I am pro-choice.

I had written out a couple of blog posts in advance so I could just press “publish” and have something new this week. But then the Supreme Court went ahead and did what I was afraid they were going to do.

I am in the business of writing entertaining books. I like to include a moral or a teaching moment in my stories, but I try to be subtle about it so the reader is not clobbered over the head with my moral values. I was the kid who always changed the channel at the end of He-Man, so I wouldn’t have to get smacked with the “moral of the story.” I hated church for the same reason — they would tell us a story, and then tell us how to act because of the story. What? Just tell me a story, dammit! (Luckily for me, my mom got into paganism when she went to college, so no more church for this little heathen! Yay!)

However, I have read really good stories that do center around themes I not only agree with, but love. Some of the books I love most have taught me things I didn’t know before. But these aren’t a heavy-handed moral, they’re woven through the story, values the characters have tested or learn as they go, and the reader experiences and learns along with them. I can get behind this sort of thing, especially when the lesson is maybe one that’s a little off beat, or maybe hard to find in day-to-day life, but important nonetheless. (I wrote a whole book about that moment when I was a kid and I realized the grown-ups were NOT on my side and did NOT care what happened to me, and that I was on my own and all that “tell a grown-up!” stuff was a lie. That’s the kind of lesson I can get behind.)

All this is to say, I most likely won’t be including this moral anywhere in any of my stories. I’m probably not going to write a story about a pregnant vampire having to face a choice. Other stories have done that elsewhere, and while it’s an important conversation, it does seem a little heavy-handed to include in a fiction book that’s primarily meant to entertain. I write stories. I leave the teaching parables to others.

I will go ahead, however, and say that I am pro-choice. If such an issue ever does arise as a plot point in any of my books, it will center around pro-choice values.

I will not debate this. This isn’t a debate. This isn’t hypothetical. This is me, and my body, and my life, and things that could actually happen to me and all the women in my life. Literally. There is no debate. If you disagree with me, I’m sorry to hear that, it sucks to lose someone who was interested in my work, but good-bye. You and I are not compatible.