It's the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a Court decision with its constitutional base in the right to privacy--a right that exists not in letter but, in Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas' words, in the "penumbras" of five Amendments to the Constitution: the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth. It is our shadowy right to privacy that, among other things, makes warrantless wiretapping illegal, allows residents of some states to choose doctor-assisted suicide when it suits them, and gives women the endangered and never savoury option to legally medically terminate a pregnancy.
I am pro-choice. I have many reasons. At the core, I am pro-choice because it is my body. I've built it, I've changed it, I've made strong choices with it, and it is mine. I give it as I please and I keep it in the condition that pleases me. If I wish it to bear a child, I'll arrange that hopeful condition; since my body threw me a curveball last year, I may not have that hope, but that does not change the fact that I, as the sole curator of my built body, deserve to choose.
Because it is my body, I deserve the pleasures it provides. This is not limited to sex; this includes my right to tattoo whatever I want where ever I want. I own my parts and I own the metal in certain of them. I should be able to participate in safely administered body rituals if I please. I can wear my hair in whichever cuts and colours are possible and attractive to me. If I wish my tongue split I have the body right to find a practitioner who can provide such a service for me.
I should have these rights and be free from the boundaries forced on me by law or by other people. Because that's what it comes down to: my body is mine and it's not right for others to police the kind of body I am allowed (or the kind of woman I am at all, for that matter). It's nonnegotiable: it's my body.
That is why I am pro-choice. Because no one should issue orders to anyone else on the conscientious care and keeping of their personal meat-n-water bag.
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cross posted from my other blog, with apologies to Miranda Bastard for following in her exact footprints.
