What Could Be Better Than Abortion? (Another Blog for Choice)

Yesterday, the second annual "Walk For Life West Coast" returned to plague our fair city of San Francisco. I must confess that I did not attend the counter-protest. Props to all of the pro-choice activists who spoke and marched, though.

It's pathetic that the anti-choicers come to San Francisco anyway. This year it did not even make the front page of the Chronicle (terrible coverage, as usual). For the special SF audience, the antis water message down their message, pretend to abandon their terrorist tactics- heck, they even have to leave their nasty fetus pictures at home! Catholic churches from far and wide were the main organizers (and I'd suspect funders) of the busloads of people. Ostensibly, though, this march was organized by two San Francisco women (Dolores Meehan and Eva Muntean) whose resumes boast anti-gay rights activities and Catholicism to the max.

These people can march all they want. They are not the majority of Americans, they are not the majority of Californians and they are so far from a majority in wonderful San Francisco that it is laughable. Let them waste their time. Look how Prop. 73 turned out- and that was just parental notification law. (Parental notification laws are atrocious, don't get me wrong, but they are a far cry from outlawing abortion for everyone, aren't they?)

Attempting to psychoanalyze these women who campaign so tirelessly to revoke and criminalize the rights of other women does get me down, though. Their message for the past two years has been "Abortion Hurts Women" and "Women Deserve Better Than Abortion". So does abortion hurt MORE than being forced to have you can't care for? And what, Eva and Dolores, do women deserve that's better than abortion? If you mean convenient, safe, affordable access to contraception and health care in general, I agree with you. If you mean comprehensive sex ed-right on! Access to family planning for women overseas? Assurance that we won't be fired for being pregnant? Enforcement of restraining orders against batterers and stalkers? Rapists actually going to prison? Name your dream to make the world a safer place for women to live our lives and I am with you. But you are not for that at all. You're clear about what you are against but you don't answer your own question.