A pretty vital part of being a pro-choice feminist is accepting and supporting women who show a broad range of emotions after abortion, including relief, pain, indifference, sadness, and happiness. Being compassionate in this context requires understanding that women come from a damn-near infinite number of complex situations and abort for many different reasons. A choice that is almost unbearably difficult for one woman might be easily made by the next, and that's okay.

In the past couple years, it's become starkly apparent that a certain subset of self-labeled pro-choicers have somehow come to the conclusion that abortion should be legal, but that it can only be justified in cases where the women who have them exhibit a sufficient degree of self-loathing. These are the same "pro-choice" people who openly attacked Anti-Theist Angie for live-tweeting her abortion. They're the same ones who thought throwing a party to raise funds for an abortion was the single most callous thing ever done.

It's not abortion that bothers them, really; it's the idea that a woman could have one and skip out on the mandatory suffering. This is precisely the same mindset that you see so often in the anti-abortion crowd: she had sex, she got pregnant, and now it's time for her to be punished for it. Having an abortion and then happily getting on with one's life is cheating.

To the average well-read feminist, this seems ridiculous. If there's nothing inherently criminal about having sex or getting pregnant, there's nothing deserving of punishment.

Now, could someone pass the word on to our elected officials? Because they seem awfully good at pandering to this clearly misogynist idea...