Memory: A warm fall day. Starbucks in hand and am on my way home and when I get half way to the bus stop I see it. Complete chaos. On one side in front of the local Planned Parenthood a sea of pink. With signs advocating choice and bodily autonomy and women's health. On the other side a sea of signs with mutilated fetuses, crosses, clear disapproval and one young woman with multicolored hair and tattoos with a loud speaker shouting about how Planned Parenthood is nothing but an, "abusive boyfriend".

The anger and passion on both sides is palpable. I decide to get a little closer and watch and a middle aged woman dressed from head to toe in tie dye appeared in front of me. With a smile on her face she offers me a pamphlet with (I kid you not) Adolph Hitler on the cover. I declined it, saying, "no thank you." She continued to smile with a slightly angry twist and asked me odd cheerfulness, "So you're for murdering babies then?" I felt my heart speed up and matching her cheer because I am a total smart alec I respond with, "Oh absolutely, I'm gonna go home now and practice some witch craft. Hail Satan and have a nice day." Not wanting to hear what she thought of that feeling satisfied I walked away.

"How dare she?" I thought. She didn't know me or what I believed in. Which for the record is in comprehensive sex education, easy access to birth control, and that choices made about family planning are private and entirely up to those involved. Once more with feeling I believe in making it clear and easy for people to learn how to avoid unwanted and unplanned pregnancy instead of pushing ineffective abstinence only education curriculums. This woman clearly didn't care that Planned Parenthood provided low income women and men and everyone in between with affordable health care. Upon realizing I wasn't "Pro-Life", she implied I was a sociopath who wanted to use small humans as a part in ritual sacrifices.

All the way home I thought. About a story I'd read about a woman in Ireland who had died, because the catholic hospital she was being treated at would not grant her the abortion that would have saved her life. About the women I knew who'd started picking out baby names moments after they'd found out they were pregnant. About a friend who'd told me that she realized at sixteen after the pregnancy test had turned pink that because of the childhood she had, she no clue what a good parent was, let alone how to be one, and chose adoption. About another friend who became pregnant in high school and chose to have an abortion simply saying, "It wasn't the best few weeks of my life, certainly not the best day, but I know it was the right thing to do. I wasn't ready to be anyone's mother." Then my mind drifted towards a friend who became pregnant at seventeen, decided to give birth and raise her son. When I finally worked up the nerve to ask her about that time in her life she told candidly that she had momentarily considered terminating and that she thought that most people who become pregnant at seventeen consider abortion at some point.

These choices are so personal and stick with a person no matter what. But ultimately none of them are more right or wrong than the others, they're just different choices.

I'd known people who became parents young. Some had ended up okay. Others, well I had seen all too many times the consequences of being an unwanted child, and it made me feel sick. For children as well as their parents. Whenever the subject get's brought up my mind comes back to this quote, "I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is."

I am not pro-abortion, I am simply not pro-birth. People should become parents because they WANT to be parents. I don't believe that hypothetical children should be punishments. I don't believe anyone should be guilted or shamed into major life choices. I believe that if a pregnancy goes to the full term and a child is the result, that child ought to be loved and taken care of by someone. I understand why people get so worked up about family planning. It can be something tied fundamentally to a person's worldview. I even think it's fine to personally feel that abortion is wrong. But there are so many things I feel are wrong, I don't push for laws against it, because some things are none of my business. Criminalizing abortion, will not stop abortion, it will thrust women seeking abortions into back alleys.

Pro-Choice for me means the right of pregnant person to choose. To have the information and resources they decide to decide to stay pregnant, choose adoption, or have an abortion. And importantly to not have those choices judged, shamed, and voted upon by perfect strangers.