Listen, I know abortion has always been something of a hot topic. There seem to be so many unknowns and bits of medical knowledge fused with amateur or religious opinion. Personally, I always knew I was pro-choice, but I never really understood why; I just knew it was the side that Democrats were on. 

Honestly though, the reason I started researching pro-life arguments is because I found certain points to be valid concerns. Their focus appears to be on the child’s safety, the mother’s health, and the overall preservation of life. Seems pretty innocent, right?

But uhh, hear me out. If someone says they’re pro-life and a conservative, they’re actually pretty fucking hypocritical. To add to that, they are not knowledgeable about women’s bodies. 

It’s not until you dissect the belief structure of pro-life arguments that you begin to realize how insane it actually is.

Pro-life advocates are obsessed with the sanctity of the fertilized egg. There’s this phrase, “life begins at conception,” a key concept in the pro-life world. They claim that life begins when the sperm fertilizes the egg. But I don’t think people realize how truly ridiculous that sounds. 

Conception?? A human being, a beautiful, unique tapestry of nerves and spirit and heart, is created after a sweaty hookup sesh in the back of some douche’s 2005 Honda Civic. A person, imbued with unique emotion and feeling, is created minutes after some idiot goes, “Oh, uhhh…sorry, I was gonna pull out, but I was just really feeling this music.” Life begins there? Civil rights begin there? That marks the beginning of love and hate and the absolute brilliance that humans are capable of?

Not 9 months after a fetus is nurtured and cared for in a woman’s body. No, life is created only when conservatives say so because that’s conveniently what helps them emphasize their point that women need to do what they say. Fuuuuck that!!

I mean, seriously, life begins at conception. You wanna die on that hill? You know what, let’s talk about sex. We could all use a refresher anyway since public schools in Wisconsin only have to cover the importance of abstinence.

We all know when two people love each other…

Semen fertilizes the egg–yeah, sorry, it’s not very glamorous. The critical thing to know is that the egg has to implant into the uterus lining for a pregnancy to occur. 

But if it doesn’t implant, no pregnancy. In this case, 30-70% of the fertilized eggs will get flushed out, which can easily happen during a woman’s next period. So… if this fertilized egg is lost during a woman’s period or when she’s simply walking around, does that make her a murderer? In that case, should we try every woman who’s had sex and then a period for genocide? What about a miscarriage? How would we even know?

That’s the point right there. We don’t. We would know if our friends, siblings, or neighbors were killed. If a fertilized egg is a life, how come we don’t know when we lose them?

It’s funny that the government seems to be so invested in the bodies of its constituents only when they can use it to control how people use their bodies. Conservatives don’t want women to have abortions. They don’t want individuals to transition to a different gender– they didn’t even want gay people to have sex. 

But pastors assaulting their altar boys is okay? But our president, twice elected, having 26 charges of sexual assault is fine. Suddenly, they don’t care about a person’s intimate relations. Suddenly, that doesn’t define them.

The next common phrase you’ll hear from pro-life advocates is that a fetus is a human being, which–let’s clarify– is an opinion. Because, of course, amateur opinion can be woven into the world of science and medicine as long as we’re talking about women’s bodies. Of course, we should debate the  philosophical definition of what it means to be humans as long as we can use it to explain, “No, it’s actually not your choice; you need to drop your life to carry and deliver a child.”

I’m sure we’ve all heard people whip out phrases like, “Well, an egg is not a chicken and a seed is not a flower,” to argue that a fetus is, in fact, not a human. But let’s speak more literally. Do we count a fetus in the population census? Why do people say they have one child “on the way” instead of “one child” when the wife is 1 month pregnant? Does the fetus count as an extra passenger on airplanes, lines, and roads? Why don’t we hold funeral services when women have miscarriages? 

That’s because a fetus is not a human. People just muse that as fact to instill fear and guilt into the minds of whichever woman wants or needs to receive an abortion. And trust me, with the 24-hour waiting period, required ultrasound, and public displays of how seeking an abortion could be killing the next Einstein or injuring a living, breathing human with fingerprints and a heartbeat, we’re fucking scared enough. 

But when does life begin, then? 

I’m no doctor, but here’s my opinion: life begins whenever the fuck a woman decides it begins. How’s that?

Women have always had the power to bring life into this world, and they always will. Women birthed the world; they are the reason you’re here; every breath you take is an ode to your mother; she’s the reason you can walk, eat, speak, and think. She’s the reason you are living. Everything we have, we owe to women: Shakespeare, government structures, music, medicine, innovation, schools. 

That is power. And these flimsy spineless people, no matter how hard they try, cannot strip women of their innate ability to birth the next generation of humans. No one can, and no one ever will. 

Let’s be real; conservatives are only truly pro-life when a person is of military age, then their lives matter. They must either be a number or a bundle of cells attached to something conservatives want to control or flaunt like it’s an 8th-grade science fair: “Look what I made!” 

You don’t see pro-life supporters tightening restrictions on guns. Funding medical research, environmental efforts, childcare, or public health programs. You don’t see them supporting refugee settlement- No, wait, that’s just something Jesus might do…

But if someone is trans? Black? Muslim? Suddenly, that’s different. Suddenly, their life doesn’t matter. Suddenly, we have a hierarchical social system and traditional white men just happen to end up on top. There is so much hypocrisy in the name “pro-life” when, truly, all it means is anti-woman. If you call yourself pro-life but only care about certain lives, you’re not actually pro-life; you’re pro-control.

If you’re stressed about the future of abortion, it’s important to understand that 85% of the US population supports legalizing abortion. 1 in 4 women in America choose to have an abortion by the age of 45. To put this in perspective, in 2022, around 1 in every 345 adults had a blood transfusion, and that’s a pretty standard medical procedure. Abortions are common. They can legally be performed from 0-20 weeks into pregnancy in Wisconsin, with political debates arising only beyond that point. The issue now lies in making that legal everywhere. 

Which it used to be. Until Trump appointed three SCOTUS judges who leaned so conservatively that they decided to send America back into the past and remove the federal right to abortion. But, honestly, I have faith that we’ll fight back, that our voices and our outrage will make things right again. They have to.

Is that a little delusional, considering the current state of things? Yeah!! But a girl’s gotta stay sane somehow, folks.

In the meantime, let’s expose the pro-life stance for what it is: an inconsistent argument founded on fear and a desperate (and embarrassing) need to control women. It has more to do with protecting power than life; and that is not a government I want to live under.

If you’d like to learn more about where abortions are legal in the sates, use this link:

https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/abortion-access-tool/ND

If you know someone who needs an abortion, but is scared or unsure where to get one, use this link:

https://www.abortionfinder.org