This week, we spoke with Chris, a 28-year old black man living in Texas who works in media. Chris originally wrote: “I think Democrats should actively pursue a European-style equilibrium/compromise on abortion: first trimester abortions are state subsidized and easy to obtain, everything else is pretty restrictive and hard to access.” The position was controversial, Chris said, because: “I’m a guy and I’m never going to have to choose about abortion, so I should probably shut up about it. And finally because, listen, I’m a queer black man. I don’t want my interests as part of this coalition to get sold out or compromised on. So who am I to try to sell out or compromise women’s interests in this coalition?”

Clare Malone: Tell me your thought process on this position. How did you get to it?

Chris: I think it’s mostly because I grew up in Texas in a very conservative, super pro-life school with a lot of people who were very aggressively — and it seemed to me sincerely — pro-life. I went to college in New York and actually talked to people and learned some things and said, ‘Oh, no, actually that position is dumb and if you read books, including the bible, the whole idea that life begins at conception is not really supported by anything.’ And I learned that many embryos don’t actually implant in the womb, so the entire premise of the hard core pro-life position doesn’t make any sense.