desert_vixen's lair

Blog For Choice Day 2010

This year's topic:  In honor of Dr. George Tiller, who often wore a button that simply read, "Trust Women," this year's Blog for Choice Day question is: What does Trust Women mean to you?


TRUST WOMEN

Like all buttons or bumper stickers, it has to be short and snappy.  “Trust Women to know what’s best for their own personal reproductive lives because not all women are the same” may be more accurate, but you could never fit that on a button.

Blog For Choice 2010 is in tribute to Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who provided abortion services to women.  Dr. Tiller had such a commitment to trusting women that he was killed for it.  Dr. Tiller was not just an abortion provider, but one who specialized in late-term abortions, and his death has left a significant absence.

Trust Women.   The issue of reproductive choice is influenced by trust in women’s judgment.  The government regulating such issues as whether a woman can obtain an abortion, what obstacles she must overcome to obtain the abortion, in some cases, even the method of abortion, and availability of birth control come down at some level to not trusting women to make the decision that is best for them.  Instead of letting women decide what they feel is best for their reproductive lives, the government feels it must make the decision for us – a government which is largely run by men.  Women bear the majority of the burden from decisions about reproductive choice, yet we aren’t trusted to make those decisions alone.

Trust Women to know what is best for their situation if they become pregnant.  Pregnancy, and the decisions associated with it, is a major influence on women’s lives.  Whether planned or unplanned, whether the woman decides to carry to term or to terminate the pregnancy, whether the decision is taken away from them by events, pregnancy is probably the major influence in many women’s lives.  Once a woman has children, every decision in her life has to be considered in light of “What does this mean for my children?”  Sometimes, it means making the best of a group of bad decisions.

I am a single mother.  I wasn’t when I became a mother, but obviously circumstances in my life changed.  I am also a soldier, which means my decisions are somewhat limited by my career.  One of the decisions that I made was to stay in the Army, because the solid paycheck and benefits have to balance out things like being deployed for a year while YOUR parents care for your child.  My daughter is a wonderful blessing, and I love being a mother, but that is MY choice. 

Reproductive choice is often framed as being “pro-abortion”, but it is about so much more.  It is about the entire spectrum of reproductive decisions – whether to have children or not, how many children you have, the spacing of their births, whether to discontinue a pregnancy because there are medical issues, whether to give a child up for adoption and how to handle that, what type of birth control, whether or not a woman desires to be sterilized.  The list of decisions that decision affects is endless.

So let’s try trusting women to make their own decisions in this area, and let’s try to give them the information and tools they need to make those decisions.  Let’s educate young women about their bodies and their options when it comes to preventing pregnancy, other than to not have sex.  Let’s make birth control more available and less costly, so that there are less pregnancies that are unwanted.  Let’s stop judging so many decisions that women make about reproduction, because as pretty much any adult woman in the United States knows, everyone seems to feel like they have a say in your reproduction.  If you’re married and don’t have children, everyone wants to know when you’re going to have them.  After you have a child, then people want to know when you’re going to have another one.  Then around four, people start asking when you’re going to stop having them.  How many women were cornered when they were pregnant by someone who felt they had the right to either frighten you with their labor horror story or to judge you for something you were eating/drinking/breathing?  I know it happened to me.

Trust me to decide what is best for my body and my life, and respect those decisions. 

Trust my friends who have chosen to be childfree, and respect their decision.

Trust my friends who have children to decide what size their family should be, and respect their decision, no matter what size you think makes a family “too big”.

Trust women, even when you disagree with their decision.  It may be right for them, even if you don’t agree with it, or understand it. 

Trust women.  Support reproductive choice.