What Being a Teen Mom Taught Me About Choice

At 18, I chose to carry my unintended pregnancy to term. Now conservatives are taking choices away from other women. On Mother’s Day, we need to celebrate but also stand for women to have the same right to choose I did.

In celebration of Mother’s Day, May 9th, 2010, Rewire is publishing a series of articles on the intersection of motherhood with reproductive and sexual justice.

Propagating the mantra ‘Don’t do it’ does little to reduce the rates of teen pregnancy and STIs. Warnings do little without framework and support.

At age 17, struggling with the choice to become sexually active, I realized how little I knew about how to protect myself. What little knowledge I had came from MTV’s HIV/AIDs awareness.  Promoting the use of condoms is an important step, but ensuring that 17 year-olds watching know where to obtain condoms is an even more important one.

Later that year, I had another choice to make.  At 18, I chose to carry my unintended pregnancy to term, still unsure of the path I would take.  Just prior to my high school graduation, I made the choice to be a mother and work my way from there. The key point was that I was able to make all those choices.  I chose.  I chose to go onto college, work like crazy and attempt to be a competent mother.  I chose to do all this in the face of scrutiny and doubt. It was my choice and I was responsible for that choice.

My choices are what make me who I am: I am a pro-choice mom.

Not all women are able to make these same choices in their lives. In an all-out assault on women’s rights, conservatives want to remove a woman’s free will and make choices for them. Conservatives talk about personal responsibility and personal freedom, yet they want to take away the fundamental right to control our own body. They want to take away a woman’s right without taking any of the responsibility that goes with it. When legislators remove choice, they are making the choices for women and therefore are responsible for those actions. Responsible for those tragic deaths of desperate women and girls; responsible for the terrible deaths of babies because women have nowhere to turn and don’t know about safe- haven laws. Taking away women’s rights to choose takes away their free will and puts the responsibility on the state and those legislators that made the choice for them.

We, as pro-choice men and women, pro-choice mothers and fathers, need to stand up to legislators that continue to chip away at our choices. I honor and respect the choices of all women and acknowledge that there is no one right choice for all.  I support and defend our right to choose. So this weekend, along with celebrating my son’s 13th birthday; I will celebrate my choices in life, all my choices. On Mother’s Day, we all can celebrate the choices women in our lives have made and we must work to ensure that future women have the same right to choose that I did.