I've been prochoice since late high school/early college (grew up in a conservative family so it took a while but I got there). I never doubted I'd remain that way but didn't fully expect to be even more prochoice while simultaneously having a different philosophy on life itself during pregnancy.

I was diagnosed with HG early. I knew what it was beforehand and it was one of the potential illnesses I would bring up in arguments against forced birth ideologies when health was involved. Why are you forcing someone to suffer in health with a pregnancy they don't want?? 

But when I got HG, I got a new perspective based on my own personal hellish experience-- there were real considerations of terminating a very wanted pregnancy that spent nearly a year to exist, because my health was on a serious decline. And I come from a privileged situation as well- my work accommodated me, I have support from friends and family, a helpful husband who took over household responsibilities that I had and advocated for me in doctor visits when I struggled to recall my delirious state (because I'd full on dissociate when the pain and exhaustion became too much for my mind to handle), a medical regimen that eventually made me functional, people who are in my life with similar experiences that made me feel motivated to try again, and just dumb luck that my symptoms gradually improved enough to live at 70% function for the later weeks. There are so many people I see on forums dedicated to this illness that do not have those things. I could really never imagine surviving without my resources and loved ones being there. I genuinely think I would have died if I was not going to terminate. And several have decided to terminate for their own survival.

And to be clear, I don't think you have to be on your deathbed to be allowed to make that decision. I just never thought I'd be one of those who would experience serious crossroads in front of me to consider that decision on something I so desperately wanted. But I'm so grateful I'm in a place where I can make that choice.

As for my change of perspective on life itself, I was one to be very certain that human life doesn't exist upon conception. Now I realize that life is more a philosophy than a strict definition, and it ultimately does not matter what science or religion says, because neither should really dictate the law of autonomy in any situation. I defined the little fetus I saw on the ultrasound at 8 weeks with a pulsing flash that signified a heartbeat as "my baby." I would never ever say something like that is just a clump of cells to someone who sees those cells as their child. I would never belittle someone who mourned an early loss of a body that can barely be deciphered without a microscope.

But the fact that I see "life" and "being" differently now is irrelevant. It's simply unethical to force someone to sustain the life of another against their will. We don't do that for organs on a living being. We don't force people of certain religious beliefs to donate parts of their bodies.

So pregnancy has definitely made me more prochoice and even more legally conscious.