Chip on my shoulder, part one

It's seems that the pro-choice versus pro-life (or anti-choice) issue has been bleeding all over the news, blogs and inside my pretty little head as of late, and there's a few things I'd like to address.

On Monday, Feministing posted in the Weekly Feminist Reader, a story about the state of abortion rights in the South. Written by Carrie Kilman and posted by In These Times, the story details how Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina sit with women's rights. This is the paragraph that kills me:

"Every state in the Deep South — Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina—restricts low-income women’s access to abortion. Most ban abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy. None explicitly protect heath care facilities from harassment or violence. All have mandatory delay laws that unfairly burden women who have limited access to transportation and time off work, and Louisiana and South Carolina both passed unconstitutional laws requiring a husband’s consent for a married woman’s abortion. In the past 16 months, two abortion clinics in Alabama have closed, and new regulations are making it difficult for other clinics to stay open. Now, anti-abortion groups are strategizing ways to outlaw birth control and eliminate sex education."

And before I continue, I have a confession. I haven't always been pro-child, pro-choice. I grew up in a Baptist, Republican home where my mom volunteered at Birth Right, the area's center on pro-life dogma. A woman would come into the center, get a free pregnancy test, and if found to be positive, that woman would get counseled on ways to either: Have her child and raise it herself; or give it up for adoption or open-adoption. My mom would march in the March for Life, as would my dad, and both would wear those tiny feet pins. I grew up thinking this was the only way to believe. That women who chose to get an abortion were evil.

Until I got to college. Minnesota State University, Mankato to be exact. (Holla)

College opened my eyes about many, many things. Some of those issues I'll get into on additional blog posts. One very important thing it did open my eyes about was that being pro-choice wasn't about arguing who was right and who was wrong. At it's core, it was fully comprehending what it's like to be in a position where you think you could be pregnant, don't like or don't want the dude in your life, were raped or a variety of other reasons. That isn't what matters. What does matter is that the option of abortion should always be available. Always. Whether you're gay, straight, bi, old, young, blue, red. I'm not asking that you personally believe it's a decision that is right or wrong. I'm asking that it be kept safe, in medical facilities, where it can be done by a doctor, and not in some back alley. My new heroine, Jill Filipovic has written an eery story about Nicaragua. Last November, all abortion was banned. Filipovic writes about the aftermath. Is this something you can image America going through?

Scary times, my friends, scary times.