I was raised in a pretty moderate household. Both of my parents ID as republican but my mom has voted Democrat in recent elections and my Dad doesn’t vote. In our 5th grade mock 2000 election, I voted for GWB because my mom was voting for him. But since then, I’ve formed my opinions about politics and social issues. I think the first time I started to really care was in 9th grade when I made my first gay friend (he was in 10th grade so it was our first time in the same school together and we became fast friends). He wasn’t particularly active or concerned with political issues, but he was aware of the discrimination he faced both socially and legally. I think once I became an active supporter of marriage equality, everything else started to fall in to place as liberal too.
Oddly abortion was the one I struggle the most with. I remember, very clearly, being in Sunday School in 8th grade right before confirmation and our teacher performing a GRAPHIC late-term abortion on a teddybear she had stuck under her shirt. I only had to hear ‘vacuum out the brain’ once before deciding not to support abortion as a 13 year old.
I think I gave up that stance pretty quickly upon starting to have sex myself a few years later but it wasn’t an issue that was high up on my radar until college. Maybe it was getting more involved with politics overall, maybe it was the rise of the Tea Party, maybe it was being closer to entering the job market and no longer being able to pretend the glass ceiling would shatter before I got there. But somehow over the last +/- 5 years I became a really strong pro-choicer.
That’s my history, anyway…I’m not as good about getting the actual tenants of my belief system in to words but I’ll do my best.
Bodily autonomy is a right. Our laws are dictated disproportionately by men who seem to forget that. Women are not baby mills—in fact, restricting abortion by financial means like distance and cost means there are more unwanted babies born to women who can’t afford to support them. A woman shouldn’t have to raise a child for 18+ years simply because some lawmakers said she couldn’t get a cluster of cells removed from her uterus.
Why I'm Pro-Choice 
It’s between a woman and her doctor, not a woman, her doctor, and a body of complete strangers telling her what she can and cannot do. Abortion restrictions are right on up there with the invasion of privacy afforded the U.S. by the NSA. Well-put and inspiring!