I have crossed swords with many "pro-life" fanatics over the last few weeks, in fact it is fast becoming one of my favourite past-times. But there is one thing that has struck me when I have been reading their wildly inaccurate, and often rambling, diatribes and that is that apart from being a baby-killer, they seem to think that being pro-choice, equates to being pro-abortion.

But one of the points, amongst many, many others, that these people miss is that being pro-choice is not just about abortion, it is about the rights of a woman as a human being. The violation of human rights that women around the world experience during pregnancy and birth is a very real issue and it's about time we started regarding abortion limitation as the profoundly anti-woman act that it is.

Most level headed, rational individuals are pro-choice. Even those who are religious, are starting to understand that being in favour of choice is not about forcing abortions on women but rather letting them make their own decisions, and that sometimes an abortion can be the lesser of two evils. Whilst we all agree that a woman should be able to choose how she tries to prevent getting pregnant (heads up, nothing is 100 per cent effective), when it comes to what is happening inside their own bodies, this consensus seems to be lost.

We all know that women are treated as second-class citizens in all the world's societies. As highlighted in an article by Dr Dimitrijevic this week, religious indoctrination has told us that we must be either virgins or whores, and that if we try to break through that stereotype then we are fair game for rape threats, abuse and harassment. On the one hand, we are revered for being the givers-of-life fertile goddesses that can procreate and continue humanity, yet on the other this is used against us. It is used to hold us back, abuse us, control us, bar us from areas of society, and this is because in the eyes of men, and most of civilisation, we are nothing more than a womb with legs.

We are mere incubators, something with which to have intercourse (whether we are willing or not doesn't matter) and then, should we become pregnant, we must at all costs - and regardless of any consequences to our lives, our families' lives - our health or anything else, carry that baby to term. Because the second we become pregnant and have fulfilled the only purpose that we have, our welfare and wishes become inconsequential and those of the unborn becomes the number one priority. Even if this unborn mass of cells develops into a girl - while she is inside our womb she will have more rights over her body than she will 12+ years down the line.

Every day across the globe, millions of women are having their rights violated. Rape, assault, discrimination, genital mutilation, forced marriages - all are widely considered wrong and even illegal in decent society and yet forced birth is not. It seems as if forcing a woman to carry a baby to full term, regardless of whether or not this endangers her life, is morally acceptable. It seems as if this vicious violation of her body, and mental state, by forcing her to have a baby she cannot or does not want to have is fully acceptable because, after all, that is her only purpose.

The problem is that once we start dictating to, interfering with and punishing women for their choices, the concept of choice becomes a very dangerous weapon. When it comes to intrinsic human rights such as body autonomy, these choices and rights belong to the individual and should remain outside the political sphere. There needs to be acceptance that, although someone else's opinion and choice may be different from yours, they are the only person that has the right to make it. Sure, stand in your glass houses and ivory towers and preach from the rooftops, but give women the right to decide for themselves.

Human rights are all linked and inter-dependent on each other - you cannot just pick and choose amongst them. You need to stand up for them all because the consequence of denying women the right to choose could snowball into far more sinister and devastating consequences such as those we are seeing in America now. We need to remember that it is not just the baby's life that matters but also the mothers. No one wants to go around forcing abortions on those who do not want or need them, but we must respect the fact that there are some hands that life deals us that we can never, ever comprehend. To deny women the choice is paramount to torture and, in some cases, a death sentence.

Being pro-choice does not mean that there will be more abortions and neither does it mean you necessarily have to agree with abortion, but it sure as hell means a world where there is a whole lot fewer dead women and babies. As a pro-lifer, your goal is to "protect life in all forms", but where does this leave an 11-year-old rape victim, or a woman whose life would be in danger if she carried to full term?

If you are going to preach about life, you need to apply your logic to all life, not just the ones that you decide are worthy enough. Whilst your pro-life world might have a lot of healthy, bouncing babies, happy mothers and delighted and doting fathers in it, unfortunately that is not the reality.