During a recent phone conversation, my boss asked me if I had seen the anti-abortion advertisements that have been exploiting public spaces all over the District. “What happens when it’s been nine months and you or someone you love is on the table and their life is endangered and suddenly you don’t have the choice to save that person?” she asked. “That should be our campaign.”
Pro-choice and anti-abortion movements have been the source of some of the most clearly divided and impassioned activism around the world. Some consider this issue to be merely political and, thus, debatable; but can we really reduce a woman’s right to maintain control over her own body to an intellectual public debate, especially when the debate often devolves to a dispute between science and ideology?
Recently, the executive board of Voices for Choices (VFC), GW’s Vox chapter, has been receiving e-mails from Colonials for Life, the on-campus “pro-life” advocacy group, proposing that the two groups engage in a debate concerning abortion. The VFC board’s instinctive reaction was to reject the idea, considering participating in a public debate about abortion to be more like feeding the indulgence of ex-high school debate team members rather than educating the public about the issue. Also, while VFC considers abortion to be a very important issue, we do not focus solely on it. Our organization hosts numerous sex-positive and educational events providing condoms and information about reproductive health. This past October, VFC received a University Spotlight Award for the “Sextravaganza” we hosted on GW’s Mount Vernon Campus.
The students who lead Voices for Choices – and all other effective organizers – understand that it is only detrimental to our movement to get distracted by sparring with those who have repeatedly demonstrated their absolute opposition to the fundamentals of the pro-choice movement itself. This is especially true when religion plays an important role in the formulation of our opposition’s ideology. The key to maintaining a positive image for a grassroots movement is to commit wholeheartedly to engaging your members’ collective energy in a way that will accelerate your organization towards its goal.
Voices for Choices’ goal is not to promote abortion; “pro-choice” does not translate to “pro-abortion.” As articulated so perfectly by former chairwoman of the Planned Parenthood Eastern Region executive committee, Jen Barefoot, “pro-choice is the true pro-life.” We advocate a woman’s right to choose to carry a healthy pregnancy when she feels that she is emotionally and financially capable. And we believe all women need access to reproductive health care so that they can prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place. Pro-choice activists stand firmly by the notion that nobody has the right to police another person’s body. While one can respect another’s values and beliefs, it has no bearing on the important life decisions she or he should or should not make.
While Voices for Choices respects the point of view of opposing groups, we pride ourselves in not engaging in activities that we feel would necessitate our members to expend negative energy. We applaud “pro-life” groups who collect money for diaper drives and other productive events intended to benefit society on a larger scale. We genuinely hope to observe more of such positive sentiment in the future.
-The writer, a senior majoring in business administration, serves on the executiveboard of Voices for Choices (Vox).
