Blog for Choice Day 2008

This year's topic for Blog for Choice Day 2008 is 'why it's important to vote pro-choice'.

Living in Europe as an expat I sometimes forget how different things are back home, how perilous things are in terms of choice.

I think back to the elections in France last year and how even though a woman was a front runner until pretty much the finish line, the debate over abortion never really came up, or at least not enough to make a stir in main stream media. Least of all would a conversation have occurred about whether a candidate would get your vote based on how they stood on abortion. For the a culture that invented kissing and lingerie, it's no surprise that they have a straight forward attitude towards abortion. Of course, France and USA are so cultural different you can't even see the line that divides them.

A conversation a few weeks ago reminded me once again that I have gotten comfortable living in countries where my rights are more firmly protected than in the US. Advising a friend about her abortion and contraceptive rights should she move to London, I rambled on about how to get contraception, the procedures she would need to go through, what to do if she need an abortion etc. I was reassuring her, if anything, that she would not be moving to a country where her choices would not be restricted. Side note: the UK has a skew of problems regarding abortion - one of them being that it's not technically a 'right' but rather a medical allowance but this is not the time for that post.

And the question is not why vote pro-chioce but why it is important to vote pro-choice. Because it will change the face of a country, to have such a right taken away from women, it will change the landscape of America. The USA is already getting near the top of the lists of appalling teen pregnancy rates and horrific maternal health statistics. It can not become a country where women's bodies are trampled over, and ignored, where's women's voices are not heard or acknowledged.