The Pro-Choice Argument Should Start When Clothes Are Still On

Sometimes ‘choice’ means ‘no choice.’

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Before sunrise the morning of my abortion, my eyes popped open in my dorm room.

It was black but for a sliver of light coming in through the window.

I thought, this must be what it feels like at the bottom of the ocean. No sound. No oxygen. Just slow, painful death, crushed by the pressure.

I was 19 and had never liked killing things. As a child fishing in the mountains, I cringed watching fish get hooked and reeled in, dangling, gasping for breath.

Now I felt just like a fish.

There’s no need to go into every gory detail, but with today’s post-Roe urgency to keep abortion legal or reinstate it, discussion of what we’re talking about is called for.

What I needed more than a pro-choice argument was for someone to sit me down and explain what I was about to sign up for by having unprotected sex, even one time, the first time, to keep a kid from leaving.

Either a pro-choice or pro-life activist could’ve said the same basic words. “Avoid unwanted pregnancy while you still can.”

There’s something vital to understand about the pro-choice argument, though.