What it means to be Pro-Choice

When it comes to campaigning for abortion rights, the debate tends to focus on “life” vs “choice”. But what can often get lost in the politics is that people who are pro-choice are genuine advocates of actual choice. It isn’t an empty slogan dreamed up because it fits conveniently on a sign. It’s the very foundation of what we stand for.

Every person deserves the right to choose. That is what abortion provides, the opportunity to make a decision about the pathway your life is going to take, rather than consigning women to a life they did not want or choose for themselves as of an unintended pregnancy.

A new survey from the Medical Journal of Australia has revealed that the number of unplanned pregnancies in Australia is significantly higher than we may have previously estimated. If the results are extrapolated to apply to census data then we can estimate that around 1.2 million Australian women experienced an unplanned pregnancy in the last decade.

One of these women was Ellen*. Ellen realised that she was pregnant shortly after returning to work from the birth of her first child. She hadn’t been actively avoiding pregnancy, but she hadn’t been actively trying either — like many of the women surveyed.

Ellen knew that she had a choice to make, but knowing that there were two options on the table instead of just one didn’t make the experience any easier. She didn’t know if she was ready to put her career on hold again so shortly after her last child. But she also realised that at her age, if she terminated this pregnancy, there likely wasn’t going to be another one.

Ellen was surrounded by the love and support she needed to work through her decision. Her partner, while gently expressing his preference, also acknowledged that ultimately it was her body, and therefore her choice. Her GP referred her to counselling support through Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia (PANDA) as well as an abortion clinic that could provide a counsellor to guide her through her options.

However, even with all of this support, Ellen knew that the final decision had to be hers. By 12 weeks, she’d spoken with her partner and PANDA, so she reached out to the abortion clinic and spoke to the counsellor there. “She told me that I’d already worked through all of the steps that she would have recommended,” Ellen said. “I’d made the pros and cons lists, I’d thought about what my life would look like in both scenarios. But I still didn’t know.” A complicating factor for Ellen was the intense pregnancy sickness she was experiencing. Intense nausea at all hours of the day made it difficult to keep food down, and between the hunger and the unsettled stomach, making a huge decision about her future wasn’t exactly easy.

According to the survey results, around 30% of women who experienced an unplanned pregnancy decided to terminate. Professor Angela Taft from La Trobe University is the lead researcher on the project and has said that in a high-income country like Australia those numbers, ideally, should be lower, saying “If eight per cent of those women with unwanted pregnancies birthed them, there would be over 25,500 women having babies that they didn’t necessarily want.” As a result, Professor Taft has called for a national reproductive sexual and health strategy focusing on sex education and contraception.

On the morning that she was scheduled for her pregnancy termination Ellen called the clinic to say that she had made the decision to continue her pregnancy. “The clinic staff were so lovely and supportive, not at all judgemental.” Ellen acknowledges that her entire experience is one of privilege; she was able to make the choices that she did because she lives in a state where she could access the services that she needed. She was able to take leave from work to attend appointments. She was able to lean on her family and her healthcare practitioners to provide the support and resources she needed. “I know that not everyone is able to have the experience that I did.”

This is why people are pro-choice. Because supporting choice means supporting a world where it’s no longer a privilege to be able to make these decisions; a world where it’s a right. Free from coercion. Free from judgement. Free from the risk of criminal charges. When you’re pro-choice you want the world to be made up of experiences like Ellen’s, where an unplanned pregnancy is met with support, advice, and services that are there when needed.

Michelle Thompson is CEO of Marie Stopes Australia, a national not-for-profit provider of sexual and reproductive health and advocacy. You can follow her on Twitter @MichelleT_MSA