In the waning days of the 2020 presidential campaign, Ivanka Trump, who had previously avoided stating her position on abortion rights, made an announcement: She was pro-life.

“I am … a mother of three children, and parenthood affected me in a profound way in terms of how I think about these things,” she said in an interview published by RealClearPolitics on Oct. 29, 2020.

Of all the calculated, craven statements that have come out of that person’s mouth, that one may take the cake. Notice the beatific way in which Trump positions herself: maternal, fertile, a person who receives “profound” insights. Notice the timing: five days before an election that her father (and employer) was expected to lose, at a time when she was positioning herself for her political future.

I’ve been wasting time thinking about Ivanka Trump’s pronouncement because just three days before she made it, the Senate voted 52-48 to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

And now we are seeing the product of Donald Trump’s rushed nomination and Mitch McConnell’s long quest to turn the court far to the right, with the new law in Texas that outlaws abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, and which the Supreme Court refused to block, in an unsigned ruling backed by a 5-4 margin, despite its clear violation of Roe v. Wade.

Pregnancy and parenthood don’t turn people anti-choice; that’s why, for a year, I’ve remembered Ivanka Trump’s words for their insincerity.

For those of us who were already pro-choice, the experience of giving over our bodies to our babies, and our lives to our children, strengthened our commitment to reproductive freedom and clarified the importance of those freedoms to our survival.

When you become visibly pregnant, people begin to treat you as if your body is not entirely your own. They might touch you without permission, make choices about what food or drink to serve you instead of asking you what you want, or ask you invasive questions. It’s jarring. I am pro-choice because I reject this social paternalism and loss of bodily autonomy.

When you become visibly pregnant, people begin to treat you as if your body is not entirely your own.

Pregnancy is complicated and often comes with health risks and tough decisions. Though I ultimately had two healthy babies, there were bumps along the way. I am pro-choice because my medical choices should be guided only by my personal values and what’s best for my health, and I want my doctor’s advice to be unclouded by fear of being sued.

I experienced both of my children’s births as incredible acts of creation. And, yet, both times, I mourned the loss of the life I had been living before motherhood. Bringing a child into the world is overwhelming and sometimes traumatic — mentally, emotionally and physically. I am pro-choice because I am the best judge of my own limits and what I can handle going forward.

My kids are now 5 and 9, and as a family, we’re focused on their health, welfare and education. I weigh my responsibility to my existing children far above my duty to any future theoretical children. I am pro-choice because my children come first.

I am pro-choice because I am a parent. Most people who have abortions are parents, too: 59 percent of people who had abortions in 2014 had already given birth at least once, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

My first pregnancy was planned, and I was monitoring myself closely at the time. I called my doctor’s office as soon as I got a positive pregnancy test, and the nurse asked me some questions. I would have thought I was about one or two weeks pregnant, but she informed me that I was already five weeks along. That’s because pregnancy is counted from the beginning of your last period, so it’s impossible to be one or two weeks pregnant because you haven’t even conceived then. If your menstrual cycles are irregular, this math is even less predictable.

If my pregnancy hadn’t been planned, I probably wouldn’t have taken a test as early as I did. If I had, and hadn’t wanted to continue the pregnancy, I would have had one week to make a decision, find a provider, schedule and complete an abortion under the current Texas six-week ban that is now being challenged by the Biden administration.

That’s not a humane policy, and it doesn’t put families first.

I am pro-choice because I am a mother and because parenthood has affected me in a profound way.