I say "when" as if it's ever okay to just be anti-abortion. I hate to break it to you, but it's really not. Now, don't ever get me wrong, I am 100% pro-life, but that doesn't mean that I'm only against abortion. I have a very personal story as to why I am against abortion, though. You can read that here. In reading, you will find out that the doctors told my mom to abort me. They said it was for various medical reasons. Would she have had enough medical “reason” to abort me? Yeah, she would have had more than enough reason. But she didn’t. And I am thankful every single day that she gave her child a chance at life.

Being pro-life can't just mean you don't want children to get killed in the womb, though. It also means that you are pro-woman. Making abortion illegal now (or ever) isn't going to fix the problem. By simply making abortion illegal, we are only subjecting women to more harmful behavior--into making them feel like they're not valued like they have no choice in life whatsoever. Maybe this pregnancy wasn't even the woman’s fault. By making abortion illegal, we are putting women in unsafe circumstances when they feel like they have no other choice but to get rid of a child. If abortion is illegal, a mother may go to very hazardous risks to just feel like she is regaining some control. We are going to have to have a radical change in our society to make it to the point where abortion is not only undesirable but unthinkable; Things like the cost of prenatal health care, maternity leave (or the lack thereof) in our society, and the simple need of making women feel supported, cared for, and loved are all things that HAVE to happen before we can get to that point in our society.

Simply telling a woman that she's a murderer if she made a decision that she thought was her only one? (p.s. NEVER do this. Just don’t.) That's not pro-life. Pro-life is being a support system for this woman. Pro-life is helping her through this tough time and letting her know that she is not in it alone; this includes women who have had an abortion and are struggling with it after the fact.

Being for life also means that our healthcare system needs to be revamped. Prenatal healthcare is so expensive that even people who plan for a child sometimes can't afford it.
There are some single mothers and families who just can't make it from one paycheck to the next, but really want the child they found out they’re going to have; they may get some assistance from the state, but it's not always enough to cover the costs.

There also needs to be more support for the fathers. Some unwanted or unplanned pregnancies don't happen to just single women--they happen to be married families, to families with multiple children, and even to people who didn't think they could get pregnant so they weren’t prepared. These are all instances where we still need to support the whole family: fathers, current children, and especially the mother. Some women have an extremely difficult time in their pregnancies, too, with extreme morning sickness and other complications like Hyperemesis Gravidarum that can come along with being pregnant. What are we going do for these women? Being pro-life means supporting mothers even when it’s not easy or convenient for you.

Many women (and men, too) think that being pro-life simply means that we don't want them to abort their child, or that once they have a baby, or even during their pregnancy, they're on their own. That is the stigma that needs to change. Being pro-life simply can't be telling someone to not get an abortion. It can't be just getting them to keep the child and then leaving them to their own vices. No, being pro-life is being pro-woman, pro-support system, pro-love. Pro-life really means pro-whole person. This is why I don't have as large of a beef with pro-choice people as a lot of pro-lifers do. For the most part, people that are pro-choice think that they're making the best choice for women.

While I don't think that's true, I very much respect what they are trying to do with their stance. I just think, as pro-lifers, we can give women a lot better options than simply making abortions more readily available and affordable.