Let's Talk About: Abortion
I am profoundly pro-choice, for one simple reason: I believe in bodily autonomy and that the government has no right to violate that. All other reasons aside, that in and of itself is reason enough to be pro-choice. I am also Pro People Managing Their Own Bodies and Pro Not Making Reproductive Choices For Anyone But Myself.
My initial plan was to pack this article full of statistics about the prevalence of abortion (Around 1 in 3 women will have an abortion during her lifetime, although that figure is currently under a bit of scrutiny since it is a few years old), about federal funding for abortion (Federal funds used to fund abortion since 1976- $0). I was going to pack this article with stories from women that I know who have had abortions. Some due to unwanted pregnancies, some very much wanted pregnancies that were simply nonviable. I wanted to relay the stories of women who are already being hurt by anti-choice laws currently on the books.
The thing is, I know none of this matters to the Anti-Choice crowd. People just don’t change their minds about abortion, no matter how much information you give them showing that their stance is in-congruent with reality. For whatever reason a deeply personal and private matter that should exist between a female and a doctor has become a national obsession. It’s gotten to the point that a woman, like myself, going into planned parenthood for a pap smear is shouted down and forced to walk the gauntlet of protesters who shout abuse of various types. I once had a cross wielding protester spit at me because I shouted back at her. This is the “Pro-Life” movement. The blatant hypocrisy of the movement is obvious to anyone who has had to encounter them. Why do they picket clinics that provide healthcare to low income women and not fertility clinics? Fertility clinics destroy many more fertilized embryos than any women’s clinic ever will. So, if life truly begins at fertilization, why not picket infertility clinics? Why not spend untold amounts of money de-funding fertility clinics? If all life begins at conception then where’s the rush of Pro-life women lining up to be surrogate wombs for the embryos discarded by fertility clinics every day? It doesn’t have anything to do with life beginning at conception. It has everything to do with punishing women for having sex. I'm sure there are plenty of perfectly nice people who believe abortion should be illegal, but at what cost?
I know I won’t change anyone’s mind about abortion. So let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about minimizing abortion. Because here’s the thing- I don’t want anyone to ever have to have an abortion. I’m pro-choice, but I don’t want anyone to ever have to make that choice. In an ideal, perfect world every pregnancy would be wanted. Every pregnancy would be healthy. No one would ever have to make the choice to end a pregnancy. Every mother would be supported. Every baby would be healthy. Sadly we don’t live in that world. Pregnant people have been ending their pregnancies with varying degrees of success since the beginning of human history. Outlawing abortion will do nothing to actually end abortion, all it will do is end safe abortion. However there are a few things we as a society and as a government can do to limit the number of abortions that are needed. They fall into 3 main categories: Preventing Pregnancy, Providing Maternal Healthcare, Making Parenthood a Financially Viable Option. Here is my 7 step plan:
1- Fully Fund Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide low cost contraceptives and health care.
All of this rhetoric and the recent executive order de-funding Planned Parenthood is ridiculous. Seriously. Thanks to the Hyde amendment passed in 1976, no federal funding can be used for abortion. NONE. Not a single penny. So really, what they’re de-funding is sex education, cancer screening, pregnancy testing, and contraceptive care. Which, makes a lot of sense if your goal is to punish low income women who don’t have many healthcare options, it doesn’t make sense if your goal is to end abortion.
2- Make contraceptives more readily available, easier to get, and cheaper. Also fund research into long term reversible non-hormonal contraceptives for females and longer term contraceptives for males.
The more widely available contraceptives are, the more they’ll be used. The more contraceptives that are used, the fewer pregnancies there will be. While we’re at it, there need to be better options as well. Hormonal birth control for females can have a whole host of side effects that many women just can’t live with, and for males their options are basically either condoms, or permanent sterilization with a vasectomy. A birth control pill, or other reversible option for men would go a long ways towards helping to equalize the birth control burden.
3- End all Abstinence-Only sex education programs in Public Schools and replace them with comprehensive sexuality education.
It has been proven time and time again that abstinence-only programs don’t work. Students who have abstinence-only programs are equally as likely to participate in sexual activities as their counterparts who have standard or no sex education. However, they are statistically more likely to contract STDs and become pregnant. In contrast, studies showed that students who received comprehensive sexual education actually delayed sexual contact and had a significantly lower risk of STDs and pregnancy. The data bears this out time and time again, the fact that schools across the country are succumbing to fear based tactics and putting their students at risk is unconscionable.
(For more information on this visit the link at the end of the article)
4- Provide universal Pre-natal and maternal health care.
This provides so many levels of benefit that I don’t understand why we don’t have universal pre-natal and maternal health care in this country already! For starters universal care would help to reduce our abysmal maternal and infant mortality rates. The United States has one of the highest rates of maternal death in the developed world, especially in communities of color. Our infant mortality rate is also absurdly high. One of the major contributing factors i both of these is a lack of maternal and pre-natal healthcare. There are too many women in our country who don’t get regular check ups during their pregnancies. Reducing our fetal and maternal mortality rates should be reason enough to do this, but in terms of limiting abortion, this would helping to reduce instances where things get bad enough that the mother’s life is at risk (although there are things that can occur that no pre-natal check up can fix), it would also go a long way to a feeling of confidence in one’s ability to have a healthy baby and raise that child. Knowing that the pregnancy will be cared for is the first step on that path.
5- End the male/female wage gap and raise the minimum wage
If we want females to birth more children, we’re going to have to make sure that they’re able to support them. Everyone knows it takes money to raise a family. The gender wage gap is real, and it’s a problem. If we want pregnant females to feel secure enough to be able to raise more children, we need to make sure that they are making enough money to support said children. This is also why we need to raise the minimum wage. I speak from personal experience when I say it is impossible to raise a family on minimum wage, or even slightly above minimum wage. One of the major reasons for this is
number 6 in my plan...
6- Make child care more affordable for single mothers and lower income families
People who do not have children, or people who have family take care of their children often do not appreciate the absolutely astronomical cost of child care. Unfortunately most people who find themselves pregnant do not have kindly relatives or friends to care for their children while they work. Even more unfortunately, many areas completely lack affordable day care options. Some states do have subsidy programs, but not all of them. When I had my son an “affordable” day care would have cost more than our rent. I don’t
know many people who can afford to pay their rent twice a month every month just to be able to work.
7- End the stigma and shaming for people who have to rely on government safety nets to feed their families.
This should be obvious to anyone who understands basic human decency. If some one needs to rely on government assistance to feed their family, don’t try to shame them or demean them. Creating a supportive climate in which we as a society support families and don’t sneer at people who are doing their best for their children will help to foster an environment in which people who want to have more offspring feel as though they can, without worrying about the limitations of their financial situation.
And that's the whole thing. If we want every viable pregnancy to result in a child that must be cared for then we as a society must give up on the whole concept of “only have as many children as you can afford” and we must acknowledge a collective responsibility to make sure that every child born has everything he or she needs to succeed. I know that people are fond of putting forth adoption as a viable alternative, and there are many who choose it. But that is a choice that can not be forced upon a mother.
It is easier to prevent unwanted pregnancies than it is to care for all the unwanted children that would result from those pregnancies. I know that people love to mention adoption as a viable way of caring for children whose biological families are unable to care for them. However, with the already overburdened foster system in the United States I think that anti-choice advocates are fooling themselves. Adoption is a wonderful selfless act, many families are built that way. It is not something that every person can do, nor should they be expected to. It is also easier to keep abortion safe, legal, and available than it is to force a cultural shift away from individual reproductive responsibility and to collective responsibility for all children. It is also worth mentioning that not every abortion is completely elective. Sometimes a deeply wished for and longed for pregnancy can end in abortion because the fetus is simply unable to survive to birth or after.
Limiting the number of abortions should be priority #1 for people who want to end abortion, unfortunately the “Pro-Life” movement seeks to undermine the very people they should be supporting.
Until next week, stay safe out there
Erin
Data on relative effectiveness of Sexual Education programs with teens:
New York Times Article on Colorado’s successful attempts to reduce teen pregnancy:
Image Credit- Liora K Photography
**Under no circumstance should anyone ever picket any fertility clinic or any health care facility. That is wrong and hurtful.