I am an introvert. Introverts crave alone time, value their boundaries, and gain energy from solitude. I feel immense joy when I can sit in a quiet sunny corner, get lost in reading, and drink an iced chai. Those moments are ones I refer to as my “introvert paradise.”

I adore my husband, enjoy my friends, and love my parents, but it’s great to know I’m a separate individual with my own desires and ways to seek happiness and personhood.

When I speak to people about valuing preborn children, I often shake my arms and laughingly say, “Look at me! Isn’t it amazing that I have my own body and am no longer attached to my mom.” I like to give visual aids in the discussion about abortion, and my body is the best one I have.

People who support abortion make the claim that a woman can do whatever she wants with “her body.” It’s a compelling argument, and one that the pro-choice movement has used to defend abortion for decades.

The idea behind bodily autonomy is that women own their bodies, and, therefore, can do as they wish with it. No doubt you’ve heard “my body, my choice.”  However, the major problem with that argument is the simple fact that babies have their own bodies. I will get super scientific and use some profound logic to give you a distinction that will blow your mind: I was never my mom’s body. I was…..wait for it… IN my mother’s body. Case closed, right?

Sadly it’s not that easy for people to believe. We’re all former fetuses, but I think about my time in the womb more often because I was scheduled to be aborted. I had an appointment to die at Mt. Sinai hospital in Hartford, CT, in 1980.

If my mom hadn’t walked out of the abortionist’s office, my little body would have been violently taken out of her’s and thrown into the trash. She wouldn’t have felt the burning pain of salt solution, the pulling of forceps, or the utter loss of dignity that comes from being discarded. She wouldn’t have experienced it because it wouldn’t have happened to her body— it would have happened to mine.

The mothers who’ve donated their aborted babies to research didn’t experience their own body parts being sold to the highest bidder.  Women make the choice, but are spared from the painful physical consequences that come with it. We know preborn babies at 20 weeks can feel pain. Who knows if advances in the coming years will show us they experience it at an even younger gestational age?

To justify dismembering baby bodies, people give fetuses a bad rap. These young lives are called parasites, problems, clumps, and are portrayed as intruders. Although they’re treated like they crashed the party of life, most of them got an invitation. I was invited to grow and develop in my mother’s womb by a decision she made called, “consensual sex.” Interestingly enough, I am not alone! Many former fetuses like myself were brought into the world through the same means. In fact, around 98 percent of women who will have an abortion will do so for elective reasons, as a result of a pregnancy from consensual sex.

The truth is there’s not one type of contraception that is 100 percent effective. If you’re having sex, there’s always a risk of pregnancy.  People take those risks often, and when they get pregnant, the child is declared as unwanted. The baby may not be “wanted” by their parents, but they knew a child was always a possibility. When a possibility becomes a reality, it’s time to take responsibility (see the cool little rhyme I threw in there?).

My heartbeat is the one I had while in my mother’s womb. A woman may claim the preborn child is her own body, but what woman has two hearts? I’m the same gender as my mom, but what if I was a boy? Women claim that the child with male anatomy is their body. I have my own blood type, and I’m a mix of my mother and father’s DNA.

Some doctors say preborn babies grow hair at 14 weeks. I was growing my own little afro back then. I have my own body, and I should always have rights. I was no less of a person at nine weeks than at nine months, or nine years . The size of a baby‚ its location and dependence upon its mother does not make it less of a unique person. I take issue with “my body, my choice” argument because it’s dishonest. Babies have bodies, and they deserve protection, too.

I am an introvert. Introverts crave alone time, value their boundaries, and gain energy from solitude. I feel immense joy when I can sit in a quiet sunny corner, get lost in reading, and drink an iced chai. Those moments are ones I refer to as my “introvert paradise.”

I adore my husband, enjoy my friends, and love my parents, but it’s great to know I’m a separate individual with my own desires and ways to seek happiness and personhood.

When I speak to people about valuing preborn children, I often shake my arms and laughingly say, “Look at me! Isn’t it amazing that I have my own body and am no longer attached to my mom.” I like to give visual aids in the discussion about abortion, and my body is the best one I have.

People who support abortion make the claim that a woman can do whatever she wants with “her body.” It’s a compelling argument, and one that the pro-choice movement has used to defend abortion for decades.

The idea behind bodily autonomy is that women own their bodies, and, therefore, can do as they wish with it. No doubt you’ve heard “my body, my choice.”  However, the major problem with that argument is the simple fact that babies have their own bodies. I will get super scientific and use some profound logic to give you a distinction that will blow your mind: I was never my mom’s body. I was…..wait for it… IN my mother’s body. Case closed, right?

Sadly it’s not that easy for people to believe. We’re all former fetuses, but I think about my time in the womb more often because I was scheduled to be aborted. I had an appointment to die at Mt. Sinai hospital in Hartford, CT, in 1980.

If my mom hadn’t walked out of the abortionist’s office, my little body would have been violently taken out of her’s and thrown into the trash. She wouldn’t have felt the burning pain of salt solution, the pulling of forceps, or the utter loss of dignity that comes from being discarded. She wouldn’t have experienced it because it wouldn’t have happened to her body— it would have happened to mine.

The mothers who’ve donated their aborted babies to research didn’t experience their own body parts being sold to the highest bidder.  Women make the choice, but are spared from the painful physical consequences that come with it. We know preborn babies at 20 weeks can feel pain. Who knows if advances in the coming years will show us they experience it at an even younger gestational age?

To justify dismembering baby bodies, people give fetuses a bad rap. These young lives are called parasites, problems, clumps, and are portrayed as intruders. Although they’re treated like they crashed the party of life, most of them got an invitation. I was invited to grow and develop in my mother’s womb by a decision she made called, “consensual sex.” Interestingly enough, I am not alone! Many former fetuses like myself were brought into the world through the same means. In fact, around 98 percent of women who will have an abortion will do so for elective reasons, as a result of a pregnancy from consensual sex.

The truth is there’s not one type of contraception that is 100 percent effective. If you’re having sex, there’s always a risk of pregnancy.  People take those risks often, and when they get pregnant, the child is declared as unwanted. The baby may not be “wanted” by their parents, but they knew a child was always a possibility. When a possibility becomes a reality, it’s time to take responsibility (see the cool little rhyme I threw in there?).

My heartbeat is the one I had while in my mother’s womb. A woman may claim the preborn child is her own body, but what woman has two hearts? I’m the same gender as my mom, but what if I was a boy? Women claim that the child with male anatomy is their body. I have my own blood type, and I’m a mix of my mother and father’s DNA.

Some doctors say preborn babies grow hair at 14 weeks. I was growing my own little afro back then. I have my own body, and I should always have rights. I was no less of a person at nine weeks than at nine months, or nine years . The size of a baby‚ its location and dependence upon its mother does not make it less of a unique person. I take issue with “my body, my choice” argument because it’s dishonest. Babies have bodies, and they deserve protection, too.