IMHO

The real hot button political issues I tend to stay away from. I have friends and family on both sides of any issue and for the most part, I value those relationships more than I value my opinion on issues that are mostly out of my control.
At this moment in history, I value my opinion enough to speak it; if only to show my support in a matter I have no personal control over.

The fact that I do not have personal control does not mean I do not have a personal stake.
As a fairly healthy, functioning and presumably fertile 56 year old man, I have several stakes in the current hot button issue of female reproductive rights. As an also fairly intelligent, practical and responsible human, were I to engage in sexual congress with a woman of child bearing years, it would be MY responsibility to exercise every measure of caution within my personal power.
That would include ascertaining whether the woman in question was protected from unwanted pregnancy by common birth control means, or otherwise infertile. Should her answer be no, well, then it would be my responsibility to use a condom. That is the only mostly reliable cautionary measure that any man can take short of a vasectomy. I'm just going to say that a vasectomy is a luxury that I (and many other men) can't afford. It is indeed deemed a luxury because it isn't included in insurance coverage.
So, that leaves condoms.
Condoms break. Sometimes at in opportune moments.
Becoming a father at 56 would not be cool with me. If it were also not cool with the unfortunate woman, she should absolutely have the ability to decide to terminate the pregnancy and to be able to do so safely, medically and without judgement or stigma attached to her choice.
Conversely, if the woman's personal beliefs cause her to choose to NOT terminate the pregnancy it is then MY responsibility to honor that choice and accept the consequences of the broken rubber conundrum. Consequences aren't always punishment. Sometimes they are just part of the chain of events.
In any case I only see it as absolute common sense that this a choice the woman must make. I could state my position, I could ask for what I feel would be best, but it's not my body, it's not my life. The worst case scenario for me is a child is born and I end up with an additional financial obligation, whether I choose to be an actual parent again or not.
The woman though. She has to be a mother.
When she didn't want to be. Didn't expect to be. Possibly can't afford to be. Sentenced to 18 years of parenthood that she was not prepared to commit.
It's happened countless times.
I also have a personal stake regarding the women and girls in my life who face the very real possibility of having the most basic right to their body and lives taken away from them. Some of them are you. Some are your wives, girlfriends, daughters, nieces, grandchildren and friends.
Condoms can break, IUD's can get out of place, "the pill" can cause massive hormone disturbances and also in fact fail. No woman should ever, EVER be punished for this.
It is insane that it's even being considered.
This is just the upside of potential unwanted pregnancies. There's no need to even discuss the matter of unwanted pregnancy as the result of rape, molestation and incest. It's real. It happens. 
Everybody talks about the Constitution. I personally find the Declaration of Independence a more valuable document.
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
If a woman is forced to carry a pregnancy to term when the end result will be her death, her right to life has been infringed. If she can't choose what is best for her body, and her life her liberty has been stolen. If she survives the pregnancy and the baby is born, healthy or otherwise, her right to happiness has been taken away and replaced with a responsibility she did not want.
The world will never 100% agree on abortion. That doesn't mean that it's not a necessary option. To attempt to take away this right based on religious/biblical bs needs to stop. FFS the bible doesn't even mention abortion. Although it does often allude to sacrificing them after they're born.
More important than my own little miniscule chance of a broken condom resulting in an unwanted pregnancy, is the memories I have of woman who have been forced into unwanted pregnancies.
Let's start with my own mother. It was 1965 and she was 18 years old. She was not on birth control, the situation occurred as it did, there was not a condom involved and to make it worse, while the man who impregnated her WAS her boyfriend, he did not take no for an answer.
My mother is pregnant with me in 1965, 18 years old, just graduated high school with a head full of dreams and ready to make her way in the world.
In those days abortion wasn't pretty. It wasn't legal or medically performed. Additionally her family was strongly catholic and any such notion would have been shot down quickly.
So her choices were two: she could leave and go away until I was born and give the baby up for adoption OR she could marry the guy who forced himself on her, that she didn't love or want to be with long term.
She got married. He beat her. I was born. She worked three jobs, he beat me and her and fed me baby bottles with wine while he got drunk and left me. When she found out he had also molested me she smashed him in the face with a cast iron frying pan. They were divorced and the man was ordered cut off from her and me up to and including that she would not even accept child support from him.
My Mom never got to chase her dreams. She became a single mother who had to rely on my grandmother and my aunt to take care of me so she could continue to work three jobs.
I of course grew up all kinds of fucked up, became an alcoholic, got locked up when I was a kid and took another young mans life in a fight when I was 19 years old and spent over half of my life at one point incarcerated.
My Mom should have been able to look at the situation and choose what was in the best interest of her life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. 
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be alive as a result of the whole thing and after my Mom adjusted she loved me and cared for me and provided me with the best parenting she could. She would never say she regretted having me and in truth she probably didn't until I was about 12 or so. But she gave up her life, liberty and pursuit of happiness in exchange for mine. Because she had no viable options.
Do I wish she would have terminated her pregnancy? No. I do wish she would have had the choice though. The truth is, if she had had that choice and had taken it, I would have never known and she would have been able to recover and continue her life as she had wanted.
And I know she thought about it. She thought about it at times I was in trouble and otherwise struggling and sabotaging my own life. She felt guilty for the life I was having.
There was always a rocky side to our relationship and I think there was legitimate resentment on her part as well as feeling guilty about the life I had based on the choices I made.
In the end, she died at 49 years old in a freak car accident when she had just gotten my brother out of her care and was trying to recapture the dreams of her youth and salvage those which were still viable. We had made as close to peace as we ever would, but the fact remains that she did not get to see the son she sacrificed so much for, not even once in 10 years. The day she died she was thinking about finally seeing me two weeks later. It didn't happen.
That's my first personal story regarding my support for women's reproductive rights. I do not wish my Mom would have terminated her pregnancy with me. I'm grateful for my life including the less savory parts. I do wish she had the choice and that she was free to make it.
Second story: 1980. Times had changed, Roe-v-Wade had happened. I'm 14 years old and a girl in my school gets pregnant. This was absolutely unheard of at the time where I grew up.
While abortion was a legal and medically safe procedure, the girl did not have a choice. She was under 18 and her parents were very Catholic and anti-abortion.
She had to carry the baby as a thirteen year old girl. She had to continue to go to school at one of the most terrible times for any teenager to be in school. She had to become more noticeably pregnant, she had to endure teasing, tormenting. She walked with her head down in shame waiting for the next "slut" or "whore" to come out of some other teenagers mouth.
She quit school when the baby was born and like my mother she was denied her right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I've looked her up on Facebook and her life has never recovered. Who knows what horrible experiences her and her child have endured?
At least our government wasn't stopping her choice, but parents to minors over rule any choice. Her choice should not have been made by her parents.
Third story: Late 1984, I'm 18, fresh out of lock up, definitely not a responsible, forward thinking young man. My girlfriend, who became my first wife became pregnant. She was just about to graduate from high school, had tremendous plans, high honors and scholarships coming from everywhere. Even though she stood on the cusp of her life changing dramatically, her parents would not have consented to termination. We got her older sister to pretend to be her mother and consent to the procedure. It was devastating to her.
She did not want to terminate the pregnancy but in her consideration of all the facts, it was necessary. I was also totally unfit to be a father. She had the procedure and her life stayed on track.
A year later we're married and open to having a child at some point. She becomes pregnant and discovers it a bit late and shortly thereafter I kill a young man in a fight and I'm sentenced to 25 years in prison. We're divorced, she raises the child, continues her dreams, goes to college and turns out very well. I never see her or the child again.
Had she been forced to carry the first pregnancy I can only imagine how differently her life would have been.
She had a choice. She made the best choice according to her life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
There's more stories in my personal life of women who have had to choose termination for one reason or another, including a person close to me who was raped. But she had a choice.
Abortion is not murder. It is sometimes an unfortunate necessity and all women should be able to decide for themselves- for any reason that they choose- to terminate pregnancy when it is not in the interest of their most basic right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
This is an issue I will stand tall on to support the women in my life, and in fact all women who are entitled to choice. 
I find the political argument based on religious argument to be totally without merit. And quite ridiculous. Let's face the facts; the majority of anti-abortion advocates are "christians" and basing their arguments on words that are not in their bible. These same "christians" tell us God is in charge of everything, everything goes according to God's plan and everything happens for a reason.
Well, then God created medically safe procedures to terminate the pregnancies of the children he decided to "take home" for whatever reason, and preserve the lives of the living.
Abortion is unpleasant. I wish it were unnecessary. I also wish cancer treatment was unnecessary too, but how many lives has that saved?
Nobody wants to have an abortion. No one is happy to terminate a pregnancy, no one is disregarding the possibility of pregnancy. Shit happens. Nobody should be sentenced to life for any mistake, accident or freak occurrence.
The decision to terminate an unwanted or undesirable pregnancy belongs ONLY to the woman who finds herself facing that choice. I do believe that in most cases, providing that the pregnancy occurred as a result of consensual sex, the man responsible should be allowed to voice his opinions, but the choice ultimately belongs to the woman. Period. Not her parents. Not the court. Not religious zealots who sin and judge themselves the arbiters of God's will. God's will is what we find before us.
I support women's reproductive rights. I support human rights. The people who don't, well they're the ones who need a lesson in what everyone's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is. They're giving up their own by having to stick their sanctimonious noses in other peoples business.
If my opinions and actions regarding my support of women's rights offends anyone, so be it.
There are lots of issues that I have opinions and concerns about. I have never felt the need to speak up.
Until now. This is an issue I will not be silent about. I will sign petition's, I will attend rallies, I will be numbered among those on the right side of history. The right side of freedom. True freedom uninfringed by others opinions. 
I will be on the side of every single persons right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Put away the "it won't happen to me or anyone I love" bullshit. It can. It has happened to unexpecting people since the beginning of time.
This is far greater than abortion. If abortion is allowed to be made illegal, the fallout will be massive and horrible. The zealots will next come for the pill, condoms, IUD's and any form of birth control. And many other rights that the religious right would like to deny a free people.
Put away religion in this matter. Accept that safe medical abortion is in fact ordained by God if God exists, because as God he created it as a safe alternative.
Which is neither here nor there. God is a maybe we'll not know until we die. In the mean time, the lives of women and children they may be forced to bear are in danger.
It can happen to anybody.
​My two cent's. Keep the change.