a day that I recognize as not only just another day that I'm alive, but it's a day that I know I can live my life without the idea of pregnancy and motherhood plaguing me. Before Roe v. Wade, women were bound by their reproductive systems. A woman's life spanned the distance between her ovaries and vaginal openning. She was judged based on what she did with her reproductive system, what went in it, and what came out (even what doesn't go in and come out). Roe v. Wade has removed this physical burden from women. The mental burden still remains by guilt-trip -- oh, I mean "pro-life" organizations and legislators -- that try to make women feel bad for not wanting children, even before they become pregnant. Post-abortion syndrome was not invented to help women. It's a way to confuse and trick women into keeping their pregnancies, not for their own benefit, but for the wishes of people who don't care about her or her family.

The reason I am pro-choice is quite simple: Women are people. People have lives. People have minds. People have desires. People have other people. People have responsibilities. People are not simply their bodies. People are not the oppressive roles that have been assigned to their gender. Pro-lifers do not believe women are people; they believe they are baby factories. They don't believe that women have minds of their own; they believe that we can be brainwashed by Bible verses and pictures of still-born fetuses that they tell us are abortions. They don't believe that women have desires outside of having babies and raising families. If women don't have this desire, they are abnormal. If they have other desires, they don't matter. Pro-lifers don't consider the lives of a woman's existing children. 61% of women who have abortions are already mothers. They don't believe that these women have responsibilities to these children, or job responsibilities, or responsibilities to their education. Yet, they tell these women that they have to "take responsibility for their actions" and be forced into parenthood, which only inhibits these woman's abilities to take care of their other more important responsibilities that she's actually chosen for the benefit of her life. Pro-lifers believe that a woman's body and sexist gender roles are her destiny from menarche to menopause. Those are the beliefs of the so-called pro-life movement. Doesn't sound like they care about anyone's life, does it?

Women need legal abortion. Whether one would ever get one or not isn't an issue. I feel comfortable and secure knowing that if I ever become pregnant, my pregnancy will be solely my business. It will truly be my pregnancy, not the pregnancy of the government, Care-Net, or of any man who believes if they poke me they own me.