Women- not stupid, really.

I am sooo tired of people (old white men) telling us that they are going to limit our rights because they know what's good for us.

I am a mother. I became a mother at a very young age, just a week shy of my 20th birthday. I am now and always have been pro choice and when I found out I was pregnant with the Kid I had to decide if I was going to have him. I was rational about it. I knew that I was going to end up parenting alone. I knew all the drawbacks and I still decided to have him.

I was pregnant before that and I've been pregnant since then. I have the bizarre fortune of being extremely fertile and if 2 methods of birth control aren't used at all times I will end up pregnant again. I should totally donate my eggs to science. But in the mean time- I have one child, but I've had more than one pregnancy. I was just as rational, if not more so, in deciding to end those pregnancies as I was in deciding to keep the Kid.

Contrary to popular opinion, I was not ever coerced into abortion. Actually, when I was pregnant with the Kid more than a few helpful "friends" tried to push me into having an abortion and when that didn't work, into putting him up for adoption. Neither were a possibility at the time. I cannot explain it, but the Kid was the kid I was meant to be mom to. I didn't feel the same way about the other pregnancies.

When I found out I was pregnant with the Kid, I was at a Planned Parenthood. For the same price as a test kit from the drugstore I got a full examination and a pregnancy test. The doctor asked if I knew what my options were and what I wanted to do. I said I was having a baby and I was happy about it. There was never any pressure to change my mind about it from anyone at the clinic.

When I had an abortion I actually went through more counseling than when I decided to have a baby. The clinic staff always made sure that having an abortion was exactly what I wanted. I was as adamant about not having a baby as I was about having the Kid. I am sure that if I wavered at all they would have given me space to figure out what I wanted before doing anything. Throughout the whole thing I was asked repeatedly, at each step, if this is what I wanted. I was given more chances to opt out of an abortion by abortion providers than I was ever given to opt out of pregnancy by obstetricians (number of times an OB asked me if I wanted to be pregnant- ZERO).

So when some non-doctor in a suit wants to ensure that women are getting abortions of their own free will, I know that he has no idea what he's talking about. Abortion providers already go out of their way to make sure women are making their own choices, because that is what reproductive rights are about. It is not about racking up numbers and profits, it's about ensuring that women become mothers when they want to and that they have options to not become mothers when they need them.

We are not stupid. We know exactly what we are getting ourselves into when it comes to pregnancy and abortion. We know, better than most men, exactly the kind of work that parenting requires and how much of a sacrifice that is. What I don't understand is why you would ever want to make someone perform those sacrifices who doesn't with her entire being want to. That is not healthy for the mom or the kid.