So, for the record, I am an anti-abortion, pro-choice UU. What?? Yes. I would be happiest if there were never any more abortions. That would mean that every fetus is healthy, and every baby is wanted. Ideally, planned for as well, but certainly wanted. For all the right reasons. By a loving family (and family CAN take many forms).

Healthy fetuses would most likely mean good prenatal care was readily available. And that before conception, both mother and father took care of their own health.

Unplanned babies—that are welcomed. What’s required for that? Support from a loving family and caring community; being able to live on one income or having access to quality, affordable child care. Affordable medical care goes without saying.

Planned pregnancies? One word: education. Reality-based sex education. See OWL And whatever it takes to raise teens with hopes and dreams… you get the picture.

Oh, and I’m pro-adoption, too. That’s a no-brainer.

And the pro-choice part? It is simply not MY choice to make for another woman. All of us deserve sovereignty over our own bodies. But I do choose real education and universal health care. Might they go a long way toward preventing abortions? I think so.

There are many things in this life I have never experienced. I pride myself in being fairly open minded and willing to experiment. I think it gives me a greater appreciation for seeing the world through another person’s eyes. It makes me well rounded; more so than you might say if you met me in person.

But in my heart of hearts, there are things I just don’t know anything about. Asking me about Revlon will draw a blank stare. The only difference between a handbag that costs $5.00 and one that costs $5,000.00 is the return on equity I’m losing with the latter. The effervescence fragrance of Coco Chanel is beautiful, but don’t ask me to describe whether or not it will turn on my skin.
Just one of the guys, I suppose.

And as I ponder the question more deeply, there are things I’ve decided I don’t really want to know.

I don’t want to know what it feels like to run in high heels wearing a little black dress. I don’t want to know the qualities that make a good bra fit correctly. I don’t really want to know how to decide between pads or tampons.

And above all else, I’m really disturbed about knowing how to sit in a stirrup.

For those fellows who aren’t blessed to be married to a beautiful lady (like me), a stirrup is device used for gynecological exams. Basically, you sit in it on your back while someone else leans over the most private part of your body. Well engineered and very useful, I’m told, for performing gynecology exams.

I’ve also been told it is very humiliating.

It is also quite helpful for when a woman is undergoing a Machine Vacuum Aspiration Procedure.

For us guys, that’s a fancy phrase for having an abortion.

I’ve read in the past accusations about women having abortions in an almost reflexive fashion. Almost, but not quite, akin about whether it’s a pants day or a little black dress day. Are heels or flats in style when we arrive? And do we go shopping for handbags or perfume after we leave the clinic?

I’ve been privileged to know and love two women who had abortions. In both cases, the painful truth was not pants, dresses, heels, handbags or perfume. It was at best a dark room, teddy bear and blankets.

At worst, it was sedatives and alcohol. Or simply a small razor and some hot water in a sink.

I can’t place a word or phrase on something I cannot experience. I will never have a Machine Vacuum Aspiration Procedure. I will never give birth to a beautiful child who only wanted to be loved.

And because I can’t experience both sides of the same coin makes me feel wholly unqualified to decide it for someone else. If it was truly God who decided these things long before I came along, then who am I to put words in God’s mouth and tell any woman she can’t decide these things for herself.

And when it comes right down to it, just about the only brave thing I could do is to gather some courage. Gather some courage to sit in the stirrup for a little while.

After all, I’m just a guy.

I was born in 1970, which makes me three years older than Roe v. Wade. It also means that I grew up in a world where safe, legal abortion was a fact of life…or so I thought.

When I was eighteen and nineteen and living in San Jose, Operation Rescue, the militant anti-choice group, targeted our city as part of their “Summer of Rescue” campaign. My mother, who is not just one of my closest friends, but also a personal hero, was sitting across from me at the breakfast table one morning. I don’t remember which of us saw the blurb first, in the underground newspaper, but there was a “call to action” to be part of a grassroots activist group, at the time called BACAOR – the Bay Area Coalition Against Operation Rescue. We pronounced it BayCore.

In addition to fund-raising and writing informative brochures, those of us who volunteered went through physical training to do clinic defense – literally learning how to stand arm in arm, forming a human wall between anti-choice demonstrators and clinic doors. We learned that any time they were demonstrating, we had to hold a counter-demonstration. We learned to woo the mayor (a wonderful, strong woman), and the police force (the woman we worked with was amazing). We learned that we were allowed to defend ourselves, but never EVER could we start anything physical. We escorted patients, many of whom were entering clinics for routine medical care, and not abortions, so that they wouldn’t have to deal with plastic fetuses being shoved in their faces, and, when doctors were afraid to enter buildings, we escorted them, as well. It was a summer fraught with tension, filled with passion, and just enough danger to put things in perspective.

We worked with groups like Act-Up and Queer Nation, organizations that taught us to reclaim words like MILITANT, and further taught us that reproductive rights and GLBT rights go hand-in-hand.

And I learned.

I learned how blessed I was to have a mother who stood up for what she believed in and taught me to do the same.
I learned that I am fortunate to be surrounded by other wonderful, amazing, STRONG women who will with equal depths of caring, either kiss away my tears, or kick me in the ass, sometimes both.
I learned that the men who marry such women are some of the smartest, kindest men on earth, but also the most patient.

I learned to trust other women with my life.
I learned that they could trust me with their lives.

I’m lucky.
I grew up in an environment where reproductive choice was a “given,” and where we had safe-sex lectures at the dinner table.

And yet…

I have friends who don’t see our rights being eroded away by laws allowing doctors and pharmacists who can refuse to prescribe birth control, by states banning abortion except in extreme cases, by men – none of whom, mind you, who can actually get pregnant – making decisions about other people’s bodies, women’s bodies, MY body.

And I am scared.
And I am tired.
And I will continue to fight.

Because trusting women, means trusting myself.

I have heard the argument that women who abort often regret their decision. I wonder how many who have not aborted regret theirs. Regrets are a part of the freedom to make a decision. Just because some have regrets is not justification to eliminate the chance to decide.

Today is the 37th anniversary of the landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, which granted women the right – and access – to safe, legal abortion. It’s also the fifth annual NARAL Pro-Choice America “blog for choice” day, in which bloggers are asked to post about reproductive freedom, pro-choice activism, or anything else related to the topic, and tag it with “blog for choice.”

In honor of Dr. George Tiller, the abortion provider who was murdered in the foyer of his church on May 31, 2009, and who often wore a button that stated simply, “Trust Women,” the folks at NARAL have asked that we write on that topic.

What does “Trust Women” mean to you?

What does being pro-choice mean to you?

Share your thoughts here on the blog, either by posting, sending email to Outreach@OakCliffUU.org, or writing on your own blog, and linking back.