It was in the
not too distant past that abortion, while a still a divisive issue, was not
consistently divided among party lines. Believe it or not, groups like
Republicans for choice and the WISH list still played a role in elections.
Republicans like Olympia Jean Snowe, whose open letter concerning her decision
to retire may be found here, still served as example for me as to
what a politician and a strong woman ought to be, even if I do not personally
agree with all of her policies.
As recently as
2008, I spent some time campaigning and talking to pro-choice Republican women
about why they should consider voting for Obama because of his record on
supporting women. Many of these women were older, and they remembered the days
prior to Roe v. Wade and the consequences of a world where woman do not have
access to safe and legal abortions. The stories they told me were horrifying.
One in particular, about a friend who was raped by her father as a teen and
then was forced to marry an older friend of the father when she found herself
pregnant, still makes me shudder. But
there were others: friends who were socially ostracized after procuring illegal
abortions, cousins who were forced to adopt out children against their will. (For anyone interested in reading about
adoption in this era, I’d suggest reading Ann Fessler’s “The Girls Who Went
Away”).
Unfortunately,
since 2008 this country has been overtaken by a huge rise in anti-choice
legislation, which has almost exclusively been introduced by Republicans. And when the Republican Party meets next week
for their national convention it is likely they will agree to support a
constitutional ban on abortion without exclusions for rape or incest. This news is, while not entirely surprising in
our current political climate, disheartening, to say the least. More than 40 Republican House and Senate
candidates currently support a ban on all abortions with no exceptions for rape
or incest, including representative and current vice presidential candidate
Paul Ryan. Voting Republican now means
casting a vote against women’s access to abortion, and the implications of that
are frightening. Just this week a pregnant Dominican teenager passed away from
cancer because she had to wait over 20 weeks for her government to debate the
morality of allowing her to obtain an abortion prior to getting the
chemotherapy she needed. Just like
China’s controversial one-child policy and recent stories of forced abortion,
this is another clear illustration of what happens in the modern world when we
allow government to interfere in a woman’s right to make personal decisions
about her own body and reproductive health. News this week concerning
reproductive health has been especially emotionally jarring, from absurd
comments on how “legitimate” rapes do not result in pregnancy because women’s
bodies have ways of preventing this (see Rep. Todd Akin R-Mass) to the pro-life
activists who waited outside the home of a Planned Parenthood CEO in Florida to
verbally attack her. I just want to scream. I’ve said it before on the Shesheet
and I’ll say it again, we can never entirely know what another person is going
through or what the best course of action may be for them when they are facing
any impending major life event, including but not limited to a pregnancy. All we
can do is support women and empower them by respecting their choices and
defending their fundamental right to make these choices without outside
interference.
With all of
this floating around in my head, I recently passed a church billboard with a
sign that read, “What if your mother was pro-choice?”
It is an
argument I’ve heard thousands of times over.
Before I ever volunteered or worked at pro-choice political
organizations when I was a high school student at a diversity and leadership
training, I heard a girl tell me that she was anti-abortion in all cases
because her mother was raped and her mother’s family wanted her to abort. Had her mother chosen abortion, she informed
me, she wouldn’t have been here now. In my response I emphasized that I didn’t
think her mother’s family should have tried to pressure her into an abortion,
and that I absolutely supported her mother’s choice to have her. I pointed out
that thousands of things can influence a child’s coming into this world or
becoming the person he or she is today.
But that was all I said. I don’t
agree with the logic that just because something was right for one person’s
particular situation that it should be the rule for others, so I couldn’t find
the words to articulate a personal story—only one of the many stories about why
women need access to abortion.
This week the
following article
(http://www.rolereboot.org/culture-and-politics/details/2012-08-i-wish-my-mother-had-aborted-me)
gained a lot of critical attention, compelling me to again I revisit the “What
if your mother” conversation. In this
thoughtful post, Lyn Beisner addresses those pro-lifers who call themselves
survivors of abortion by describing how it would have been better for her
mother had her mother had access to an abortion. It is not that Beisner wishes she had never
been born, only that she loves her mother and, detailing a childhood filled
with poverty and horrific abuse, knows her mother would have had a better life
had she opted to terminate her pregnancy while as a teen.
The attacks
against Beisner have ranged from commentators asking her to kill herself, to a
nationally recognized pro-life blogger who, without the qualifications to do
so, diagnosed Beisner as clearly clinically depressed and suffering from
feelings of low self worth based entirely off that blogger’s interpretation of
the article. In one comment, a woman told the story of how she was walking home
from school and was invited into an older man’s home. This commentator said no, and, according to
her therefore avoided an unwanted pregnancy.
According to this commentator, if you want to avoid getting pregnant as
a result of rape, it is that easy: “Girls just need to learn to say no.” These
are the constituents who the Republican Party seems to be listening to when
they claim to be somehow supporting women by taking away their options.
So, with all
this going around in my head this week, I wanted to share a personal story, or
rather my mother’s personal story.
Before I was
born my mother and father were married and celebrating a very wanted pregnancy.
Unfortunately my mother became very ill and needed to have an abortion to save
her life. Without the legal right to that abortion my mother would not have
lived. Period. Yes, she would not have
given birth to my brother and me. She also wouldn’t have spent years as a
social worker working to do an incredible amount of good in a variety of
communities. But what she did after, and even my existence is irrelevant here,
the point is she would have simply been yet another woman sentenced to death
because a bunch of strangers thought they had the right to dictate what would
be best for her and many other women like her. My mother is ardently
pro-choice. For her, this means she
wants all women to have access to comprehensive reproductive health care (or,
for that matter, any form of health care they may need). This means she trusts them to make decisions
about their own bodies and that should any woman face an unintended pregnancy,
she will support their right to decide to keep it, or not. I feel incredibly lucky and thankful that my
mother is pro-choice. Not because she
chose to keep me, but because I know she supports my right to make my own decisions.
That is all that being pro-choice means, and I cannot imagine what it would be
like were she anything else.
I keep driving
by that church billboard and wishing that I could tell them that my mother is
pro-choice, and that I am exceptionally thankful she had the legal right to
make that choice, regardless of what happened to her afterwards. I wish I could find the words to explain that
if they really want to prevent abortions, the best way of doing so would not be
to attack or make assumptions about another person’s situation. These same
pro-life activists who are so against abortion are also often against making
birth control available and affordable or providing safe sex education. They
are also often against universal health care. Currently an unintended pregnancy
is the number one reason why women fall into poverty in this country. In other countries where universal health
care is the norm, women are able to take longer maternity leaves, they don’t
face the consequence of losing their insurance should they need to leave a job,
and should a child be born with developmental difficulties, they have the
guarantee that that child will receive medical care for their entire life. It
seems so simple. And yet a major
political party just announced that women who get pregnant, regardless of the
reason, should have their options dictated to them by strangers. They are
telling us that women are not capable of deciding when to become pregnant, when
not to be pregnant, and by extension how best to parent. Women do not deserve
legislation that patronizes them, controls them, abuses them or trivializes
their experiences. Too many of us unfortunately already know from personal
experience that avoiding rape or an unintended and unwanted pregnancy is not as
simple as just saying no. And it is time for us to stand up and remind the out
of touch GOP that we are simply no longer going to stand for having our rights
taken away. A famous woman who fought for our right to have a voice, Susan B.
Anthony, once said, “no self respecting woman should wish or work for the
success of a party that ignores her sex.”
Please remember that as we near fall 2012.
