Over the past few years, I have collected little gems about abortion from journalists, commenters, patients, bloggers and colleagues. Distilled from their comments are lessons to be learned from women who speak out about abortion and other reproductive health care issues.

Abortion isn’t a Sin

Saying abortion is a “grave sin” translates to your hang-ups and your religious judgment. Abortion is a very complex decision women make for their own moral reasons and sin doesn’t factor into the decision.

Abortion isn’t Wrong

Abortion access is an important issue for Christians concerned with social justice. When 1 in 3 American women will have an abortion, it’s no wonder that religious folks like Rev. Briere, Rev. Rebecca Turner, Catholics for Choice and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, know so many women who have needed this medical service. We should sincerely thank all religious progressives for their humanist perspective on this because too often we hear of the extremist conservative Christians trying to claim moral high ground while shaming and disrespecting women.

The Life of a Woman is Precious

If life is precious, why are you willing to force women to continue a pregnancy that can kill them? Are their lives less important than the potential life of the fetus?

Women and their right to bodily autonomy and self-determination are precious.

There is nothing precious about an unwanted pregnancy.

What part of DOES NOT WANT TO BE PREGNANT is too complicated and confusing for you?

The Fetus is Non Sentient and Inexpressive

Mindless, oblivious, nonviable tissue and cells cannot ‘want’ anything, cannot want to go to the beach, cannot love you.

An embryo isn’t capable of being innocent.

The fetus until late in gestation is mindless, insensate, nonviable, and oblivious. Until there is a functional cerebral cortex there is ‘no one home’.

Abortion is Taking Responsibility

Abortion is taking responsibility. There is nothing responsible about having a child you don’t want and can’t feed, clothe, house and educate.

Women are feeling, reasoning human beings who have the right to decide if and when they want to be pregnant.

Good Women Have Abortions

Good women make good decisions every day to terminate or continue their pregnancies. Women are perfectly capable of making decisions about their pregnancies. It’s time for the rest of world to respect that capability.

Sex is My Business

Sex isn’t wrong. Sex is natural. Being sexual is God-given just like feet, hands, mouths, and brains.

STFU. My uterus, my business. You can pound sand.

Saying I have to endure nine months of rape just because the way my body was developed means that, in order to show respect, I can’t determine my own bodily autonomy. You are victimizing me because I have a uterus.

Crisis Pregnancy Centers

I find it not just morally wrong for these “clinics” to exist but also personally insulting as it seems that all I would have to have done to be a healthcare professional is love Jesus, and spew propaganda at vulnerable women.

Women Don’t Regret Their Abortions

The most common emotion women feel post abortion is relief. If women feel negative emotions, they are probably a result of the antiabortion movement itself. After all, the picketers who scream “murderer” at women entering clinics are significant stress-inducers.