An Ode to Anita Bryant (Not)

It was thanks to Anita Bryant—and her anti-abortion, gay-bashing tirades—that I found my pro-choice heart. But it wasn’t until I got pregnant at the start of my sophomore year at Swarthmore College that I fully appreciated the importance of my right to safe, legal abortion. Yes, I was in a relationship. But not one that was leading to marriage or family. Yes, I was using birth control. But it failed.

The bottom line? I wasn’t even halfway through my college education and was completely unequipped to raise a child. And while we’re at it, let me say that I have no patience with the suggestion that I should have carried my pregnancy to term and given my newborn up for adoption. Like most anti-abortion zealots, the folks who make this argument seem mainly interested in punishing women who are sexually active but choose not to be mothers (at least not then). And, of course, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if men got pregnant.

Personally, I wish that contraception was so effective and accessible and affordable that unintended pregnancies never happened. And I believe that something died when I had my abortion. In fact, I think that acknowledging that death and the loss it represents for many women will be critical to the pro-choice movement’s long-term success. But I felt then, and I feel now, that my life—the woman’s life—must take priority over that of a fetus. I made the right decision for me. And I made the right decision for that not-yet child. As an early birth control proponent said, "No baby receives its full birthright unless it is born gleefully wanted by its parents." And who could disagree with that?