Female reporter for Slate gives ten reason why she is not only pro-choice, but pro-abortion.

I think I am like most people who are for a woman's right to choose, in that I don't feel comfortable suggesting that there should be more abortions, only that I think it should be up to the woman to decide if she wants/needs one or not, and nobody else.

However this Slate reporter, Valerie Tarico, has a much more definite point of view.

She starts off with this declaration:I am pro-abortion like I’m pro-knee-replacement and pro-chemotherapy and pro-cataract surgery. As the last protection against ill-conceived childbearing when all else fails, abortion is part of a set of tools that help women and men to form the families of their choosing. I believe that abortion care is a positive social good. I suspect that a lot of other people secretly believe the same thing. And I think it’s time we said so.

From there she goes on to list, and explain, her reasons for being, not simply pro-choice, but pro-abortion.

Number 1: I’m pro-abortion because being able to delay and limit childbearing is fundamental to female empowerment and equality. A woman who lacks the means to manage her fertility lacks the means to manage her life. Any plans, dreams, aspirations, responsibilities or commitments–no matter how important–have a great big contingency clause built: “until or unless I get pregnant, in which case all bets are off.”

Okay you know that conservative women will lose their minds over this reasoning.  After all they believe that a woman's single greatest achievement is to make a little human being., and NOTHING should ever delay or interfere with that.

Number 2: I’m pro-abortion because well-timed pregnancies give children a healthier start in life. We now have ample evidence that babies do best when women are able to space their pregnancies and get both pre-natal and pre-conception care. The specific nutrients we ingest in the weeks before we get pregnant can have a lifelong effect on the wellbeing of our offspring. Rapid repeat pregnancies increase the risk of low birthweight babies and other complications. Wanted babies are more likely to get their toes kissed, to be welcomed into families that are financially and emotionally ready to receive them, to get preventive medical care during childhood and the kinds of loving engagement that helps young brains to develop.

I see nothing wrong with that logic.

Number 3: I’m pro-abortion because I take motherhood seriously. Most female bodies can incubate a baby, and thanks to antibiotics, cesareans and anti-hemorrhage drugs, most of us are able to survive pushing a baby out into the world. But parenting is a lot of work, and doing it well takes twenty dedicated years of focus, attention, patience, persistence, social support, mental health, money, and a whole lot more. This is the biggest, most life-transforming thing most of us will ever do. The idea that women should simply go with it when they find themselves pregnant after a one-night-stand, or a rape, or a broken condom completely trivialized motherhood.

Preaching to the choir.

However I will add one caveat, and that is that quite often women are indeed ready to be mothers even if they do not yet know they are ready.



Number 4: I’m pro-abortion because intentional childbearing helps couples, families and communities to get out of poverty. Decades of research in countries ranging from the U.S. to Bangladesh show that reproductive policy is economic policy. It is no coincidence that the American middle class rose along with the ability of couples to plan their families, starting at the beginning of the last century. Having two or three kids instead of eight or ten was critical to prospering in the modern industrial economy.

Very, very good point.

Number 5: I’m pro-abortion because reproduction is a highly imperfect process. Genetic recombination is a complicated progression with flaws and false starts at every step along the way. To compensate, in every known species including humans, reproduction operates as a big funnel. Many more eggs and sperm are produced than will ever meet; more combine into embryos than will ever implant; more implant than will grow into babies; and more babies are born than will grow up to have babies of their own. This systematic culling makes God or nature the world’s biggest abortion provider: Nature’s way of producing healthy kids essentially requires every woman to have an abortion mill built into her own body.

Never thought of it that way, but true.

Number 6: I’m pro-abortion because I think morality is about the well-being of sentient beings. I believe that morality is about the lived experience of sentient beings—beings who can feel pleasure and pain, preference and intention, who at their most complex can live in relation to other beings, love and be loved and value their own existence.

In other words actual people. living, breathing, and existing among us, have more value than embryos.

Number 7: I’m pro-abortion because contraceptives are imperfect, and people are too. 

Okay.

Number 8: I’m pro-abortion because I believe in mercy, grace, compassion, and the power of fresh starts. 

Who among us hasn’t had unprotected sex when the time or situation or partnership wasn’t quite right for bringing a new life into the world? Most of the time we get lucky; sometimes we don’t. And in those situations we rely on the mercy, compassion, and generosity of others.

I'm not sure about this one as it seems to be a restatement of number 3.

Number 9: I’m pro-abortion because the future is always in motion, and we have the power and responsibility to shape it well.

The author uses the famous Ray Bradbury story "A Sound of Thunder" to help suggest that choices have consequences and it is up to potential parents to choose the right time, and circumstances, to bring a child into this world.

Number 10: I’m pro-abortion because I love my daughter.

For this last one the author gets very personal and tells her own abortion story when she and her husband discovered that they had an unhealthy fetus.  And that if they had decided to give birth anyway, the circumstances would have changed so that the daughter that she loves so desperately today would never have been conceived or born.

Part of me thinks that's a rationalization. However I am quite aware that parents of special needs or medically fragile children, and I don't know which category best fits her unborn child, often have an incredibly difficult row to hoe. So she is correct that the life, and even relationship with her daughter, that she enjoys today, would have been significantly altered.

I decided to share this list with you because I found it a little troubling, and wondered if that were due to my gender, to the fact that my teenage mother chose to give birth to me, or simply because it challenges my own definition of what it means to be pro-choice.

So once again I would like to open the floor to debate and get your input.