Pro-Choice Versus Pro-Life Continued

The Andrea Smith essay is very in depth so I am going to use this entry in order to discuss the critiques of the “Pro-Choice” groups.  The main problem with their campaign stems from the name. These advocates do not address all groups of women when they are protesting and presenting their cases to legislation.  Two main groups that have been marginalized are Native American women who mostly use Indian Healthcare that would not cover certain things pertaining to reproductive rights, and poor women because they do not fight for federal funding for abortion, so it seems as if these women do not actually have a choice. The women who are on welfare are more at risk to get pregnant because they cannot afford contraceptives, then they do not have the choice to have the fetus aborted if they do end up pregnant, then once the child is born they cannot afford to have another baby causing them to need to more government help. There is a never-ending cycle that these activists do not think about when they fail to include these types of demands in their campaigns. It also seems as if some of the organizations that claim to be pro-choice, such as Planned Parenthood, are more concerned with population control rather than the rights and opportunities for the women they provide support for. Women who are given contraceptives are not also well informed about the product that they are about to utilize (Smith, 131). They are not completely informed about all the choices that they do have making it more of a pro-population control campaign rather than a pro-choice campaign. When I think about it, some of the clinics my friends have gone to, whether it is Planned Parenthood or a university based clinic, they have not been given options with the birth controls that they are given and just take whatever is offered for free without having much knowledge on the product.  Before reading this essay by Smith I had never given that much thought although I did support “Pro-Choice” and the free clinics, I never really gave much thought to what it means to truly have a choice.