I'm not just a pro-choice American with a decent understanding of the politics and science of reproduction. This issue is framed in a political and legislative context. The political questions around abortion invariably involve people either legislatively making that decision for others or not, and I fall on the side of people being able to make those decisions for themselves. Unapologetically.

But before you extrapolate who I am and what I do or don't understand on the basis of this thread, let me say that I'm also a parent. I, too, know what it is to be overjoyed at seeing the little line on the pregnancy test. I know what a rush it is. I know what it means. But I also understand that in my own case, that joy was always compounded by the fact that this was a deliberate move and a very wanted development. It didn't have any "oh, fuck" component to it. It didn't have any "Shit, we don't have health insurance and we're about to be evicted" component. It didn't have "What are we gonna tell your psycho-ass dad who beats you?"

There IS a human component to all of this, certainly, and if we really want to speak out about "life" and protecting it and valuing it, in my opinion some of the things to do would be to tirelessly support a Single Payer Health Care System and a Liveable Minimum Wage, so the idea of a poor single woman bringing an unplanned kid into this world wouldn't be such a cruel joke in this country. We (and our allegedly pro-life compatriots across the aisle, in particular) would be out there working to make sure contraception was covered by health plans. That sex ed in schools was reality, and not abstinence, based, and it included contraceptive availability. That the Birth Control Pill wasn't being held hostage by Jesus-drunk pharmacists, and instead was available OTC.

But I want to make one point exceptionally clear. First off, "We" don't "lose on this issue". That is a media-spun lie that goes along with this bullshit about the all-powerful "values voter". The American People are overwhelmingly pro-choice. That is a FACT. "We lose on this issue"? Who says? CNN? Fuck 'em. I was at the March for Women's lives in DC in April of 2004... 1.2 Million Americans Showed up, and it was the Largest Peaceable Gathering on The Mall In American History. CNN blew off the march and spent the day chasing around drunk Bush voters at a car race in a quest to profile the "Nascar Voter". The crap about how "we" "lose" because of the pro-choicers, or the gays, or the atheists is a lie. That's all it is- it's just a bald-faced LIE.

We WIN on this issue.

Not only that, but (as the Terri Schiavo fiasco proved to the GOP) the American People are far more socially libertarian than the conventional wisdom waterheads want to give them credit for. Where we fail, if at all, is not by being "too" stridently in favor of individual freedom and liberty, we fail by not being consistently and strongly enough in favor of them.

If anything, we "lose" on not standing up strongly enough for the very powerful mind-your-own-business keep-your-personal-views-out-of-my-shit streak in the American Electorate. In My Opinion.

Peace.