Controversial?...perhaps

So anyone who knows me, knows that I was anti-choice (pro-life) until college. *cue Fundamentalists lamenting women going to college and becoming evil feminazis out to destroy everything and hate on babies*

Becoming pro-choice is a different post. Perhaps one I'll write in the future. But today, I want to get some hate mail from pro-choicers. I know, I know. Getting hate mail from someone when it involves abortion is too easy. What can I say? I like to know I'll achieve my goals.

Here it is. My big confession. I don't hate 20-week abortion bans. Before I immediately get vilified and my pro-choice credentials tarnished, I want to explain that I don't HATE them, when they're done properly. And that means there are a whole lot of caveats. Please, please, note that I said that they have to be done PROPERLY....if you aren't going to read, please don't vilify.

The Caveats:

1) Free and widely available high reliable birth control (chosen by a woman in consultation with a medical professional)

2) Comprehensive sex education so people will know all about #1, as well as things like 'yes means yes' consent, laws against rape, rape culture, etc. (this is known as abstinence-plus programs, for those who feel more comfortable burying their heads in the sand and pretending that if we don't talk about it, young adults won't have sex...excuse me while I go and roll around on the floor laughing my head off)

3) Widely available, affordable abortion care - including all insurance plans, Medicare and other government programs

4) Easily obtained late-term abortions for fetal abnormalities/fetal pain/death upon delivery or maternal health - if the woman wants one and it's indicated in some way, medically, I want her to be able to have one - and not have to jump through a thousand hoops

* Because of number 1-3 we shouldn't HAVE late term abortions for things like restrictions on time, wait limits, legal loopholes, etc. So if a woman finds out she's pregnant she doesn't have to jump through a million hoops to get an early abortion - it's available where she lives (not thousands of miles away) with a good doctor (preferable her family doctor or OB-GYN, but Planned Parenthood has some great doctors), and is covered by insurance/Medicare. And she can then get the affordable, highly reliable birth control if she wants it because she will know all about it thanks to #2.

This is a pipe-dream. It's very similar to what they have in a lot of countries in Europe (not that anti-choicers will acknowledge that when they start arguing that liberal Europe has some abortion bans). So before I get jumped on, just know, this is an unrealistic dream but one I hope will happen as more people THINK about things.

Not a lot of people (I can't think of any) really LIKE abortions. Especially late-term abortions. I, personally, really, really hate the idea. I've been pregnant twice. It's made me double down on my pro-choice stance, but it also made me extremely sensitive to what is happening during a pregnancy during the later stages. Most especially what medical science can do when an early delivery happens. If they can survive outside the womb (notice I didn't say, survive but then die a few minutes or hours later, in great pain because of a fetal anomaly), they deserve something. Some respect. Some kind of right to life. I'd actually prefer 24 weeks abortion bans because that's when micro-preemies have a better chance to live. Obviously, it needs to be up to a woman. She's the one who has to decide, based on the information. But I do believe that at a certain point in the pregnancy (and the Supreme Court backs me up) there is an interest in the fetus and its growing rights. (Growing rights - they aren't all conferred at once upon conception).

Unfortunately, I live in the U.S. where science is suspect and right-wing politicians somehow manage to keep winning at the polls. And without all those caveats I listed? - Well, I'm going to have to be "for" (if that's what we call it) very reluctantly, late term abortions for reasons that are NOT medical/science reasons.

What's sad is that I think most Americans might agree with me, if they had a chance to lay it all out on the table and write their own laws to be implemented. Somehow, we just keep getting screwed over.