The pro-lifers...

They really think women are stupid, don't they? They think we're craven, cretinous whores who are just waiting to get pregnant so that we can abort it - as late as possible, even.

I've spent my whole life pro-life, because I have very strong feelings about the central tenet of my religion, which is, "An it harm none, do as thou will." This particular tenet is far more complex than most people understand, and requires personal judgment in much larger quantities than your garden-variety "Thou shalt not." To address this only in regards to abortion, I have usually wanted to side with "An it harm none," over the latter portion, and to want to avoid doing any harm - which means that, if there is the potential that there really is life that has started at conception then I would rather not risk having done that harm. I extended this to not wanting abortion to be legal excepting the obvious (rape, incest, health), because I viewed it as potential murder.

I didn't think women were stupid or incapable of making that decision; it was the same as I feel about having it be illegal for women to commit murder on a person who has been born. I truly was simply pro-life, not anti-woman. It was an extension of the rest of my (generally compassionate) worldview.

However, having looked at the attitudes behind it, and being pro-choice now with similar personal feelings about abortion, I'm appalled. I am absolutely appalled at the people that I was willing to ideologically align myself with.

These are people who think that women are too stupid to understand the magnitude of the decision that they are making, and who think that it will scar their simple ladybrains. They also could care less about a mother who cannot support any more children, a teenage girl whose parents would kill her if she got far enough along for them to figure out that she was pregnant, or a woman whose health is in jeopardy unless she aborts (and this is absurd to me, because, as part of the tenet that I presented, I would rather save one life than lose two).

They also truly seek out to punish women for being sexual, which was never, ever something that I thought right. Pro-choice platforms allow for increased access to contraception and, what's more, for more aid for mothers who choose to carry their child to term and who need assistance. All the pro-lifers seem to want is to punish the whores for opening their legs, and the best punishment they can think of is a baby. That's their view of the sanctity of life - that pregnancy is a punishment to be borne, rather than a source of joy. Rather than act to actually prevent unwanted pregnancies - which is what we all want (I can't think of anyone who loves abortions so much that they just can't wait to get pregnant again so that they can have one) - and thus reduce abortions naturally - they would rather women simply be incubators with no choice about whether or not they get pregnant in the first place, much less abort it.

I am pro-choice not because I'm pro-abortion, but, rather, because I would actually like to take steps to help prevent the necessity of abortions, to help women who actually want to keep their babies (rather than to decide that they rate no help once they are born, as a fetus is the only life form that matters), and to help women who are in a situation where there is no other viable alternative (and that is not for someone else to decide).

And, where I actually expected to see some semblance of logic and understanding from people I understood to be as compassionate as I am, I see hatred. I see misogyny and hatred and it's pissing me off, because these are the people who claim to value life and yet refuse to have anything to do with helping to ensure that the quality of life is decent after birth. These are the people who would force a woman to carry a child they wanted very much but who is not viable due to anencephaly or a similar genetic problem all the way to term, because they're just conniving cunts who don't know their own bodies. They would force a teenage girl to go home to abusive parents and tell them she's pregnant.

These people have nothing to do with the Christ that they claim rules their lives, nor do they have anything to do with the Wiccan Rede in which I believe, and I am ashamed to have ever had anything to do with them.