On Halloween this year, Clare came halfway down the stairs holding a pregnancy test, looked at me sitting on the couch, and said, “It’s positive.”

I loved our daughter from the moment I saw that positive test. I can empathize with those who see each pregnancy as a life worthy of protection.

Yet, as I have watched Clare go through pregnancy, I am reaffirmed in my pro-choice beliefs. It is 10 months of discomfort, risk, doctor appointments, extra expenses, and your body changing in sometimes irreversible ways. It is one of the riskiest “normal” medical experiences a human can have.

No person should be forced to go through even the most healthy and normal pregnancy.

I still believe we must take the morality of ending a pregnancy seriously and allow people to terminate their pregnancies.

We don’t require someone to donate a kidney, even though that is about as risky and would save at least one, sometimes many lives. So, as a society, we give preference to bodily autonomy over another’s right to live if living would infringe on said body.

I think the moral path on abortion is clear:

  1. Reduce unwanted pregnancies as much as possible.
    • through free and widely available contraception
    • comprehensive sex education
    • financial support for families
    • state-funded child care
    • mandated family leave
    • universal health care
    • housing help for families who need it

  2. Make abortions freely available (and free) for anyone who wants one. 3.Getting an abortion past viability requires a doctor to affirm that the intervention is because the pregnancy is not viable or is a risk to the patient’s health.

  3. Many of the anti-choice people in my life claim to support the policies I mentioned in number 1, so this is your chance! Call your legislatures and demand they pass policies that will reduce unwanted pregnancies.

I won’t hold my breath, though. Because, deep down, you know, the politicians who got Roe v. Wade overturned would never support helping people in that manner.

This was never really about abortion for them.

It was only ever about power.