I have been working as a volunteer in a clinic that offers abortion services for over a year. The senseless killing of Dr. Tiller devastated me, but remained a forceful reminder of how, even today, the gravity of working for women’s rights remains. I am proud of the work that abortion providers continue to do and I hope that pro-life activists can work to understand the importance of placing any and all decisions surrounding a woman’s health in her hands and her hands alone.
If nothing else, the question of abortion highlights the need for awareness surrounding the rights of women and the ways in which women remain narrowly defined based upon their relationship to others, rather than their individual sense of being.
I am pro-choice, most simply, because I trust in my sisters to make informed decisions about their lives (with the help of sustained education and access to healthcare and services) that promote their own well-being and the well-being of those they love. I believe that the demand for access to abortion should be coupled with the demand for community services for families–something threatened right now in Illinois due to economic constraints and perhaps skewed priorities.
I am pro-choice because I cannot possibly understand the lives of others and must only trust that others are trying to make the best decisions possible. And because I know we cannot always make the best decision (with the resources we’re given), part of being pro-choice for me means dedicating my activism to increasing resources and advocating for the best healthcare and education.
Pro-choice to me is invariably pro-woman and pro-community. The State should have absolutely no control over a woman’s body or lifecourse.
I believe this with all my heart and that is why I, too, am Dr. Tiller.
I am Dr. Tiller.
