I have this crazy, irrational theory that I just came up with while in the shower (where I often receive my craziest, most irrational theories): I think that pro-choice people and pro-life people should work together.

Insane, I know!

As a pro-choice person, I have felt such animosity toward people I dub anti-choice since I can remember. How dare they tell women how to control their own bodies! How dare they try to implement legislation that allows the government to control medical procedures! I still feel this anger, but I’ve realized that my anger, while valid, doesn’t really help anything.

But the anti-choice folks and I—as well as most people, I would think—do have similar goals when it comes to many things. We both want healthy, happy families. I think we’d both like for all children to be taken care of, as well as all pregnant women. I think we both definitely would love to see a reduction in the number of abortions, too. To accomplish these goals, I think we should unite and stop bickering and focus on the following issues:

1. Make birth control readily available, affordable, and effective. Every person who has the potential to be sexually active should have access to contraceptives. We should all push for a very reliable contraceptive as well—perhaps a birth control pill that works without side effects—one for both men and women?
2. Increase sex education. Teach not just about pregnancy and STDs but how to prevent them. This is one of the best ways to prevent a pregnancy, STD, or an abortion from happening. Showing teens how to put a condom on is not hard, and it does not have to be embarrassing; I taught my younger sisters with a hairbrush handle. These young people are full of hormones and developing bodies; who are we to deny them the information they need to utilize their bodies in responsible ways? Indeed, part of our job should be to show them how to be responsible about all kinds of choices in life, including sex.
3. Increase healthcare services for pregnant women. See #1.
4. Make adoption and foster parenting more inviting for families. I don’t mean to de-regulate by any means, but it can be very expensive to adopt. Keep the background checks, the home visits, and the responsibility all within the equation—but cut the costs to make it easier for people to help parentless children.
5. Raise responsible men. We need to raise responsible women, to be sure—but the blame is so often placed on women—even raped women—for getting pregnant in the first place. We need to raise our boys to be responsible, to always use contraceptives, and to respect women.

Honestly, I think these are things we could really work together on. Maybe we could meet once a year, put away the gory signs and rhyming rhetoric, and start cracking down on these issues together. What do you say?