The bulk of your ideologies?

I lost a friend yesterday.

We went down the pro-life, pro-choice and gender-based issues in relations to a woman’s body debate and the argument was intense and unnecessary.

He told me that the only time a woman would be justified to get rid of a pregnancy was if she was raped. He, in fact, stated that women that were raped and got pregnant MUST have an abortion for the sake of the baby.

I got really angry and lost it for a minute. Was he trying to say that the lives of children who were conceived by rape were worth less than the lives of children who were willfully conceived? I asked him that question, he told me to stop being too emotional and conflicting of my ideologies.

“Despite being 30 weeks pregnant, you are still pro-choice?” I was asked.  Yes, I am pro-choice. Regardless. Why?

Making abortion illegal violates a woman’s right to control her own body.

A “right to life” is, at the end of the day, a right to not have somebody else’s will imposed upon your body. Do women not have this right as well?

I opened that blog post by Bustle for him and showed him other reasons why I could not have this argument with him.

The “right to life” also doesn’t imply a right to live by threatening somebody else’s life. Bearing children is always a threat the life of the mother. 

So, he asked me, “why get rid of a pregnancy when it is an easy thing. Women in generations have gone through it up to 10 babies.”

I laughed and told him to look out for my blog post on my personal journey being pregnant if hasn’t been reading any of the posts I did 2 months ago.

Pregnancy changes a woman.

It makes a feminist as strong willed as I question a lot. It creates doubt, even to the strongest minds.

It makes us emotional and moody and sometimes very hungry. Other days, we are the best version of ourselves but those are the rare moments. 

We genuinely suck at that moment and there is nothing we can do. Heck, I have tried to suck a little less and sometimes it is just too much work!

My baby was not planned at all. That is something most women are ashamed to admit. I had no plans of ever starting a family in my 20s. I have had a hard time deciding on what to answer everyone that asks me, “how did you know it was time?” 

The truth is Maria, Linda, and Mark; not everyone plans for their baby. It doesn’t make them any less of a mother when the baby gets here. It does not make them anything different from a woman that plans the pregnancy and becomes a good mother.

It is so hard for most women out here to talk about themselves in such a way. Makes you seem weak and unprepared but the truth is: That is exactly what most women are when it comes to having a baby. We change. There is no lie about that. We worry and get stuck most days and some of us are lucky to have someone there but others do it alone and by Jove, I can never pretend to know how that feels because I can only fit in one shoe right now.

I haven’t written in awhile. Both here and on Facebook.

Why? Because I got pregnant and my mind has been filled with questions on how to take care of the baby, googling on various frightening issues that come up and frequenting the doctors without a legit reason.

I have also been worrying. I have been worrying about myself, the baby and everyone else close to me because their lives in relations to mine will change too! I have been a busy woman.

I have been a busy woman. Busy worrying. And guess what?

I have 0 ideas if I will make it out of the labor ward alive. I have no clue. I am risking my life, daily – to bring a life that I am not even sure will make it out of the labor ward alive as well.

Women lose their lives having babies.

We do and no one wants to talk about the dangers of pregnancy. We are quick to point out why women should risk it all. Yet no one tells us why we DESERVE to have a choice on it.