“Without choice, no ethics lives.”

Marge Piercy

As the unruly child of evangelicals who wanted to control me, I have lived a life committed to wide open choices, and write a lot about the power of choice and intentional decisions, personally, in regards to work, and civically.

The potential rollback of the guarantee of reproductive rights choice in the US is a predictable and distressing turn of events, given that 60% of Americans support abortion options. But the issue is about colliding worldviews: top-down control vs decentralized free choice.

The status quo culture – the one created by colonizer, extractive, greed-based and individualist approaches – will use language of care to apply control, because power = control in their worldview. I think we’re seeing a control play by a minority powerful elite, who sees their power running out.

We can know this is true, and reframe our focus as the more mindful: choice.

Choice is power too, but power in relationship to self and others. It’s responsibility and decisions. It’s options that matter [way more than the color of an item ordered online, that’s cheap replacement choice under consumerism]. Choice is what we want, for ourselves and others, because it’s how life can be lived on purpose.

Liberation is creating opportunities for people to make their own choices, in consideration of right relationship to people and planet. This is a moment for all of us to feel our feelings, tune into where we have choice, turn up the dial on making intentional choices, and agitate for more choice for more people.

More on this in the video below