I'm Getting Political (yikes!)

It's fairly obvious that there's a lot of hypocrisy surrounding the "my body, my choice" rhetoric that is so often thrown around these days.

Now, ostensibly anyone throwing around such an argument would be hypocritical to pick and choose what this applies to. The most obvious example of this is the appropriation of this slogan by right-wingers to apply to mask mandates; "my body, my choice" means I don't have to wear a mask in public. These right-wingers, of course, are the same people who are zealously cranking out anti-abortion legislation in Republican-controlled states. The irony stings as many people across the country now fear for their health, safety, and well-being as Republicans strip them of their bodily autonomy.

As someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum from the anti-mask, anti-choice faction, I must be able to back up my stance as pro-mask and pro-choice, while reconciling my belief in the "my body, my choice" slogan with its inherent contradiction of one of these opinions.

I think what it comes down to, unsurprisingly, is a difference in values. To be pro-mask and pro-choice is to believe in community while valuing individual rights and autonomy; with my body and the freedom I'm granted, I make the choice to wear a mask in order to protect my community, doing unto others as I'd have them do unto myself. To be anti-mask is to value individual "liberty" at the expense of community. To be anti-choice, however, I cannot reconcile with the supposed emphasis on individual freedom.

The abortion argument, at this point, feels overplayed. Conservatives argue, "how can you justify murder?", we argue, "how can you justify ruining a real, living, breathing person's life?" It goes on and on.

I've been to Planned Parenthood once before, to get a birth control prescription in order to fix my hormonal acne. Outside the clinic, there were three women holding signs. As I passed, they called out to me, and I felt shame. Ridiculous, I know, but something about those women yelling at me made me feel as though I was doing something wrong, like I shouldn't be there. My face felt hot as I opened the door.

I don't like to think about whether I'd ever get an abortion; I hope and pray I'll never find myself in a situation where I must make that choice (don't we all). But I know that choice is not taken lightly by anyone. If someone has made the choice to go to a Planned Parenthood or another clinic for that purpose, if someone has built up the courage and resolve to do that to the point where they are at the door, protestors aren't there to change their mind or to save a "life" or anything like that. Anyone standing outside a clinic yelling at people who go in is there for one reason: to shame people. I believe, truly and deeply, that anyone who would do that has hate in their heart.

I was raised Catholic, and I think the first time I ever really questioned the church was during a discussion of abortion in my eighth grade religious education class. I stopped going to the Catholic church on campus freshman year when I realized that not only did they pray for "the unborn" every week, they also invited the congregation to come with them on trips to Planned Parenthood to participate in "sidewalk counseling." It was right there in the church bulletin, spaghetti dinner Thursdays and sidewalk counseling Saturdays. It made me so sick that these people could listen to a gospel of love and then turn around and go out of their way to do something so hateful.

In my life and in my faith (however nebulous my faith has become), I believe in compassion over all else. Looking out for others, being kind, and doing no harm are all ways that people can be compassionate. I show compassion to other people by wearing a mask in public. I show compassion by not caring what anyone does with their body, as long as they are not doing harm to other people.

I cannot understand the conservative mindset of enforcing harmful and dangerous anti-abortion, anti-healthcare policies while clamoring for an end to mask wearing. There is no compassion in that, nor is there logic.