I'm pro-choice and here is a post i found that explains why.

I was pro-life for many years, until I had to participate in a debate in AP government class in high school about abortion. I was placed randomly on a side and was left to research abortion. The facts speak for themselves. Abortions have existed for thousands of years, dating back to the Egyptians. They've basically always existed and will continue to exist because they are necessary. Circumstances and situations make them necessary, and the only way to lower abortion rates is to make them unnecessary, not by banning abortions.

Some situations, such as rape and medical issues are impossible to remedy, but other situations can be helped significantly. For example, 3/4 of the country is not providing students with medically accurate and informative sex education, but with abstinence-only religious testimony. Providing a comprehensive sex education would help defeat so many misconceptions about sex and contraception. Condoms are supposed to be 99% effective, but due to lack of sex education, the failure rate is close to 20%. The same goes for all birth control except for implants and the shot.

Providing free contraception, including condoms. Birth control is not free. Insurances are only required to provide one or two types of free birth control, but those types may not work for all women. My birth control runs me $30 a month WITH insurance and would be $92 without insurance. I have tried the free kinds as well as many others, and THIS is the one that does not give me nasty side effects. Women in rural areas who depend on clinics for birth control, contraception, health checks, and pregnancy resources are being shut down thanks to anti-choice extremists who believe the only way to end abortion is to cut off access to birth control and healthcare (notice my sarcasm and disapproval).

Furthermore, providing women with free reproductive healthcare and mandated maternity leave. Considering that 61% of women getting abortions are already mothers and 40% of all mothers in the US are single moms. Minimum wage jobs don't pay living wages to support a family, but more than that, women cannot afford to take unpaid time off and are legally fired and paid less for being pregnant. They cannot afford the visits or the time off from work without pay. They cannot afford to be paid less. They cannot afford to be fired.

These are all things that can be done to help young women and mothers, in addition to making secondary education free and/or cheaper, and providing resource-based aid to famillies instead of monetary-based aid, like providing them with night classes or trade schools and connections within their community where they can create a future for themselves and make a living wage.

Without trying to remedy these issues, the need and demand for abortion will not decrease and making a law that says it is illegal will not change the amount of women who need them. Yes, some will opt out of abortion, but those women will also birth children into poverty or into our severely flawed and abusive foster system, where over 400,000 children are sitting as I type, waiting for a forever family.

But most women, MOST women will simply go elsewhere for an abortion or rely on taking unprescribed drugs from the black market to abort, which will effectively kill their fetus as well as risk their own lives. Pre-Roe v. Wade, over 1,000 women died yearly in the United States. Now? Only 6 women die yearly on average. That is a tremendous difference.

Women are mothers and teachers. Women are primarily functioning in their communties by way of serving and taking care of others. They are much of the glue of society. Forcing women to risk their lives to continue to be able to provide those services to their kids and their communities is absolutely ridiculous and absurd.

91.5% of abortions are performed by 8 weeks gestation, the end of the first trimester, which means the the overwhelming majority of women getting abortions are acting quickly and responsibly. I absolutely refuse to value a non-sentient, unconscious mass of tissue that is smaller than the palm of my hand over a woman, a mother, a daughter, a best friend.

1 in 3 women get abortions, and when I publicly announced being pro-choice and began advocating for reproductive rights, so many of my friends and even my family came to me to thank me, because they had needed abortions in their lives at some point. It only further resonated with me that being pro-choice was the only right side to be on. Because you never know who needs an abortion and who you will be forcing to risk their lives.

Being pro-choice doesn't have to mean that you promote or even agree with abortion. It literally means that you recognize how necessary abortions are and that they need to be safe and accessible. That's literally all there is to being pro-choice. We all want abortions to be rare, but the answer to that is addressing the social, political, and economical problems that necessitate abortion, not making it illegal.

 If you think women get abortions because they want to, or because they're "not feeling it," you have no idea what you even speak of. Abortion is a difficult and painful procedure, emotionally and physically. Abortions cost women on average between $200-$1,200. Most women have to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles to the nearest clinic to have one performed. Abortion is financially almost impossible. It is not something women decide to do because they "aren't feeling it." I know so many women in my life who have gotten abortions, ranging from young to old, and their testimonials are so heartbreaking, but at the same time, these women would not be where they are today without having that choice. Some were raped, some were raped by family, some were too young, some were in college, some were forced by their parents, some already had kids, some were in a domestic violence situation.

You have no right to make decisions for someone, the consequences of which you will never experience or deal with. Women have lives and they matter more than a 14 week old fetus. That is the bottom line.