Women need to be able to control their own fertility

Echidne of the Snakes:

In short, I think that most of this debate is about the control of fertility, about the control of the size and the makeup of the next generation, and different women face different types of pressure in this. Some women, white ones in this country, are urged to have more children. Other women, minorities in this country, are urged to have fewer or at different times in their lives. But all women will see their own say over their lives reduced by the anti-choice forces should they ever come to power.

Being pro-choice is not just being pro-abortion if the woman wants it. It is also treating a pregnant woman as a full human being and not letting her body or her decision-making be possessed by those she doesn't want to allow in. This does not mean that no other considerations ever prevail, but the principle of the woman's full personhood must not be violated. So I think.

I chose to treat this assigned essay question for today's anniversary of Roe v. Wade from a personal angle. But on most days I don't think about it this way. I see the larger and larger contexts in which all this would play out in our lives. Practically all levels of equality of the sexes require that women can control their own fertility. If that is taken away from us we can never be truly equal in anything else.

Update:
Rox Populi says it in brief:

Why am I pro-choice?
If I had no right to self-determination, I'd be a slave.

Update:
Interrobang has more.

Update:
NTodd:
To me, Pro-Choice means women get to choose at any stage of the process: you can choose to have sex, choose to use contraceptives, choose to have an abortion. There's no such thing as reproductive freedom if you don't get all those choices (and probably some others). Hell, there's no such thing as freedom for anybody if you don't get all those choices.