Loving Plans, Coming Together
Now Playing: The Stone Roses--"Standing Here"
WARNING: The following post contains mature subject matter. If you can call it that.

This past week saw the thirty-fourth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a landmark achievement in women's--and consequently human--rights in this country. Several blogs and websites encouraged pro-choice bloggers to post on why they're pro-choice. I'm not a woman, but I am human at the very least, and have participated in an active volunteer basis for three years in promoting reproductive rights, and so I should probably say something.

First off, dropping the bomb, I voted for Ralph Nader in the presidential election of 2000, and have heartily repented ever since then (actually more since he refused to endorse Wellstone for the Minnesota Senate race two years later, but you know what I mean). I still have my doubts as to whether he was the proximate cause of Bush's "victory" on historical accuracy grounds, but I'm just as culpable regardless because he could have been. I've considered myself pro-choice ever since I was aware of the reproductive rights struggle, and once took part in a counter-demonstration outside the Delta Women's Clinic in Baton Rouge when Operation Rescue blew through town in the early 90s. I'm hazy these days on the details, but I believe the right to abortion in Louisiana was in one of its periodical legal limbos, with various court decisions challenging and counter-challenging, that opened a window for abortions to be performed despite questionable legality. I think. In any case, I ended up outside said clinic with a couple of friend and a bunch of other counter-demonstrators--some local and some out-of-state--facing a group of Randall Terry's slavering little disciples. I vividly remember one fellow carrying a cross with a papier-mache bleeding Jesus or some such (how's that for a band name?), looking like he was about to speak in tongues, and reminding me of nothing less than a medieval flagellant. In 1992.

Why mention the Nader thing? When the election came around, I associated Gore rather too closely with Clinton (and therefore with an overly precipitate welfare reform, the ruinous and counterproductive
"drug war" at home and abroad, etc.). What essentially happened is that I took abortion rights (and, as it turned out, a great deal else) for granted. Some could plausibly argue that I oculd afford to do so due to my gender and therefore privileged status in American society and culture.* In any event, I harbored a pretty impressive (if I do say so myself) stockpile of guilt over the election, and the abortion thing figured heavily in it.

When I moved to Ann Arbor, I quickly became depressed over my job and how little the city measured up to my initial expectations, and figured a good way to get out of it was to volunteer at... something. I got on an internet volunteer exchange and noticed that the local Planned Parenthood chapter was looking for volunteers. It sounded interesting, and so I got in contact with my now good friend Jessica, the volunteer coordinator. Ann Arbor is in many ways a deceptively liberal town, and so I thought there might be some friction there--I pictured myself getting hassled by wackos or something, occasionally laughing at some fundamentalist preacher holding up a bloody fetus poster outside the offices and asking him if he'd ever seen Poltergeist 2. I began by putting together patient billing statements (a lot of those), other administrative work, and eventually moved to manning booths at popular local events like Art Fair and OutFest. I branched out, through the good offices of Planned Parenthood staffer Meredith, to other volunteer stuff like the WRAP library project. Wednesday I actually got to go to a lunch and was named one of two Volunteers of the Year for 2005. It's been a lot of fun and I hope to continue doing my best at it for as long as I'm here.

So why pro-choice, then? For one thing, the arguments have perennially seemed miles more valid. Birth's always meant "birth" to me; call me old-fashioned. The right-wing caricature of irresponsible whores getting abortions just for the hell of it has no real bssis in fact, and it's primarily a result of sexual asault, lack of birth control aids, or lack of sex education. One effect of working as a volunteer has been to impress on me what an excellent job its staff does at trying to improve women's and men's access to the information they need to lead healthy sex lives and reduce the number of abortions, and how these different issues are interlinked. It's also one of the few issues (gay marriage being another) where the desires of the individual dovetail precisely with the needs of society. On several social issues, like gun ownership and the death penalty, I'm somewhat torn between "liberal" and "conservative" arguments--not so with these. Also, though it seems a little negative, it's instructive to judge the pro-choice cause by its enemies, mostly older men who will never have to worry about the effects of an abortion or the lack of birth control.** What they--and for the last six years the government--have been aiming at is the elimination of the right to abortion, birth control, and sex education (and fellas, if moral arguments don't move you, to paraphrase--maybe quote, I don't remember, Dan Savage--we're next--don't think they'll stop at masturbation's edge). It's effectively the elimination of women's ability to govern their own lives. They're fellow citizens and that ability should belong to every one of us. So there are my reasons.

*I never forget it these days, no matter how down and out I feel. One thing that occasionally dredges up guilt is the way in which I make myself feel better through the misery of others. Whenever my boss becomes too annoying for words, or I realize I can't go out for two weeks, I just tell myself "at least you're not a starving child in Darfur" (or, for that matter, a woman in any number of states who needs an abortion--or someone in Falluja, etc.). I feel good, then I feel bad, and then my head hurts and I tell myself a qualified "life's too short."

**An attitude expressing itself in a particularly grotesque way through the ludicrously unfair practice in many corporations of making Viagra available through health insurance but not birth control. I couldn't have made up that shit while drunk (and I've probably tried).