Content warning: This article mentions sexual assault. On Oct. 1, I sat on my couch and watched two men without uteruses debate on what I’m allowed to do with mine.
The 2024 vice presidential debate covered a majority of topics from immigration to clean energy, but, like many other folks (especially those with uteruses), I anxiously waited for the moment when the VP candidates — Governor Tim Walz (D) and Senator JD Vance (R) — would speak on their policies regarding reproductive healthcare.
Now, I don’t think I’m out of line when I say that, from the jump, I wasn’t too jazzed about watching any men go back and forth on a scenario they’ll never experience first-hand. However, both candidates brought up some pretty good points: Walz recognized that reproductive healthcare isn’t a debate topic — it’s a human right for anyone with a uterus — and supported broadening abortion access and reproductive healthcare such as contraception nationwide.
Vance, surprisingly, spoke passionately about expanding resources for pregnant people, including ways to make raising a child more affordable and accessible, and (in his words) pass policies that “give women more options.” And while his words may have sounded fine and dandy on the surface, they left me enraged — because Vance’s record on reproductive rights speaks for itself: He isn’t pro-life, he’s not even pro-family. He’s pro-forced birth.
After the debate, I wasn’t surprised to see folks praising Vance’s stance on abortion. However, let’s not overlook the wolf in sheep’s clothing, here: Vance has been outspoken about his support of a nationwide abortion ban, likens abortion to murder, and has stated that rape is “inconvenient” when it comes to allowing exceptions in cases of assault and incest. (He’s also really obsessed with people having kids. Which is just weird.)
So while it may be true that Vance wants to provide more options for pregnant people, it comes at the cost of taking away options like abortion. And, for some folks, abortion is the only option.
While other people may have been at a place in life where they could go through with the pregnancy — and either raise the child or put them up for adoption — for me, the only option would be to terminate the pregnancy, and nothing could’ve changed that.
I was 18 when I took a pregnancy test in a CVS bathroom. I was just three weeks into my first semester at one of the most prestigious film schools in the world and ready for all of the things college life had to offer. But despite my independence, I was not ready to be a mother.
It had taken me around four weeks after my missed period (which has always been irregular due to a diagnosed hormonal irregularity) to build up the courage to take a test. Even though I was on the pill and had never had sex without a condom, the possibility of pregnancy haunted me: I was newly single after a three-year relationship, thousands of miles away from home, and peeing on a stick in the bathroom of a CVS as the girl who drove me there (who I had only known for about two weeks) waited outside.
I spent the three minutes it took for the results to appear scrolling on my phone. With about $900, the last of my summer job money, to my name, I searched for clinics near me in case the test was positive, and if it were possible to get an abortion without my parents, or anyone else, finding out. While other people may have been at a place in life where they could go through with the pregnancy — and either raise the child or put them up for adoption — for me, the only option would be to terminate the pregnancy, and nothing could’ve changed that.
The stance of outlawing abortion to make raising a child more accessible isn’t empowering to folks with nonviable or unplanned pregnancies, and it isn’t pro-family in the slightest. If anything, it’s hypocritical.
The test was negative — but what if it wasn’t? In Vance’s America, I would have been forced to go through a pregnancy in a 230-square-foot dorm room, or drop out of college entirely. I would have given birth to a child I did not want and either raise them with the little resources I had, or send them into an overpopulated and deeply broken foster care and adoption system. So if abortion was taken away as my option, it would’ve left one: forced birth.
While that scenario was just a stream of hypotheticals for me, it’s a reality for the millions of folks who are living in states with limited abortion access — and it doesn’t even begin to account for the cases in which women are forced to carry pregnancies that are nonviable and may risk their own lives in states where abortion after a certain point is banned. The stance of outlawing abortion to make raising a child more accessible isn’t empowering to folks with nonviable or unplanned pregnancies, and it isn’t pro-family in the slightest. If anything, it’s hypocritical: How can you say that you want to give us options, but promote taking them away in the same breath?
Being in support of abortion access doesn’t prohibit you from advocating for more resources for pregnant people, though. It’s true that it’s expensive to raise a child, and it’s true that the government should be helping those who want to start families in this country. But it’s also true that nobody should be forced to give birth just because you’re weirdly obsessed with people having babies — especially if those “options” you’re proposing don’t even exist.
So until Vance is terrified, broke, and sitting in the bathroom of a CVS — just three minutes from finding out if his entire life will collapse — or, better yet, until Vance grows a uterus of his own, then I don’t want to hear about his options regarding mine.