I Am Pro-Stuff
Yesterday evening I spent a few hours gathering petitions on behalf of Planned Parenthood at the Kansas City Gay Pride Street Blast. Having never been to a pride festival in Kansas City, I'd have to say it was a little less flamboyant than I had expected, or maybe even hoped. But I also have to point out that I'm totally cool with people expressing themselves by more casual means than dancing through the streets in ass-less chaps and nipple clamps, if that's what they want. I'm not picky. I love gay people no matter how they dress, but leather makes things more fun. Just sayin'.
Anyway, I was there gathering petitions for the Prevention First Act, which asks legislators to take the focus off expanding abortion restrictions and tells them to focus instead on preventative measures like access to birth control and family planning services, STI testing, and comprehensive sex education. These are all things that can help reduce the occurrence of unintended and teenage pregnancies, thereby significantly lowering the instances of abortion. The reactions I encountered were interesting, to say the least.
I was there gathering petitions for the Prevention First Act, which asks legislators to take the focus off expanding abortion restrictions and tells them to focus instead on preventative measures like access to birth control and family planning services, STI testing, and comprehensive sex education. These are all things that can help reduce the occurrence of unintended and teenage pregnancies, thereby significantly lowering the instances of abortion. I would explain it like that to the people I approached, and the reactions I recieved were somewhat surprising.
Occasionally I would approach somebody who turned out to be pro-choice and after I would explain what the petition entailed, they would look at me blankly and say, "Sorry, I'm pro-choice." or, "I thought you said you were with Planned Panrenthood?" and I'd have to explain that our goals were to not to make abortions illegal, but to reduce the number of abortions and unintended pregnancies.
There were other times I would approach a group of people who turned out to be very strongly pro-life. They would say something like, "We don't support abortion, sorry," or rush into some sort of accusative rant about killing babies. Having taken ques from the pro-choicers who thought I was anti-choice, I pointed out that the goal of the petition was to reduce abortions and that even if we didn't see eye to eye on the matter of choice, it was still important for both sides of the issue to focus on preventative measures. Often after reading through the petition with a fair amount of skepticism, they were happy to sign.
However, this brought to light something I've been witnessing lately in various media outlets. That is the idea of "pro-abortion." The assumption seems to be that pro-choicers love abortion as much as they love puppies and ice cream, that they think women everywhere should go out and get a whole bunch of them because it's just a great way to spend a Saturday morning. This is not their stance at all. Nobody wants you to have an abortion. The difference is that one group doesn't think abortion should be an option, the other believes it should be an option for those who wish to seek it. I am not pro-abortion. I am pro-CHOICE. I am pro- OPTIONS. I am pro-PLANNING. And I am pro-PREVENTION.
Furthermore, one of the major repercussions of Dr. Tiller's death was that it made the divide between the pro-life and pro-choice communities grow even wider. There is so much animosity between these two groups since his murder, and it's hurting the image of both. As the gap widens we come closer and closer to loosing the ability to reach across the controversy and find common ground on things like prevention. As the divide grows, more and more people will fall off into the extremist realms and instances like Dr. Tiller's murder will, I fear, become more common than they already are.
