How to raise your kids to be pro-choice…

takes a lot of conditioning since telling your child what abortion really is might frighten the daylights out of him.

Sophia from the Abortion Gang blog tries to give it a shot. Here are some lowlights of the post:

I want him to be confident, to have faith in his own abilities, to be happy and creative. I want him to be successful (however he defines it). I want him to be loved. I want my son to have more opportunities than I had growing up. I want to indulge him, but not spoil him. I want to make sure he respects women. I want him to understand he only has control over his own person, that because he has a penis there is no inherent right to have control over another’s person.

I’m sure your son is loved, but being pro-choice means if the circumstances are tough you can get rid of the little bugger before birth. Respect women? I don’t know if abortion really shows respect for women.

But this, all at once, seems impossible to teach a six year old. At what age does one start talking about sex? In our society, sex and all its “trappings” are taboo at any age, so there is no answer to the question. Yet, throughout history and in many current cultures, sex is something freely spoken of and not shamed. Children become educated about “where babies come from” when they begin to talk.

At first, I didn’t know what this had to do with raising a pro-choice child but then Sophia explains:

Our culture’s obsession with keeping sex out of the public realm means more children are going to have less information about sex and less information about the importance of women having autonomy over their bodies. Ironically, we are constantly bombarded with sex messaging in the media, yet we’re not supposed to talk openly about sex.

Umm, Sophia, ever hear of Cosmo? Try watching television for a half-an-hour and see if you can avoid any image that is at least somewhat sexual in nature. Our culture treats women as objects and their fertility as a disease. It is not about autonomy over their bodies since there is another body involved.

Finally, the most important advice I have been given from another parent to me about parenting, is no matter what, love your child. This goes so far in creating happy, confident and well-adjusted children, and then adults, later in life. I don’t mean to imply that anti-choicers are not happy, simply that happy and confident children will be more receptive to constructive and intellectually stimulating conversations, including talks about why he or she should be pro-choice.

This makes no sense. How can you say love your child no matter what and then defend a position which states that if circumstances are too tough that child’s life is dispensable?

Pro-choicers do need this “guide” if they are to raise their kids pro-choice. If they truly told their kids what abortion was and what the pro-choice argument was all about, there would be a lot more pro-lifers in this world.