And so I became pro life and pro choice because I am grateful that I have the choice to hold pro life personal views.
If the anti-choice bridgade had their way I wouldn't have the option.
Yes! I tried to write a post about this earlier, but it's so difficult to express it with any coherence. Possibly because it's so contradictory.
Being female, pro-life and anti-choice (ie you believe legislation should remove or limit access to abortion, remove or limit access to medical treatment which may harm the foetus, and possibly limit access to contraceptive healthcare, depending on the severity of your beliefs), you're basically arguing yourself out of the argument. Pro-choice, pro-life: what does it even matter? You're a woman. Your position is that women cannot be trusted with their own body, do not have the moral authority to make decisions about their body, and that an unfertilised egg/fertilised egg/embryo/foetus (again, depending on severity of belief) possesses equal or superior rights to the woman in whose body it exists. Again: you are a woman. You are essentially arguing away your status and autonomy, arguing that you cannot be trusted (hence the need for legislation), arguing that you don't really matter.
I think some women assume that legislation applies to the other women, the ones who need to have their behaviour checked; they've already ruled out abortion in their own lives, so it makes no difference if someone else forbids them from having one (but it makes a fuckload of difference!). Or that they're somehow objective individuals just participating in a debate, and not a member of the group whose status and autonomy are being downgraded. But if you're female, pro-life and anti-choice, you need to accept that you're arguing that your opinion doesn't matter. Whereas being pro-life and pro-choice, as MaisyPops said, does give you the right to your own decisions and opinions.
It's like those old debates in which women argued that women shouldn't vote, or attend university, or be politicians; anything based on the notion of females having lower status, lower mental capacity, lower moral authority or whatever else. 'I strongly believe that nobody should listen to me and that firm limits should be placed on my power!'. The rhetorical equivalent of sawing off the branch you're sitting on.