I Used To Be Pro-Choice. Here’s What Changed My Mind.

I was deep in my liberal era, convinced that the party of progressivism could never lead me astray. Naturally, I held the deep-rooted belief that abortion was a women’s right, and everyone around me echoed that ideal. I never had any reason to doubt this position; liberalism had seemingly put me on the right side of history on all social issues. How could a party advocating for women’s rights and bodily autonomy be wrong? Why would I, as a woman, want to limit my own rights and freedoms? Liberalism requires a certain level of dogmatism. There is very little room within the woke left for dissenting views, especially when it comes to the “progressive” ones: being pro-abortion, gay marriage, and feminism are ingrained into the ideology. Dare question the legitimacy of these talking points and you are excommunicated from the liberal club. My support of abortion, and lack of exploration into the issue, stemmed from simply that: a desire to stay in the club.

I hadn’t bothered to think about my stance on abortion for more than a few seconds during my time as a liberal. I held the belief that the choice should be available for all who want it, though it wasn’t “for me.” I was of the view that no one should impose their viewpoints on abortion onto anyone else, though I held some sort of unconscious, knee-jerk reaction to the idea of getting an abortion myself. Like many of my other beliefs at the time, I didn’t bother to think about why. Why did I think abortion was wrong for me? And why did I think it was okay for others? The short answer is that I was lazy in my ideology and my critical thinking skills. I didn’t want to face the ugly truth of abortion. Until I did.

I didn’t want to face the ugly truth of abortion. Until I did.

When I unexpectedly became pregnant with my daughter, the first piece of encouragement I received from a friend at the time was, “You know you have options.” She, like me, was a leftist who believed in the right to choose. My pregnancy was unexpected, though I knew I wanted children, and at no point did abortion cross my mind as a viable option for myself. Throughout my entire pregnancy, I felt the maternal instinct to protect my daughter, even in the earliest weeks of her existence. Emotionally, I knew what was inside of me was a living human being. The thought of losing her was too much to even consider. I wondered, if she was just a “clump of cells,” why did I care so much? The classic response to this from a pro-choice advocate would be: because you wanted her. By their logic, if I had instead decided that I didn’t want my daughter, her worth ceased to exist. This began my journey toward the truth: abortion is murder.

I didn’t really take a deep dive into my true beliefs until I became interested in what I believe is the most important truth: God. As I began my journey to Catholicism about a year after my daughter was born, I realized that what the Church taught was incongruent with many of my leftist beliefs. If God existed, then humans have an inherent worth, one that isn’t informed by ability, size, or location. This completely contradicted the pro-choice position that preborn humans are simply a “clump of cells.” Much like my journey to Catholicism, my journey to the pro-life position was a logical one. I suddenly found myself interested in consistency in my beliefs, not just what was popular or what I had been indoctrinated into through liberal ideology. For the first time in my life, I chose to question my beliefs and values instead of repeating the platitudes that flooded liberal spaces and media. I started with the art of debate.

Watching people defend their ideas in a structured setting was the first step in coming to my own conclusions. Before I chose a position, I needed to understand each side. The pro-choice logic I had carried through my liberal days was made up of three main ideas:

1. What is in the pregnant woman is not a human; it is a “potential” human.

2. Women have a right to bodily autonomy.

3. We shouldn’t force women to give birth if they aren’t ready or if they are in a bad situation and cannot properly care for the child when it is born.

After listening to debates, reading books, and articles from both sides, I ultimately came to three counter positions:

Human life begins at conception.

The preborn baby in the womb holds the biological basis for something that is alive: it is growing, it responds to stimuli, it is moving, it is taking in nutrition, and its cells are reproducing. Given the proper nutrition, environment, and time, the baby in the womb will develop into a human adult. So we know scientifically that what is in the womb is alive. We also know that it is human because each parent is human. We can say for certain that the growing organism is not a dog or a cat or anything other than human. Now, some may argue the “personhood” argument, claiming that things like consciousness or the ability to feel pain make someone a “person” worth protecting. We could ask these people if those who are in comas, asleep, or knocked unconscious are still people. We can also see that certain animals, such as pigs and dogs, have levels of consciousness above that of an infant. A two-week-old outside the womb is incapable of having memories or consciousness as we understand it, and I doubt pro-lifers would concede that they are not “persons.” So consciousness becomes arbitrary; clearly the human element is more important than the level of consciousness one holds. Ultimately, we should value humans for what they are, not what they can do.

All humans have a right to life, and no human can use bodily autonomy to murder another human.

The right to life is considered a negative right, one that is protected from interference from others, and is one that we all hold in a sane society. Once I held the belief that human development begins at conception, it’s not hard to advocate for that right to be extended to the unborn. It is a dangerous path for a society to deem certain groups “less than human.” We have seen this rhetoric used to justify acts of human evil like genocide or slavery.

It is a dangerous path for a society to deem certain groups “less than human.”

When it comes to bodily autonomy, none of us truly hold absolute bodily autonomy. We can’t simply do whatever we want with our bodies, like harm others or use our bodies to take illegal drugs without consequences. We put limits on autonomy all the time. The dependence a child has on its mother is a unique situation, something that can’t really be compared to anything else. And by claiming that someone’s worth relies on them being truly independent, we exclude newborn babies, the sick, and the elderly. The amount of dependence a baby has shouldn’t decide whether it can live or die. A baby should be entitled to grow and develop in its natural habitat: its mother’s womb. Especially when, in over 99% of cases, those seeking abortions have willfully participated in an act ordered toward procreation. So the “my body, my choice” argument seems to purposefully ignore the other innocent body involved: the baby.

Humans deserve life, no matter their circumstance.

A woman having a baby in an unideal circumstance can be tragic. Thankfully, we have adoption, and even boxes outside fire stations for women who are truly desperate. To say we should end the lives of babies who may be born into poverty or strife sets another dangerous precedent. If I fell into poverty as a mother of a two-year-old, would I be morally permitted to end her life in order to prevent further suffering? And who’s to say that the possibility of suffering is a reason to reject life? Suffering is almost guaranteed to us as members of the human race; this is one of the complexities of being alive. If you ask those who have lived particularly hard lives whether they would have rather been killed than live a life that involved hardship, I imagine the overwhelming majority would be thankful for their lives despite struggle.

I ultimately had to ask myself why it was so important to preserve the right to sex without natural consequences. When I was advocating for the pro-choice agenda, I was protecting my lifestyle at the expense of another’s life. With the foundations of God and conservatism, it’s easy to see that life is sacred and that sex is powerful, not something casual; it creates life. And that life is something we do not hold the right to end, no matter what. The pro-life movement asks for something simple: that we, as a society, protect the most vulnerable. That we treat children for what they are: blessings, not burdens. This is the world I want to live in.