I am Pro-Choice.

By Melle Hany

I am pro-choice.

Thankfully, I have never been placed in the position of having to choose to have an abortion myself.

I have, however, seen first hand the decision making process required when I drove a close friend to a clinic 30 minutes away and sat in the car waiting for her, unwilling to bring my new baby inside. I didn’t want to make anyone who had made that choice feel guilty.

Abortion is legal.

It has been since Roe vs Wade in 1973, however, the history of abortion dates back to the 1800’s in America. The first laws attempting to regulate abortions were passed in 1821. Think about that for a minute. Think about what life was like for women in the 1800’s. Women couldn’t vote. They were basically baby making machines—restricted to aspirations that could only include the home and family.

It startles me to think of the new push to defund Planned Parenthood.

The (mostly male) Republican candidates spit those words out of their mouths as though they were poison, or something to be embarrassed about and cast away.

What they don’t understand is that Planned Parenthood prevents abortions. Planned Parenthood performs breast checks that lead to mammograms that save lives and help prevent breast cancer. They provide necessary STI checks to people who otherwise couldn’t afford them. They perform pap smears and catch cervical cancer before it has a chance to become more insidious.

And even if they didn’t? Even if they only performed abortions?

Abortion is legal.

You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to make that choice or even be nice to someone in your life that has made that choice (even though that does kind of make you an asshole). But to attempt to change the laws that make abortion safe and legal for anyone who has to make that choice so you can be more comfortable in your religion or personal ethical code? That is unconscionable.

This world is built on personal choice. How to do your hair, what job you choose, who you marry, what religion you follow, are all things that make you an individual with autonomy.

Don’t push your religion or choice on me. The right to choose is just that—a right.

And I’ll be standing there, wearing and waving pink, making damn sure you know how hard people have fought for centuries to allow that same choice.

Melle Hany is a thirty-something sarcastic, tattooed feminist know it all that doesn’t actually know it all. She is a wife, a mother (of both human and fur children), an employee, an avid reader, writer and student of life. She loves to hate labels, does yoga less than she knows she should and drinks more coffee than any human should be able to handle. Read her blog here, and find her on Facebook. She currently resides in central Illinois.

Photo: electric-mucus/tumblr

Editor: Dana Gornall