More Guest Blogging for Choice

Another of my fabulous friends wrote a great piece for Blogging for Choice Day. Erika is a friend from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is working on her undergrad. at UWM in Nursing with minor in Women's Studies. I think her perspective is so important because she has a foot in both fields when it comes to the issue of choice.


What Roe V. Wade Means to Me

You want to know what Roe V. Wade means to me? Not much actually, especially if you’re asking me as a Wisconsin woman. Wisconsin is a pretty progressive and accepting state, which is little known to people who live outside of it. The state of Wisconsin in general, allows a woman to have a choice, until you look a little closer. If you live in Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay (and their surrounding areas) then maybe you do have a choice. But for 80% of Wisconsin counties you probably will not have access to this choice because doctors are not licensed (by choice) or clinics where one could have a choice are not there. So you tell me what choice is it for 80% of the young, poor, and immobile women of Wisconsin is there to make? And that is not even half of the battle. Every weekend I can drive down Farwell Ave (in Milwaukee, WI) and see people with giant posters of aborted fetuses chanting about sins and wrongs women are doing just by entering a clinic. How accessible is that? Do I think I would want to walk into that clinic knowing with what I would meet just outside of it?

Roe Vs. Wade was supposed to mean something and should mean something, but does it really? The reason Roe V. Wade will stay in “limbo” amongst politicians, “friendly” debates, and bloggers is because it has somehow found its way in an untouchable place where it can blindly keep both sides happy. We supporters of choice think we’ve won! Aha! We have a choice, and if you don’t agree, too bad we’ve got Roe V. Wade in our hands to prove it to you pro-“lifers” that we have the law on our side. I just hope that excitement and your choice (if you live in WI) will last ‘til you get to the clinic (if you’re fortunate enough to get to one) and are met with people telling you “All babies want to get borned” and that your baby probably “has fingernails” (Quotes from Juno). There is no choice, when there has already been one made for you. This needs to change and not just be a luxury for women who are more privileged.