So, today is Blog for Choice Day and…well…I’m blogging for choice. (Confession: I wrote this yesterday, but I knew I wouldn’t have time to write a thoughtful post today.)

I could rail against Mike Huckabee for his radical views on abortion.

I could attack the predatory Crisis Pregnancy Centers, which manipulative anti-choicers are setting up next to Planned Parenthoods (coming to you soon at the Highland Park one in St. Paul, by the way) in order to confuse women trying to go to PP.

I could talk about the violence against Planned Parenthood clinics, abstinence only education, which promotes falsehoods about sex, including: view the cited sources

• Do condoms make sexual activity moral? Legal? Healthy?
• AIDS can be transmitted by skin-to-skin contact.
• A young man’s natural desire for sex is already strong due to testosterone…females are becoming culturally conditioned to fantasize about sex as well.
• A guy who wants to respect girls is distracted by sexy clothes and remembers her for one thing. Is it fair that guys are turned on by their senses and women by their hearts?

But I think this last choice sums it up best: “Abortion is not the best choice…because it unfairly penalizes the baby for the bad decision the baby’s parents made.”

The crusade against a woman’s right to choose isn’t about saving babies. It’s structured on a paradigm of punishment and misogyny. An unplanned pregnancy is punishment for a slut. Women are victims and only acquiesce to the potency of male desire. Women are unable to understand their choices; abortion is too weighty a decision for a woman to make.

This is the crux of it.

And, you know, it boggles my mind that many straight women don’t view this battle as more crucial. Sans something terrible happening, I’m never going to get pregnant by accident. On a completely personal level, and without any thought to the larger scheme of things, it doesn’t matter for my body whether or not abortion is legal.

However, this issue isn’t about unplanned pregnancy. It’s about control of women and our lives. The same legislators who rant about abstinence-only education and how abortion should be illegal are ones who vote against social safety-net programs that help children after they’re born. It’s such a simple and blatant form of hypocrisy that I’m surprised people don’t see it.

What’s more, the personal opposition often takes a back seat to the realities of life. The NY Times took a look at real women, many of whom oppose the right to choose, who still chose to terminate pregnancy. It’s a great article. Under din of abortion debate…

Anyway, finally, take a look at this video that asks people whether women should go to jail for having abortions.