Today’s postcard is perhaps one of the issues that I feel most strongly about since for me it’s connected to just about every other aspect of my life and belief system.

One of the first national-level protests I took part in was the Women’s Rights March in Washington, DC in ’91 or ’92. The reason I took part was because I felt then and still believe today that no one has a right to decide what happens in my uterus or to my body besides me. My physician is naturally involved when medically necessary. And, my husband, of course, is apart of those conversations and discussions. But, the ultimate decisions and consequences are mine and mine alone to make and to bare.

Simply put: this is my body and this is my choice.

And, yet, here we are in 2020 continuing to wage war over women’s rights to do with their bodies what they want.

Women seeking refuge in the US from violence and war in their homelands have had their uteruses literally ripped out of them, forcibly and unknowingly and without their consent. Why? Because they are poor, vulnerable and other. Because they are considered unworthy.

That’s not pro-life — that’s limiting their reproductive freedom, and its tantamount to genocide. Persecuting Muslims because of the actions of some, murdering black and LGBTQI individuals because of racist and sexist and cisgender stereotypes are also not pro-life attitudes.

I am not pro-abortion; I’m pro-choice, because it allows girls and women the ability to make choices which have lasting impacts on their lives. I support allowing women to decide when and how they reproduce as well as how they prevent unwanted and unplanned pregnancies from occurring in the first place. And to me that’s always been a pro-life perspective,since it keeps abortion safe and ultimately protects women and their children from unnecessary harm. But it also allows for the means to prevent unwanted and unplanned pregnancies, thereby diminishing the need for abortion. Isn’t that the point? Minimising the need?

Against abortion? No one is forcing you to have one. Similarly, no one should force me or any woman to have a child she does not want nor feel she can care for. No one should be forced to continue a pregnancy and carry it to term if they do not want to. Women are not (yet) handmaids. I’ll fight like hell to make sure they never become them.

If you consider yourself pro-life, then do you also support and work to protect Muslim women and babies? Immigrants whether documented or not? Refugees? Black lives? And LGBTQI lives?

If the answer to any of those questions was anything other than an unqualified ‘yes’, then you are not pro-life. You are pro-foetus. But, what of that foetus once it is out of the womb? Do you still fight to protect it? Is that life still sacred?

It makes me incredibly angry that we still need to fight for this specific freedom. But I’ll continue fighting, not just for women in the US. But, for women everywhere.

Abortion should be legal. It must remain safe. And, it should be rare. But, that requires freedom for women to make decisions regarding their own reproductive lives.