Choice Words

It's time to stop apologizing for being pro-life. It's time to stop accepting the label "anti-choice." It's time to stop allowing people to keep telling us who we are and what we think.

I resent and refute the notion that if you're pro-life, then you're telling women what to do and taking away their right to choose. To the contrary, this is what pro-life feminists are saying:

Women are strong, powerful, and resilient. They can overcome any obstacle, given a fair chance. They should not be made to feel ashamed for finding themselves in a situation where they may need to ask for help, resources, or even just patience.

Pro-life feminists are telling women who experience an unplanned pregnancy that they are not alone. There are countless people who want to help them. With material needs, housing assistance, childcare resources, and legal representation. You and your child are not a burden. You both are worthy of whatever short-term or long-term assistance you may need -- financial, material, or emotional.

We will be there to help you fight for your rights in the workplace, the classroom, and the courtroom. We will not allow your employer to fire you for being pregnant. We will assist you in finishing your education. We will not allow the father of your child simply to walk away from his responsibilities.

Because you and your child are not the problem.

What are you actually hearing from those who think abortion is the answer? You're on your own.

You shouldn't have to be punished with a baby. You can't finish your degree, get ahead in your career, or find a good man with a baby in tow. It will be for the best.

It's okay to let your boyfriend, abuser, or rapist off the hook when they run off. You and your baby can pay the price for their transgressions. After all, who's going to want to help you? You don't want to be a burden. You don't want to have to ask for assistance.

Don't even think about what is happening. Everything will be ok when it's over. Don't worry about any potential risks. Just blindly go into it, because so many others have done it before, and it's legal, so it must be ok.

You're under a lot of stress right now. You're in no condition to consider working this out any other way. Just get it over with. Oh, you don't really want this? You feel like you really have no choice? Well, that's for you to deal with on your own. Don't you feel empowered?

Thirty-five years of convoluted thinking. Pro-abortion forces think they're fighting for the freedom of women. They think by having abortion available, it equalizes men and women, because then women also have the power to just "walk away." What they refuse to recognize is that as long as they continue to perpetuate the notion that there is something wrong with bearing children, then women will continue to be treated as second-class citizens.

As long as they insist that parenthood is a choice, women who want to have their children will be dismissed by the workplace, the universities, and society in general because "well that was your decision, you didn't have to have that baby" and, for the same reason, men will continue to think that it's okay to abandon their obligations.

Where are all the promises of Roe v. Wade? Over 40 million abortions and women still don't have equal pay, child abuse rates have soared, and more women and children than ever before are in poverty. The status quo ain't workin' -- time to rethink things, NARAL.

Pro-life forces are the ones who are "pro-woman." We are the ones who believe in the capabilities of women. We are the ones telling women they don't have to pay with their children's lives in order to get ahead. We are the ones working for change to alter archaic concepts that oppress pregnant and parenting women in the workforce, in academia, and the world at large.

There are so many other battles that would truly empower women. Fighting child pornography, human trafficking, and rape-as-warfare. But until our child-bearing gift is elevated to its deserved status, pregnant and parenting women and their children will remain to viewed as nothing more than burdens to be disposed of.