And this, dear friends, is why I'm pro-choice

My little sister, probably the coolest person I know, laughed down the phone at me this morning, when I told her that universal suffrage did not exist in Switzerland, at the cantonal level, until 1991. The year before she started at school, the women of Appenzell Innerrhoden got the right to vote. Now, Rosie’s not wrong to be shocked. She’s a talented singer and a hardworking medical student, but she’s really not that old, and she had been halfway around the world by the time the country where her big sis is living got around to universal suffrage.

Women’s lib isn’t our usual go-to topic of conversation. But what got us onto it, and what brings it into sharp relief for me, is the thornier topic of reproductive rights. This weekend, I discovered that the contraceptive implant on which I have relied for the last two years had broken. Wikipedia describes Implanon as the most effective form of birth control currently available. But mine is currently in two parts, inside my arm, and I’m pretty sure that’s not the way it’s meant to be. I don’t know for sure that it’s non-functional in this state, but I’ve had a pretty awful withdrawal bleed, so I’m just guessin’…

I’ve been lucky with the timing of this failure. I’m pretty confident that I’m not at risk of an unexpected pregnancy. But that’s sheer luck on my part – and it’s just lucky that I noticed it when I did, too. I’m happy in my career, I love to travel, I’ve just taken up dancing. I don’t want a kid right now. I’m married to a wonderful man, who has medical problems that mean his sleep is extremely precious. He doesn’t want a kid right now. We’re not reckless teenagers – I’ve always been careful about contraception, and a large part of the reason I chose the implant was because of the combination of reliability and ease-of-use that it offers. It works very well, and it’s hard to get wrong.

But “hard to get wrong” is not the same as “impossible to get wrong”. I’m in a fortunate position – I know a pretty good amount about contraception, at least for a layperson. I’m reasonably familiar with the menstrual cycle, I’m bright, I’m numerate. I can remember when I last felt the implant intact, and it’s not all that long ago. I can do the math, and I know when I was last sexually active, and I’m confident that this will all be fine. And despite that confidence, I’m stressed and freaked because I made a choice about my reproductive organs, and the method I used to enact that choice has failed.

I can’t say what I would or wouldn’t do in different circumstances. When it came down to it, I hope that I would choose not to have an abortion – but I’d sure as hell want it to be my decision! It’s my body, it’s my future, it’s my career, it’s my family, it’s my life. Ultimately, this is one decision that’s not about you, it’s about me. And I believe that every woman should have the right to make that decision for herself.

So let’s back up to my shocked little sister. She wasn’t even two years old when Ireland elected a woman to the highest office in the land. And yet she still lives in a country where, were she to need or want an abortion for any reason – personal, social or medical – she would have to get on a boat, or a plane, and leave the island where she has lived her whole life, in order to make that decision. She’s every bit as lucky as I am – she has a supportive family, a big sis in Switzerland, and the brains to work out what she needs and how to get it. (She’s also very familiar with the world outside her island, make no mistake!) No matter which way I look at it, that just seems wrong to me.

Having reproductive choices taken away from you, for any reason, is horrible and scary. Forcing you to go to another country to make those choices is cruel and twisted. And this, dear friends, is why I’m pro-choice.