Credo: It's Not About "Choice," It's About Rights

Today is "Blogging for Choice" day. Abortion has been legal in Canada formally since 1988(and covered by publicly-funded healthcare in all provinces except PEI), although it was originally decriminalised in 1976. The debate here, thank goodness, isn't really ongoing. Nevertheless, there are enough people out there who would like to see the 1988 Supreme Court of Canada decision (the suit brought by what, in modern parlance, would be a "MRA") overturned, that I think it's worth posting about. This should have been a nonissue right from the get-go. That the "debate" dragged on here for over a decade is kind of disgraceful.

I Believe Because it is Not Absurd:

I believe in life after birth and before death.

I believe no one should be made to feel any way other than how they want to feel because they deliberately got rid of a tiny clump of cells, no more or no less than their own body may have (perhaps as much as 50% of the time).

I believe that no one has the right to determine what I, as a conscious, thinking adult, do with my own body against my will.

I believe that people who don't want abortions shouldn't have them.

I believe that people who don't want abortions should keep their ideology off my biology.

I believe that sex serves lots of important functions outside of procreation. If it didn't, nobody would have bothered before they figured out where babies came from.

I believe that natalism is like gender roles: bullshit.

I believe in abortion on demand, without apology.

I believe that "safe, legal, and rare" and similar sentiments pander to the mushy middle, who are easily swayed and don't pay attention to facts.

I believe I'd rather have science than religion swaying public policymakers; observations are easier to deal with than fuzzy-wuzzy "feelings" and "gut instincts."

I believe I may be the only actual baby-hating feminist harridan in the world, but I also believe I am profoundly grateful to all those people who came before me, who fought for women's rights, and what Amanda Marcotte calls "sexual justice," which means I have the freedom to be the only actual baby-hating feminist harridan in the world, instead of yet another desperately unhappy trapped housewife with too many unwanted kids and too few options.

I believe I'll have another Coke.