When asked "Are you pro-life or pro-choice?" I often don't know how to answer. Would I ever get an abortion? I don't know. Would I care if my friend did? Probably not. Do I think abortion should be legal? Usually, yes. Do I think abortion is "killing"? um....? When asked where I stand on this extremely personal debate, I feel I must answer "pro-access."
Yesterday, nearly a million men and women marched for "Women's Lives" to protect the Roe v. Wade decision to legalize abortion. A firm advocate of women's rights, I was one of those thousands of women who walked downtown at 8 a.m. to protect my right to choose. However, it seems there is an issue much bigger than this black-and-white debate.
There is a part of women's rights that has been largely ignored in this abortion debate: sexual responsibility and education. We have all had our feelings hurt and have had our beliefs personally violated over abortion opinions, but should abortion be the big issue?
There are too many sexual education courses today that promote an abstinence-only policy. They tell students that they should not engage in any sexual activity until marriage and label sex as a "forbidden fruit." Well guess what - a mother tells her 4-year-old not to touch the hot stove, and two minutes later the 4-year-old is crying over a burned finger. No matter how old we are, we are all cursed with the human nature to be curious. We want to know why we're not supposed to touch the hot stove; we want to know what sex is like.
Birth control options and availability is what we should really be fighting for. If women of all ages had access to birth control, would we even have the abortion debate? Many of my unmarried friends are on the birth control pill. Most of them have to pay $30-40 a month because the Pill is not covered by their health insurance - anywhere from $300-500 a year. As poor college students, how can we afford this?
As adults, we are all very capable of making our own decisions - we decide to seek advice from the doctor on birth control options, we decide to go to the store to buy condoms. Many high school students do not get this option. Whether they are too scared to ask their parents for sexual advice or for the money to go on birth control or to buy condoms, or whether their parents simply deny them help, a teenager is not going to not have sex just because daddy said so.
We've all been there - we've all had the "birds and the bees" talk, we've all been too intimidated to even bring up the word "sex" in a conversation with our parents, yet we all - males and females - still made the decision to have or to not have sex. Not all young adults who don't have access to birth control decide not to have sex. But is it always their fault that they don't have access? Maybe they made an irresponsible decision, but the outcome of that decision could have easily been prevented had birth control been easily accessible to them in the first place.
A man at the March for Women's Lives carried a sign saying "If men got pregnant, abortion would be legal." Today, Viagra is completely covered by most health insurance plans. If a man can get it up for free, women should be able to enjoy that experience for the same price.
Birth control information and access should be available for all women and men. Women deserve better than having to decide on whether or not to keep a child when they are not ready. If we educate our youth about birth control options and make those options easily accessible to them, we wouldn't have to make that choice.
Some "March for Women's Lives" Favorites:
"Not every ejaculation deserves a name"
"If you cut off my reproductive rights, can I cut off yours?"
"77% of anti-choice leaders are men... 100% of them will never be pregnant."
"If you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?"
"Against abortion? Don't get one."
"Screw Abstinence."
"Hey Bush, stay out of mine"
