Choice without Options

Abortion is not about choice, it's about women who feel they have no choice.

This was the main point of Australian Melinda Tankard Reist during an interview on Vatican Radio. Abortion is an act of despair, of feeling like there are no other options, not one of choice or of freedom. It results from a culture in which pregnancy can mean the closing of many doors, of being cut off from opportunities. Melinda argued that structural changes are necessary to overcome this reality. Changes which recognize the biological differences between men and women, and respond to the unique nature of women in the educational, work, and other institutions.

An irony of the Pro-Choice movement, Melinda observed, is that it doesn't want to address these issues, it doesn't want to work to create more choices for women. The Pro-Choice movement is intent on instituting one option only, abortion, and does not expend efforts on creating choice by supporting a woman's transition to motherhood, presenting information on adoption, or working in society to remove barriers for mothers, among others. The Pro-Choice movement is about choosing only one option, which fails to make it a choice at all.