Choice

I would have had an abortion if I had gotten pregnant anywhere before the year 2011. Until early 2009 I lived in a house of violence and stress and psychotic behavior. It was not healthy for me, and it would have been an AWFUL pregnancy (more likely a miscarriage due to stress to be honest) but I would have aborted it because personally adoption is NOT an alternative option to me for 2 reasons. 1) The system is already crowded. I couldn't even take a pet to a shelter without thinking "This pet is taking the chance of a home from another animal..." and feeling bad as hell, let alone a human being. The quality of life in those places (and even some homes that kids get fostered and adopted out to is god awful, my grandmother was one of them and she knows first hand how bad adoption places really can be for kids, as was I (I was put into foster care for 2 years during my childhood due to my mother's drinking problems, and I was a PLANNED pregnancy...). 2) I sincerely CAN NOT carry a baby for 9 months and then give it up, even if I were homeless I just CAN NOT do it because being pregnant for that long would cause me to form an attachment to the fetus and this would cause me to forego common sense of QUALITY of life and choose life itself for the baby I just birthed even if that life would be living under a bridge starving for food on a daily basis, or living in a house where my child would inherit PTSD like I have form the violence that I grew up with. Carrying a child to term would alter my psychology to the instinctual need to keep it, no matter how shitty a life it would have, and that is NOT something I could live with (Meaning I would have PPD, possibly hurt myself, possibly hurt or kill my baby, etc.) so abortion would be in the best interest for my sanity, health, and yes, even the fetus as it would have a poor quality of life once born.

Not to mention, to me I don't know exactly when or where "life begins" in the womb and I don't care. I believe an abortion should occur as early as possible though simply for the health reasons and complication risks. I am also an athiest and not religious though so I don't have any real belief in souls or whatever, I consider the fetus a person ONLY when it is outside of the mother. Until then? The mother is a person, the fetus is a fetus/parasite residing within the mother. :)

Anyway, 2009-2010 I moved in with my now husband (We had been dating for 6 months at that point). We had sex and used contraception and were very careful to not get pregnant (and succeeded). If I had gotten pregnant? I would have aborted because it was not something either of us wanted at the time (NOTE: He would never ask or tell me what to do, I simply told him how it was going to be and so we were always careful about it.) In 2011 I was off birth control and we stopped using condoms and switched to Natural Family Planning (NFP) among other natural things in preparation for TTC in November. We had no issues with that at all and I DID get pregnant in August because we had sex on our anniversary even though I was ovulating at the time. I miscarried at 5 weeks, but if I hadn't I would have kept the baby because while we were not TTC yet we were willing to risk an early pregnancy at that point in our life and accepted that without issue.

I am all about people doing what they want with their own bodies (Don't want to have an abortion? Don't have one. Fine by me. It's not my place to tell ANYONE what they should or should not do with their own body). I can not be in favor of pro-life being the law because like my situation explained, if I had been forced by law to carry a baby in that situation? I'd of been one of those women with a coat hanger in a back alley. No joke.

I also think about my own daughter and her life and future. I would not want HER to not have a choice. I wouldn't want her body to be controlled by anyone but herself in that way. I am pro-choice for myself, my daughter, and every other woman on this planet because there is no good reason to force women to do something with their body against their will and that is exactly what you are doing when you are against giving women the right to choose. You are in support of forcing women to do things with their body whether they want to or not.

As a last note, I have never and would never use abortion as a form of bith control personally, and honestly that situation is very rare ($9 box of condoms, $19 birth control pills, or $900 abortion?). However, if a woman chooses to have abortion after abortion and spend that much money and risk her bodies health that much by doing it over and over and over instead of getting on birth control or using condoms? It's HER body to do whatever with. I would never tell a woman she should or should not have an abortion. No one but that woman can say what is right for her and no one but that woman should be allowed to make that decision for her.