Prochoice is a defensive stance. Here's why that's a problem.

Prolife is an offensive stance. Whenever the issue of abortion is brought up, it is usually done so from a fetus centric view. ''Abortion is immoral because it is the taking a of a human life.''

And then the narrative of the morality of abortion bans comes in. We do not often hear the topic arise from a stance of a woman's human rights being violated. It never starts from there.

This is a problem. Because once the topic has been presented, fence sitters who are not clear on their stance, have already been influenced towards the prolife narrative. It immediately evokes a revulsion at the thought of innocent life being taken.

We need to bring this up from an offensive stance. ''Abortion bans are immoral because a humans' right to their own body is being exploited and violated.'' Or hell, ''Lets talk about human rights violations. There are people who are trying to exploit and use womens bodies, who want to violate their bodies and force them to be used in a manner in which they do not want it to be used.''

We need some sort of language that evokes that emotional response of revulsion to our end so we can then lay the groundwork for the logic behind it. The logic works on its own. The problem is that people who are neutral on a subject will be brought in one way or the other when they hear an argument that elicits an emotional response. That is how you get people interested in any topic. But the emotional response that is elicited towards abortion is not just emotional. It is also illogical because it is presented deceptively. But when we go in and try to point out the deception, it can be hard for them to cut ties with that response, especially when they are rooted into other privileged views such as:

• ''Well I can never get pregnant, so I cant fully grasp what it would be like to lose rights to my body because the ways in which I could lose those rights are no longer things that happen. I am not even aware of the fact that I could lose rights to my body because we live in such a progressive society. I am safe and don't even know it.''
• ''I, myself, would never get an abortion no matter the circumstance. I cant envision a need for such a thing. I would lay down my life for my unborn child. Because of this, I am a good & selfless person. So anyone who would find use for abortion is a bad and selfish person.''
• ''Women are meant to be subservient to men & their children. Historically, women have been used as bartering tools between families by their fathers. Traditionally they have always been the home maker for men. And their bodies are literally designed to make babies. We are not taking away their rights because they never had those rights to begin with, it is clearly the natural order of things, and to give them those privileges result in men losing their ''rights'' (privileges), therefore, they do not deserve equal rights to men.''

Abortion ban advocates already know the power of emotion. Starting from a woman centered approach would expose their side as vile misogynists. Saying ''women are obligated to continue a pregnancy once it started because she consented to sex or because she was born with a uterus, and we want to make sure this happens by force. Join our movement?'' doesn't sell as well.

This is why they use images of aborted fetuses, images of infants, and even (inaccurate) life like models of babies to represent the developing blastocyst & embryo in utero. This pulls passerby's in and gains them sympathy to their cause. The illogical framework is presented, and the rest of the framework can then be laid out. And because the starting point is one of emotional outrage towards the idea of an innocent life being smited, being ''murdered'', they will continue to view all subject matter surrounding it through those outraged colored lens', making it difficult to reach them.

We can't just be passive about this. 

We can't just voice our opinions as a reactionary action when prolife steps into the room. We need to speak out about the immorality of the prolife movement, the deception of reproductive terrorists.

If you don't use logic to arrive at your beliefs, logic cannot get you out of those beliefs. The prochoice stance is, of course, emotional, but it is logically sound, is consistent will other human rights and ethical frameworks society already agrees on, and doesn't require deception to get its foot in the door. It relies on truth. Because even when we get to talking about the fetus, our logic still stands whether we view the fetus with or without human rights. The prolife movement cannot do the same.

This is not some idle battle we should only talk about when we need to defend ourselves.

Abortion bans are immoral.

I know there are women who were alive during pre Roe times who are exhausted that this is still a debate.

I know there are women, who are long since gone, who had to deal with the oppression of church leaders making decisions surrounding the quickening. Making decisions about their bodies, passing judgement on their moral intuition or rather believing they lacked it completely, and overwriting a woman's ownership over her body with their own in the form of moral gatekeeping.

I know there are women who lived during a time before medicine was at a place where it could even reduce the chances of pregnancy, let alone offer safe abortion. Our ancestors of this race we call human, died during pregnancy & childbirth. They lived in a society where having access to medical advances such as abortion was not even something they could dream of. Advances that could not only save their lives, but improve the quality of their lives for themselves as well as their families. Families that had to watch their mothers, sisters, daughters, neighbors, die. Families that suffered in poverty & despair. Families that were told by their religion that this was God's will.

For all of the women that were oppressed, in honor of all of our ancestors who were wrongly denied their right to their own body, this self-righteous ideology, needs to end.

We need to call out their movement for the immorality that it is. Because they will not stop. They haven't stopped. They continue to introduce the same tired bills over and over again. Heartbeat bills. Viability bills. And now they are introducing medically impossible ecotopic reimplantation bills. And they know they are ridiculous. They know they will get shot down. So they introduce laws that will essentially deregulate the access to abortion out with TRAP laws.

In short, we need to be doing more, not just to present abortion as a right, but that abortion is a way in which we exercise our human right to bodily autonomy and present the immorality of these abortion ban attempts. We need to stop letting them have the podium, not just all to themselves, but at all. 

What they are doing is illogical, deceptive, and immoral.

It is time we stop just taking the mic back, but rather, present our own podium, bring our own mic, and speak. We need to not only speak out for our right to own our own bodies, but speak out against the immorality of the prolife movement. We do not need them to present the mic before our voices are heard. Our voices should be heard, period.

This is not some idle battle we should only talk about when we need to defend ourselves. Not many people, prolifer, prochoicer, or bystander, recognize how immoral, how vile, abortion bans actually are. This needs to end. Americans have an election coming up and abortion has, yet fucking again, been thrown out as political fodder to manipulate voters to vote how they want them to vote. We cant go back and change that. It is, however, time we not only start changing the narrative, but start imposing our own.

They have owned this narrative long enough.

This is our fucking narrative.