Janice Formichella
Janice is a long-time women’s rights activist. She currently serves as Campaign Manager for the Moral Courage Project. Janice volunteers for the NYC Planned Parenthood Activist Council and Women for Afghan Women. She recently received her MPA in Public and Nonprofit Management from NYU and has a goal of working with and for women in developing countries. Janice holds BA degrees in English and Women’s Studies from Arizona State University, where she founded the campus group Women Beyond Borders. Her interests include women’s history, women’s rights, pregnancy and birth, and issues related to Afghanistan. Janice writes regularly for Feminist for Choice and the Moral Courage Project. She lives with her husband and two cats in Brooklyn.
What is feminism?
Feminism is the celebration of working towards the equality and self-actualization of all women.
Why I am Pro-Choice
I am pro choice because I respect my ability to decide what is done with my body.
I am pro choice because choice is about more than just choosing to have an abortion or not.
Freedom of choice includes all aspects of fertility and reproductive health. This includes access to birth control, sexual education, sexual autonomy and pleasure, when to have children, and how to deliver them.
I want to choose where and how to bear my children just as much as I want to choose when I conceive them.
The colonization of the female body will not end until all women on this planet have access to safe abortions, but also when a woman can decide the circumstances surrounding giving birth.
This choice of circumstance includes not being fed fear-inducing images about childbirth from the media.
This choice of circumstance includes deciding where to bear your children and choosing who will be present and who will supervise you labor.
This choice of circumstances includes not being coerced into having an epidural or Cesarean.
This choice of circumstance includes having the option to feel good about your pregnancy and to be treated as a mother, not as an accident waiting to happen.
As women we will know that the colonization of our bodies is coming to an end when the patriarchal forces in the West stop telling women that pregnancy and birth is something that they must fear, because the absence of fear is the essence of freedom.
As feminists we will know that the dream of freedom of choice is being realized when society allows women more choices in childbirth as well as more access to abortion.
I am pro-choice because I see the link between choices in childbirth and family planning.
I am pro-choice because I understand that until women have full freedom and a wide range of choices regarding their body reproduction we will continue to live in a colonized society, subservient to patriarchal institutions and misogyny.
E-mail Janice: janice@feministsforchoice.com
