As a child, I never understood the issues surrounding abortion. For me, it seemed simple. If someone becomes pregnant and they don’t want to be, they should be able to choose not to be. Choice. A human’s body is their own, so it should obviously be their choice that matters most in regards to abortion. Or so I thought.
As I got older, I learned that many people didn’t view the “issue” of abortion as I did. To bear a child isn’t an easy feat, although certain politicians like to make it seem as if it is. Even after the child is born, there’s a lifetime of work that comes after that. To expect every person who unintentionally becomes pregnant to go through with the pregnancy is absurd. There are so many factors: the women’s health, her financial standing, her age, etc. It makes no logical sense to put a rule on millions of equations with completely different factors. To me, forcing someone to carry an unwanted pregnancy, or a dangerous pregnancy, is an act of violence on not only the person’s body, but also their psyche.
I saw this past year that the issue of abortion was firing back up again—not that the issue had ever really been extinguished. However, during these past few months, the political climate surrounding abortion has certainly gone terrifyingly ablaze.
We are long past the year of 1973, when the landmark decision Roe vs. Wade was made, which allowed for people to have safe and legal abortions in the United States. I saw that, despite this, the stigma surrounding abortion still clung to the mindset of certain Americans like a dirty odor. Americans didn’t, and don’t, collectively agree on whether or not an abortion needs to be a personal choice. “Pro-lifers” (and I hesitate to call them this because they are anything but pro-life) instead believe that their personal opinions are more important than anyone else’s. They are forcing their choice on everyone. A pro-lifer essentially says: I don’t care what you want; you’re doing this my way.
In the wake of this more blatantly obvious resurgence in aggression towards women’s health care, I became a canvasser for Planned Parenthood. If you’re not sure what a canvasser is, allow me to explain. Have you ever been to New York City? You know those people you see on the streets asking for a minute of your time to fight for a cause? The ones you ignore and keep walking past? That’s a canvasser. That was me.
For months, I stood on the streets of New York City asking each passerby, “Hi, we’re standing up for Planned Parenthood today. Can you help?”
Needless to say, most people didn’t stop.
It was shocking how many people in such a progressive city were vehemently disgusted by what I was doing. I got a lot of “drop dead" and “you should be ashamed." It was crazy to me. New York City was supposed to be one of the most progressive places in the world. It was supposed to be where those who didn’t fit into social norms could go to for safety and understanding. I know now, after experiencing what New York City—and more accurately the world—is really like, that this was a naïve thing to think. No matter where you live, there will always be people with minds closed off from what is right.
So, I stood on the street in different areas of New York City for a few months asking for people to help me fight for women’s reproductive rights. Not everyone was bad. I met some amazing strangers. I met women who told me of their own abortion stories, women who told me how they felt frightened by what was going on in the news, and even men who would ask me after I had given my lengthy rap relaying all the issues, “This is really still an issue?”
Yes, it really still is. And people are dying over it.
In places like Louisiana, people, and specifically women, struggle to find good and affordable reproductive healthcare. They not only don’t have access to abortions, but they don’t even have access to preventative reproductive healthcare or sex education. The government doesn’t want people to abort their babies, and yet, they don’t allow people to have the means to prevent unwanted pregnancies from occurring, whether it be through a condom or an informative sex-ed talk.
In Texas, they have fewer than 10 abortion clinics in the entire state—and we all know how huge Texas is. This means, a woman in need of an abortion would have to travel hundreds of miles just to receive a safe and legal abortion. The chances of a woman in need of an abortion finding the money, means and time to do that are low. It’s a trap, and the government knows this. States have even made it required that abortion clinics meet outrageous requirements in order to remain open, such as having their corridors be a certain width. This, again, is an obvious move by those against a women’s right to choose to limit their access to good, affordable reproductive health care.
Throughout my time canvassing, many things happened in the turbulent world of women’s reproductive rights. “Pro-lifers” went undercover and tried to frame Planned Parenthood for “selling baby parts.” You don’t know how many people called my canvassing coworkers and I “baby killers.” The whole ridiculous controversy went to court. I watched Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, go on trial for the whole fabricated mess. I watched as Republicans tore her apart with blatant (and later proven) lies. I watched as they attacked the validity of her stance by pointing out how much money she made, as if a woman making money is a crime.
And then, there was the shooting in Colorado. A crazy “pro-lifer” went on a rampage in a Planned Parenthood and shot people to death. I remember canvassing in Little Italy and being called back to the office. It wasn’t safe for us to be out there for a while. It wasn’t safe to stand up for women. Our lives were at risk.
This isn’t new. “Pro-lifers” have been murdering people who uphold a woman’s right to choose for decades. Abortion providers have been killed over and over throughout the years. Planned Parenthood clinics have been the victims of arson and bomb threats multiple times. Our government, the people who should have our best interest in mind, allow for these things to happen. They allow for people to suffer through unplanned pregnancies. They even allow women to die from planned pregnancies that go awry. They allow for healthcare providers to be harassed and murdered. They allow and propagate the attack on women’s rights and safety.
How can this be right?
The fight for women’s rights is not even close to being over, and the right to abortion is not set in stone. In fact, we are slipping further and further from the progress we made in 1973. In the wake of all of this absurdity, I implore you to take a better look at the world around you. Look at your congressmen and women. Look at your presidential candidates. Does the candidate you're standing for have women's best interests in mind? And if you are “pro-life,” maybe do some research. Look at the facts. Look at the history. I am pro-choice, as if there is any other way to be, and I always will be. I, personally, don’t know what I would do if I was unintentionally impregnated, but what I personally think doesn’t matter.
