I can already hear so many of my religious counterparts saying I'm lost and have been corrupted. I know abortion is sinful in many religions. But, we are not in a monotheistic society. Our religious beliefs are not homogenous. We cannot expect those around us to subscribe to our beliefs, that's not the country we're in. We can't say someone can't have an abortion because Allah, or Jesus, or Buddha or Moses or the tree in our backyard says it's a sin. So for the sake of my argument - I'm going to leave religion out of it.

I am pro-choice. If someone came up to me and said they want an abortion, I would support them. End of discussion. Point blank. And here's why.

1. Some people high-key do not want a baby.

Whether they don’t want a baby at that given moment. Whether they don’t want a baby ever. Whether they don’t want a baby with the person they are currently fucking. It doesn’t matter. If someone doesn’t want a baby why should they have a kid? Having a baby when you do not desire it can lead to so much negativity and resentment. This can have a profound impact on their parenting abilities and the child suffers. The abuse children face regularly is already widely known.

2. Our foster care system is a joke.

Stop saying foster care is an option as if that solves everything. Yes, they are some happy endings that come from foster care but the system as a whole is in need of reform. So many kids fall through the cracks and are lost. So many foster kids end up homeless or fall victim to the prison pipeline. The foster care system has turned into a business where folks are taking in children just to see checks. No kids deserve that. And not many parents trust the system to take care of their baby.

3. Sometimes pregnancy is unavoidable.

No birth control method is 100 percent preventative other than abstinence. You can do everything right and accidents still happen. If you put in so much effort to avoid pregnancy and you end up pregnant should your life completely change? Plus our sexual education is so sucky most people don’t even know how to avoid pregnancy.

(Please, still use birth control methods kids!!!)

4. I don’t think the fate of our world lies in a lump of cells.

C’mon. This is so absurd. "That baby could’ve cured cancer." I doubt the fate of our world will be placed in the hands of someone who doesn’t make it out of the first trimester ( if baby fetus even has hands). This mentality is used to guilt potential parents into thinking by opting for abortion they are having a colossal impact on the world. Well. There is no way to verify that Aborted Fetus would change the world so how about we focus on the tiny humans currently in our lives and in our classrooms. If you really care about the fate of our world — Let's invest in the children. Let's invest in STEM and creative expression and mental/ emotional/ sexual health and I’m sure they’ll cure cancer very soon.

5. Pro-Choice ≠ Pro-Abortion

The pro-choice movement seems to be centered around abortion. That's not what it’s all about. Pro-choice means I think everyone should have the right to choose what happens to their bodies and in their lives as long as it doesn’t hurt them or hurt others. Folks should be able to make decisions about their body, their lives, without limitations. A woman having a baby is a big decision and while that baby is growing in her uterus she has the ultimate decision. Being pro-choice doesn’t mean I think going through the emotional, psychological and physical trauma that comes with abortion is the best option. But it should be a choice. Just like fostering. Just like having the kid. None of the decisions are easy. But everyone should be able to choose which decision suits them.

So many people around me have had abortions and have had babies. I support all of their decisions equally. None of these people were bad people or irresponsible individuals. Some of them were married, already had children, were in a relationship, or teenagers — there isn’t a cookie cutter response to pregnancy. All of them made the most difficult decision of their lives and none of these decisions was easy. But they made the right decision for them. That's why I'm pro-choice. No one should be forced to live a life they do not want just because they don’t have other options. When you take away people's options — that doesn’t make the problems disappear. It just makes people much more desperate and much riskier. They resort to elixirs or coat hangers, drowning or suicide.