Before reading this article, I would like to inform audiences that this piece of writing is strongly opinionated and may not reflect the values and beliefs of common society. However, these are my observations and my evaluations of such themes, and I firmly believe in their validity. 

We’re two months into 2018, but despite the fact that the new year is “supposed” to bring about change within ourselves and our communities, it’s still incredibly difficult to find resolutions between people who are constantly battling to be right. Among other things, tensions are still on the rise between men and women; liberals and conservatives; whites and monitory races; baby boomers and millennials. However, I was given the opportunity to attend the 45th annual March for Life in Washington DC on January 19th, and I must say that one of the greatest conflicts that is embedded within modern American society is that which divides pro-lifers and pro-choice individuals. 

Abortion is one of those topics that can certainly be considered as “risky”; it’s like politics and religion: you simply don’t talk about it. However, in the midst of its silence, there are profound divisions between pro-lifers and women; between unborn children and women. In fact, in today’s day and age, I’ve noticed that if any woman truly wants to be regarded and respected as a 21st century progressive feminist, they must have the right to abortion. To clarify: an abortion is the purposeful destruction of a fetus that is in utero. Somehow, there’s been a silent war that has been generating between women and children: there’s an assumption that women can’t possibly continue their lives or careers if they become pregnant; that the only thing that lies between them and their future is another human being that happens to rely on them. Women are seemingly crippled with the idea that if they bear children, they will be too much like the pre-21st century women: confined to households; baking cookies on a daily basis; awaiting their husband to come home from his day’s work; bearing children as if it was their sole responsibility. However, I am going to make the argument that modern women aren’t by any means like that anymore. They can get a college education (even a PhD or Doctorate if they wanted to); they can work a 9-5 job; they can help their husband pay the bills; they can be businesswomen, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and writers, and they can do it all while having children— mind-blowing, right?! 

The modern feminist, at least from my own observations, is absolutely crippled with fear: there is an apprehension that children will strip them of their abilities, themselves, and their futures. However, I think that the most wholistic feminist is one that can have children and be a doctor. She has children and she is a lawyer. She has children and she is a teacher. She has children and she has a degree. She’s not terrified. She’s driven. She’s even more progressive than the woman that she is downright horrified to become, because she can do more. She’s not a mother OR a woman with a career. She’s both. She doesn’t pick and choose. She doesn’t compromise—why? Because in today’s day and age, she, the modern woman, doesn’t need to. 

I’m not saying that every woman should be a mother. I’m simply stating that a baby, another human being that happens to share her DNA, won’t prevent her from becoming the woman that she wants to be. Likewise, I’ve been able to recognize the argument that “feminists” need their right to an abortion because having legal access to that medical procedure is somehow empowering. They want to feel as though they have to ability to terminate something that inhabits a space within them, whether it came about because of rape, unprotected sex or any other means of conception. However, based off of the accounts that I have had the pleasure to listen to, women who are getting an abortion do not feel any sense of freedom or control. Instead, they schedule that appointment because they’ve been told that they don’t have any other choice. They do it because they feel as though their families or significant others won’t accept them if they decide to not abort their child. They do it because that baby is perceived as an obstacle. They get an abortion because that’s supposedly what a feminist would do. They’re not told about their other options—most namely, adoption. In fact, when they walk into an abortion clinic, they operate under the assumption that this surgical procedure is their only choice. So why is their movement called pro-choice, considering that  these women feel as though abortion is their only choice, rendering them in fact, without choice? Hence, in my mind, a true, holistic feminist is not a woman who is forced into believing that she must make a choice. A feminist is a woman who is not threatened by a baby—her baby; instead, she’s motivated to either raise that baby as she pursues her individual goals OR to put that baby up for adoption, giving her child the ability to choose their own life if she feels unable to support that future after 9 months. And that, in my opinion, is where the empowering choice comes into play. They’re not choosing life over death or their son/daughter over themselves; they’re presented with options, both of which are with the woman and for the woman; with the child and for the child. 

I’ve frequently overheard the expression that “everyone should be a feminist”; however, it’s sometimes extremely difficult to define what a feminist truly is. If a feminist is a woman that is outright terrified of her own child and wages war against the life inside of her, then I do not think anyone should be a feminist. If a feminist is a woman who finds false security in the illusion that intentionally killing a developing human is the only way in which she can successfully continue her life, then I do not think that anyone should be a feminist. If, however, a feminist is a woman who has the ability to be both a mother AND a hardworking, career-focused woman of the 21st century, then I fully believe that everyone should be a feminist. If a feminist is a woman who has the power to give her son or daughter to a family that will support this life in a way that she cannot, all the while striving towards her own goals, then yes, everyone should be a feminist. 

I would like to leave readers with this final thought: as stated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “when we consider that women are to be treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit”; to be pro-life is to be pro-woman, and women deserve far better than abortion.