Oh my, people. We always find ourselves here – the same high school dance, with the pro-lifers on one wall and the pro-choice people on the other wall. We are too scared to meet in the middle because we like the comfort of our people. The few, the brave, find themselves in the punch bowl, chatting with the other side.

Our new president is determined to piss off everyone. He doesn’t want us to get along.

He wants the Pro-Choicers to view the Pro-Lifers as simple, incestuous, racist, backward people.

He wants the Pro-Lifers to view the Pro-Choicers as sex-obsessed baby killers.

But we are more than a label. We all buy groceries, pay cell phone bills and spill hot coffee on ourselves.

I have always been pro-choice. Since before I even started having sex. Now, my parents never had the “sex” talk with me-we never had a pro-life or pro-choice discussion. But, I always thought, who was I to tell someone how to live their life? Because the second I try to do that, someone else can tell me how to live.

Children are a huge financial responsibility. According to a 2010 USDA report, the average middle-income family (i.e. a two-parent household making around $50,000-$250,000, depending on where you live), will spend roughly $12,000 on child-related expenses in their baby’s first year of life. By age two, parents are up to more than $12,500 per year.

Think about it. If you are in a lower income bracket, or a blue-collar worker, or come from vulnerable communities, you are pretty much screwed, financially speaking. Human beings should have the option of choosing whether to take on the large financial responsibility that is a baby. If you know you can’t give your future child everything they need, then you should have the option to not have a kid at that moment in time.

Secondly, sex and relationships are two different things. Yes, sex is better when you are in a healthy relationship, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be in one to enjoy it. Sex has gotten such a bad rep and is still a taboo topic for most people to talk about, but sex is a beautiful thing. It is the one activity you can do, where you don’t have to think or prep.

Let’s think about the benefits that come from having sex. It burns calories for men and women; it provides pain relief, it improves sleep – after a good orgasm, oxytocin is released and helps you sleep, etc. Why should you wait to be in a relationship to experience this? Furthermore, do I have the right to tell you to wait to be in a relationship to experience this? I don’t. No one does.

Third, let’s talk about the ugly side of sex. Rape. Rape is a hideous thing we need to eliminate from this world. It takes away dignity from the human race. It makes young women scared of men. It makes young men into the monsters. The person to blame for any rape, is the perpetrator, NOT THE VICTIM. The world in which the victim has to carry around a constant reminder of the pain and be forced to raise a child that looks like the monster is not the world that I want to live in.

Bottom line: I am pro-choice because I do not know your life story. You can have kids, not have kids, get married, not get married, make out with strangers, be a virgin until marriage – whatever you want. It’s your choice. I find it odd that people are so consumed with what other people are doing in their private lives.

I am pro-choice because I know all our actions are intertwined, and I want a healthy thriving society.

I’ll be at the punch bowl, if you want to meet me there.

Hugs and Smiles,
Nicole