There has been a lot of discussion around the topic of abortion lately, partly influenced by recent political gaffes by republican senators concerning the concept of abortion in cases of rape.

Let me just say that I am pro-choice. I am not pro-choice because I hate babies or children, or because I believe a fetus isn't a living thing. Maybe that makes me worse, because I love children. I love children so much, I invested in them by choosing a career in nurturing them and their minds and helping them grow. I recognize that even if we quibble about the specific definition of where life begins, a fetus, alive or not, still has the potential for life, if the process continues unobstructed.

So why am I pro-choice, being the pro-child, life-adoring person that I am? Exactly for that reason - because I am pro-child, pro-mother, pro-family, and anti-slander, anti-judgment, and most of all, pro-support.

The pro-life camp has some real concerns and bleeding hearts, and certainly does a great job of appealing to the pathos of a crowd with pictures (doctored or not) of aborted fetuses and the use of the word "genocide." But it's exactly these tactics that keep me out of the pro-life camp. Because pro-lifers focus on the fetus. I'd much rather focus on the family. On society. On children.

Let's get to the title of this article - Why do women have abortions in the first place? This is normally a question answered with "rape," or "incest," or "teen pregnancy," and other such serious reasons, but I want to know more than that. For one thing, not all women who get abortions are rape victims and teenagers. What about the rest of them? Why do they choose to abort their children?

It's a fact that a sizable number of abortions are obtained by women of color. The pro-life camp responded to this information by launching an entire campaign, implicitly blaming black women for committing genocide link

This is how I respond to that fact - Why? Why is that? Why are more abortions obtained by black women, than women of any other color?

To answer that question, we have to dig deeper than the headlines and the propaganda. And then we'll discover that African American women are link to die in childbirth due to lack of prenatal care. (And now, you can answer link. You're welcome). From that same source, we find "Researchers studied 1,802 ethnically diverse women receiving prenatal care at one of six San Francisco area delivery sites; the women were generally healthy and had low depression scores. Differences by race/ethnicity were pronounced, with whites and Asians doing better on all measures. More black and Hispanic women were in the lower social and economic strata than white and Asian women, and they reported worse physical functioning. Subjective social standing was more highly correlated with education and income in whites and Asians than in Hispanic and black women."

It's no mystery that blacks and Hispanics make up the majority of our lower economic classes. They are the ones living in bad neighborhoods. That same source will tell you that one third of homeless women (not in the sex trade) will suffer from what they call "unintended pregnancies" due to lack of care and education about contraceptives. The 2008 study concluded that "Having a regular source of care and having been encouraged to use contraception increased the likelihood of contraception use."

And it's not just women who are at risk, it's their children. UNICEF did a study in 2007 where they rated the treatment of children in the 23 wealthiest countries based on 40 indicators of child well-being, including health care, education, mental health and infant mortality. Out of twenty-three countries, the two that scored the lowest? The United Kingdom and the United States. (And now you can answer link, because I'm Santa Claus giving away answers today.)

The correlation between abortions obtained by minority women and minority women in poor socioeconomic standing is not one to be ignored. When you are poor in this country, you are a second class citizen. You don't have access to basic health care or quality education, and you often fear the police for a variety of reasons. So if something happens to you - rape, or unintended pregnancy due to lack of contraceptive knowledge - and there are no programs in place to support you or take care of you and your potential child, and all of society is scorning you for being a whore, well, what choice do you have?

To be pro-life, one doesn't just have to support a fetus's right to be born. One has to support its right to a decent quality of life, a quality of life that its mother did not have, but should. To be pro-life, one has to support social welfare, health and education programs to help society's most vulnerable new and expectant mothers. Because these women aren't just thinking about abortion to avoid the weight gain. They are thinking about their own survival. Without proper health care, they have a much higher risk of dying in childbirth, and even if they don't, they would still have to feed and educate their children on programs that republicans - a major pro-life party - are slashing budgets for or cutting altogether. On top of that, instead of kindness and support, they are met with stigmatization and shaming by society for not being able to keep their legs together, or not using contraception, or even being raped.

So consider this. If you are in a situation where you are a minority woman who is poor, potentially homeless, and without any healthcare, and you got pregnant, what would you do? What would happen to your baby? Even adoption is a long and painful procedure, and not even one guaranteed to pay off - especially as minority children aren't as wanted as white children. Why? Because adopting couples are usually middle to upper class - aka, white - and they normally (and understandably) want a child that looks like them.

But you're not poor, you're not homeless. You have access to a computer and an internet connection, possibly on a regular basis considering you belong to this website. You have access to information about contraceptives, and enough free time to spend reading an article about this. Maybe you're pro-life, maybe you're pro-choice. Either way, I'm sure we all want the same thing - healthy babies, healthy mothers, and fewer abortions.

So how do we do that? What can we do to help women choose to give birth to their potential children without shaming them or blaming them for their situation? We don't lecture at them about "God's gift" of life (thanks, Mourdock). We don't tell them they were meant to have this baby, or that they will be a baby killer if they get an abortion, or that they shouldn't have been a slut. These are all the wrong ways to go about it. They are judgmental, insensitive, and frankly ignorant of these women's situations.

Yes, that's right. While homeless women may be ignorant about contraceptives, middle and upper class men and women are ignorant about women in poverty. They don't understand because they don't know. Ignorance is a disease that can affect anyone, of any economic status, race or position. But we fight that with information.

If you want to prevent abortions, and encourage women to "choose life," don't outlaw it. Don't protest outside of clinics. Don't defund Planned Parenthood. Expand it. Support them. Be kind, and lend a listening ear. There, but for the grace of God, sits you after all, in that chair in the abortion clinic's waiting room. You aren't better than them. And they are lost. So fund Planned Parenthood so that it can expand to our neediest neighborhoods. Support free clinics and reproductive health education centers like Planned Parenthood. Support education at its most basic level - elementary. Make sure every child regardless of socioeconomic status gets a quality education and a shot at college. Support our police force, to be more compassionate towards victims, and more vigilant towards violence. Create safer neighborhoods. Support homeless shelters. Support free health programs for infants. Support food stamps and free lunches at schools. Support social workers, teachers, and public health workers.

If you want to prevent women from getting abortions, create a world that's worthy of bringing a child into in the first place.

Thank you. That's all.

01/30/2015 EDIT: Two years later, I have edited for some grammar mistakes that annoyed me, and also to add bolds for emphasis and the TL;DR crowd.