Throughout my pregnancy, whenever I heard people congratulating themselves on being pro-choice, I actually felt afraid. I felt like I was the only person in the world who could stand up for my child.
I wasn’t excited to be pregnant. I wasn’t excited to have a baby when my husband had relapsed and was drinking himself to death instead of working. Without others being happy for me and celebrating my son’s life, I wouldn’t have ever felt happy myself. Thankfully, everyone at the low-income clinic was extremely supportive and fell over themselves to hook me up with every available resource, because they recognized my humanity and my child’s and they were pumped to be a part of bringing a new person into the world.
But when I was around pro-choice people, I knew that if my husband had decided to extend his despair to his child and pressure me to abort, if my family had withdrawn their support, these people would not be on my son’s side. His life depended entirely on my inner strength and resolve.
“Oh, well, whatever you want to do” is not supportive. It conveys that you don’t actually care about the baby and aren’t all that keen on being a part of his or her life. “It’s okay to have an abortion” doesn’t say, “You’re going to be a great mom!” or “How are you feeling?” or “What do you need?” or “I love your baby.” If you don’t love my baby, how can you love me?
Extending protections to unborn human beings doesn’t mean you’re in The Handmaid’s Tale. The only dystopian thing going on here is that a heartbeat bill still doesn’t grant human rights to all humans. At what point did my kid become a person to you? What magical fairy dust transformed his very real developing body from a possible person to a valued person?
Stop the fear-mongering and the self-congratulating. You don’t support women by supporting feticide.