Let’s Stop Calling “Pro-Lifers” Pro-Life

I’m cleaning this morning, trying not to focus too much on the upcoming July 1st deadline when the new Abortion Bill recently passed in m state will go into effect. This bill seeks to dismantle abortion access in FL under the guise of protection women’s health.

The new law will require an abortion provider to have admitting privileges to a local hospital. Most hospitals don’t want to grant privileges to abortion providers and it isn’t based on morality, it’s based on profit. Abortion is a medical procedure with minimal risk, so giving abortion providers admitting rights doesn’t make much “cents”.

This law will also impose strict standards for “ambulatory surgery centers”, and completely ignores the fact that in 2016, you don’t even need to have any intrusive procedure done if you are in your earliest weeks of pregnancy.

Most disconcerting is that the law will block access to medical services for low-income women, especially problematic in a state where our Governor refused to expand Medicare as part of the Affordable Healthcare Act.

In fact, this particular law is so awful that The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has come out against a very similar law that was passed in Texas.

All of this has me so very worried to the point that I can’t stop focusing on the ramifications this law will have on women and especially women in the communities that will be most affected by this. It terrifies me that women that desperately need services like PAP smears and also abortion, will not be able to get it because of how many clinics will be shut down due to the new law.

All of this makes it crystal clear to those of us that have been fighting for a woman’s right to bodily autonomy. This has nothing to do with being pro-life. This has everything to do with being anti-choice. The platitudes and emotional manipulation tactics that are used by the anti-choice community can’t even pass muster. There’s been a meme that has been circulating, even way back when I was 16 and a volunteer for Planned Parenthood. The meme goes something like this: What if the “baby” you abort is the next Einstein?

Well, anti-choicers, have you stopped and considered that:

The next Einstein could be stuck in a public school that is lacking the funding to even provide basic infrastructural maintence to the building itself, let alone providing a quality education where teachers are paid well and the staff feels satisfied with their job?

The next Einstein could be dying of an illness that their parents can’t afford to treat.

The next Einstein could be sitting in a prison, after being sentenced for 15 years for carrying a “joint”.

The next Einstein could have been murdered in a shooting that might have been prevented if gun law loopholes had been closed.

The next Einstein could have been sexually assaulted but now they’re unable to continue their life the way they did before, and person that assaulted them is not even receiving any justice for their crime.

The next Einstein can’t focus on being the next Einstein because they are trying to work to pass laws that will, at the very least, given them protections for merely existing.

The next Einstein is mentally ill and not receiving proper treatment because of stigma/lack of accessibility.

The next Einstein can be in Flint, drinking water with lead in it.

The next Einstein was forced into giving birth, because abortion laws were restricted.

Let us lay it all out on the table here. You’re not pro-life and by identifying as such you are implying that those that support safe, legal, and accessible abortions are anti-life. It’s a cute and clever way to use language to paint yourself into the position of being morally superior and there more correct in this argument but, anti-choicer, you are not. In fact, from where I stand, anti-choicers are some of the more anti-pro-life people I have encountered in my life.

Let us all start calling them what they really are. Let us stop implying that they about life.

After all, maybe an anti-choicer would be next Einstein, if they could just start minding their own bodies instead of everyone else.