I Used To Be "Pro-Life"

I grew up in Eastern Oregon, a deeply red region. In high school, friend after friend would arrive at the lunch table flaunting newly adorned ring fingers—usually purity rings, but occasionally engagement rings. There was a definite consensus among my peers; sex was to be saved until after marriage. When an already clear-faced friend began taking Ortho Tri-Cyclen, a medication used to prevent pregnancy, “for acne,” we didn’t question it. When a classmate fell off the map for a few months, we assumed it was business as usual. We ignored the obvious signs of what was actually happening around us, and we pressed on.

It wasn’t until I had loved ones who needed an abortion that my thinking on this issue evolved. I went from demonizing abortion to silently accepting it to finally vocally supporting it. I’m writing this now because one of the most impactful things that each and every one of us can do as we confront a post-Roe world is to talk about abortion out loud, to our friends, with our family, and as a regular part of life. For some, this will mean talking about abortion in the open for the first time.

I met Ava* when I was 15 years old and decided to try out for a new sport. Ava became a fixture in my life—we shared an innate curiosity about the world around us. One lazy Saturday morning, she turned to me and said, “I think I’m pregnant.” I took a beat, formulating my response. I wanted to empathize, but I felt judgmental. “Who even got her pregnant?” I’d recently come to accept the idea of people having sex outside of marriage, but I was not ready to accept the idea of casual sex with an acquaintance, much less one that resulted in pregnancy.

“My dad is gonna be so pissed at me. He’ll kick me out. I’ll be homeless!” Her impassive expression began to dissolve into panic, her tone rising. “I need an abortion,” Ava blurted out. Gruesome images of aborted “babies” flashed through my mind. In my mind, if you get pregnant, you give birth. I told her that I disagreed with abortion and would not take her to the clinic. I volunteered instead to help her by being a part-time caretaker. I said all of this without pausing to consider whether I (we) had the maturity or bandwidth to actually make good on that promise. A few days later, Ava’s period came, and we both breathed sighs of relief.

When I was 19, Emma* confided in me that she had gotten an abortion. Like me, she grew up in a largely conservative area, and the pro-life programming ran deep. She was riddled with feelings of guilt, despite knowing that childbirth would have likely cemented her relationship with an increasingly mercurial man. He had begun screening her phone calls, and on a few occasions, grabbed her arms so forcefully and pushed her so hard that purple bruises began cropping up on her biceps and back. I was relieved that she did not have to be tethered to this man for decades, and rather than being judgmental about her abortion, I began to feel ambivalent.

Over time, that ambivalence led me to question whether abortions really were some great, evil act, especially as I saw abortion care help my friends have more autonomy and freedom over their lives. Ava becoming pregnant at 14 would have drastically limited her opportunities, forced her into a lifestyle she did not want, and possibly harmed her mental and physical health. Ava was in a controlling and abusive relationship. Intimate partner abuse tends to escalate over time and can result in death. An abortion saved her from a lifetime attachment to this abusive partner.

Through seeing the real-world impact of abortions, and through listening to what qualified physicians actually have to say, I’ve come to embrace abortion as a necessary right. There’s no reason to demonize this essential and fundamental reproductive right, and in fact, we must vigilantly guard the right to abortion.

I’ve come to realize that Roe v. Wade’s balancing test not only preserves a person’s bodily autonomy, it respects the fact that terminating pregnancy is a deeply private and personal choice. A choice that is not helped by government intervention— or worse by having that choice shoved into the dark by the government. Prohibition of abortion is, indeed, against the liberty interests of pregnant people and their physicians, but also against values that we all claim to embrace—values like compassion and equity.

Abortion is essential. Stand up for it here and now, loudly and proudly.?

*Names and some details have been changed to protect privacy.