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Technorati35 years after Roe v. Wade solidified American womens' right to abortion, reproductive rights remain in limbo. And while abortion rights are crucial to women's health and autonomy, they are hardly the end-all be-all to reproductive justice -- even if the constant attacks on those rights (and on the people who provide women with them) have forced the pro-choice movement to remain on the defensive about abortion in particular.
Roe at 35 is in bad shape. But there are plenty of forward-looking, positive steps to be taken. It's worth raising a glass to Roe today -- but even more importantly, it's time to get out and fight. Here are a few reasons why:
10. Abortion is already inaccessible and out of reach for many women.
Eighty-seven percent of U.S. counties do not have an abortion provider. Parental consent laws, 24-hour waiting periods, and other anti-choice roadblocks make abortion difficult or impossible for many women -- young women and low-income women in particular. The Hyde Amendment blocks federal Medicaid money from paying for abortion, meaning that low-income women have their medical care determined by anti-choice bureaucrats instead of doctors. When women have to spend weeks trying to legally bypass parental consent laws, or when they have to take time off work, save up money for the procedure, find someone to take care of their children, figure out transportation, and drive miles and miles to the closest clinic only to be told to "go home and think about it and come back tomorrow," the procedure gets pushed back -- and later-term abortions are more difficult and more expensive. An abortion at 24 weeks (a procedure already impossible to get in most states) can cost as much as $10,000. Groups like the National Abortion Network of Abortion Funds and the Haven Coalition attempt to offset the costs of abortion and the related expenses, but their budgets and abilities are limited, particularly in contrast to the financial and political strength of the anti-choice movement. In the meantime, Roe remains an unfulfilled promise for many American women.
9. If abortion is illegal, then women and doctors will be criminals.
Anti-choicers dislike answering the sticky question of how much time in jail women who have abortions should serve. But as it stands, a lot of anti-abortion legislation is not premised on outlawing abortion, but rather attempts to establish that life begins when an egg is fertilized. Much of that legislation expresses the idea that a zygote and a fetus are people deserving a full range of legal rights. In such a "pro-life" world, women who have abortions are murderers, and doctors contract killers. Women are already going to jail for "murder" because they used drugs while pregnant; it's hardly a stretch to argue that women could face jail time for terminating pregnancies, especially if anti-choicers really believe -- as they claim -- that fetuses are people invested with full rights. As it stands, about one in three American women will have an abortion at some time in her life. Those are a whole lot women to turn into criminals.
8. Anti-choicers care about controlling your sex life, not saving babies.
For all their talk about valuing babies and life, anti-choicers have demonstrated time and again that they could actually care less. They're more interested in punishing women for sex and in maintaining a male-dominated family model. And they're only "pro-life" up until the moment of birth -- then you're on your own. Anti-choice politicians opposed extending health care to low-income kids; they routinely vote against Head Start and early childhood education programs; they abhor welfare programs that give aid to single parents and low-income families; and they are at the forefront of opposition to state childcare aid. It's no surprise that 100% of the worst legislators for children are "pro-life," and many of the most "pro-life" states are the worst for children and for women. While children are hardly their first priority, anti-choicers are extremely concerned about what you do with your private parts. They are the architects of "abstinence-only" sex education that flat-out lies and misleads students in order to promote conservative values of female submission, homophobia and general ignorance. Many of them opposed a vaccine that could save thousands of women from cancer -- because the vaccine prevented cervical cancer and had to be given before the onset of sexual activity, meaning that anti-sex nuts had one less tool in their slut-punishing arsenal.
7. They're going after your birth control, too.
Pro-lifers care about lowering the abortion rate, right? Wrong. They oppose contraception, too -- and though they're quiet about it now, you can bet that it's next on the list of things that have to go in a "pro-life" nation. In fact, none of the major pro-life organizations support contraception access, despite the fact that accessible and affordable contraception is the most effective way to decrease the abortion rate.
6. Illegal abortion kills women.
There are no two ways about this one -- when abortion is illegal, women are killed and maimed. Some 80,000 women die as a result of illegal abortion every year; hundreds of thousands more are injured. Women around the world suffer when pro-life laws rule the land. And "pro-lifers" could care less. Illegal abortion is the cause of 25% of all maternal deaths in Latin America, 12% in Asia, and 13% in sub-Saharan Africa. Women's lives, apparently, aren't covered by that whole "pro-life" thing.
5. Legal abortion is good for women, men and families.
Post-Roe, American women have made phenomenal gains in nearly all areas of life, and American families have benefited. Women go to college at the same rates as men. We can define ourselves as something other than mothers, or as mothers and something else. Poverty has been cut in half since Roe gave women the right to control their own reproduction. Men can be nurturing too, and are expected to take part in raising their children. Families can be planned. Men have greater choices in their occupations since they aren't required to be the sole bread-winner. More people have access to education. Women have more power to escape abusive relationships or bad jobs. Parents of both sexes spend more time with their kids than ever before. Overall, reproductive rights have been tremendously beneficial to all Americans -- except for those who want women to be second-class citizens.
4. Poor women and women of color are disproportionately impacted by anti-choice policies.
When anti-choicers chip away at abortion rights, they take down the easy targets first -- and since poor women and women of color have relatively little political power, they suffer the brunt of anti-choice ideology. Abortion is made much more expensive by the myriad restrictions placed on it, and low-income women bear the burden of navigating through the costs and impediments of accessing basic health care. Women of color not only face restricted abortion access, but are then blamed for "genocide." And women in the global south face the deadly consequences of the global gag rule, which not only impacts their reproductive health care but silences them as social and political actors.
3. Choice isn't just about not giving birth -- it's about your right to have children.
The anti-choice movement isn't just against abortion and birth control; many anti-choicers also oppose in-vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments. They also draw convenient lines about who is fit for motherhood, bemoaning the lack of white babies up for adoption while supporting organizations and practices that strip women of color of their right to reproduce. Reproductive freedom is about the ability to determine for yourself when and if you have children; the anti-choice movement is about the exact opposite. Anti-choice governments don't just limit abortion rights -- as China's one-child policy aptly demonstrates, they also limit the right to choose to have children.
2. Anti-choicers are also going after the rights of women around the world.
Not content to stick it to American women, anti-choicers have taken their crusade abroad with policies like the global gag rule. The United States' policy of denying reproductive health funding to any organization that so much as mentions abortion -- by petitioning their own government for reproductive rights, performing abortions with their own non-U.S. money, referring women to abortion providers, or even telling women that abortion is an option -- contributes to "shockingly high death and disability rates in developing countries." Reproductive health care clinics usually provide a variety of services, and when the U.S. cuts off funding because of abortion advocacy, they also cut off funding to pre-natal care, HIV/AIDS services, well-baby care, STD prevention, and sexual health education. The majority of births world-wide already take place outside of hospitals, and a third of women receive no pre-natal care. In places like Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, experts estimate that up to up to 50 percent of maternal mortalities result from unsafe, illegal abortions. In sub-Saharan Africa, 920 women die for every 100,000 live births. The number for Europe, on the other hand, is 24. Contraception access, safe abortion, sexual health education and generalized health care could save many of these women. It is estimated that giving contraception alone to all the women who want it could prevent 22 million abortions, 23 million unplanned births, and 1.4 million infant deaths. Instead of increasing access to health care, anti-choice groups are at the forefront of denying it. And they have lots of blood on their hands in the name of "life."
1. Reproductive justice is about you.
It's about your rights and your family and your body. All of us make reproductive choices -- to have kids or not, to use birth control or not, to have sex or not, to continue a pregnancy or not. Reproductive health care impacts all of our lives. In a pro-choice country, children are wanted and cared for, pregnancy is voluntary and families are healthy. Women and men have a full range of rights, and the liberty to act as individuals instead of squeezing themselves into narrow gender roles. Sex is both a pleasure and a responsibility, not a guilt-ridden exercise intended only for reproduction in the context of a male-headed heterosexual marriage. One's character and morality are squarely centered in their heart and their head, not between their legs. Health care is available for everyone who needs it, without judgment or impediment. And lives are actually valued -- even mine and even yours.
That's what a pro-choice nation looks like. And despite the odds and the opposition, I'm maintaining hope that most Americans do value healthy families, gender equality and human rights -- and that if we keep working towards those goals, it won't take another 35 years to get there.
Jill Filipovic is a New York-based freelance writer, political blogger and law student.
Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
26 Comments so far
Show AllMeredo -
Please don't pretend that you've avoided the so'called 'unwanted and uncared' from a child.
It is exactly the "unwanted and uncaring" that is used to justify killing the child in the womb. Out of sight out of mind doesn't work and is dishonest.
Well said, Kernel! My thoughts exactly!
It was great to read a pro-choice article that actually mentions the incubators, I mean women. Women's lives are almost never mentioned by the right wing, even though controlling them is what they really want. If they really cared about children they'd be all about helping poor kids get health care, educatoin, etc...which they clearly are not.
I am pro-choice and I care deeply about children. I would never wish the fate of being unwanted or uncared for on any child.
Pro-life groups are anything but pro-life, if anything they are pro-ignorance of the facts of life. This position de-humanizes women and seeks to control reproductive health is an abitrary discrimination against women.
A religious acquaintance has a wife that recently miscarried at just under 2 months. (An unfortunate circumstance I wouldn't wish on anyone).
He's been preaching up a storm about pro-life and how life begins at conception so I asked him what his child's name was and where he buried his child. Since the life begins at conception where is the grave? He got all bent out of shape and defensice and wouldn't talk.
The fact is that he never buried that. Hypocracy rages among the religious.
armybrat:
"Pro-family" conjures the image of a happy nuclear family - with some children. What about women who get abortions because they don't want any children, period? What about the elephant-in-the-room overpopulation problem? Many of us are against breeding, and thus the concomitant "family", because of the wrongness of contributing to the resource problems of the world, and the wrongness of subjecting more lives to the increasing misery created by our love affairs with our own genes.
So "pro-family" doesn't come close to replacing the essence of the "pro-choice" message. It might look good in the propaganda battle, but as the author said, we shouldn't try to message our way out of this. No more lowest common denominator.
The religeous right is not pro-life; they are only pro-birth. The difference is that once the baby is born, the religeous right doesn't give a shit if the mother and baby starve to death and blow away, have a roof over their heads, or have any reasonable access to healthcare. These breast-beating Bible jockeys vote against any policy that would help a mother and baby or a young family that is in poverty, and simultaneously support foreign policies that are killing thousands of women and children in countries like Iraq that never threatened us and are occupied only becuase they have oil. What is Christian about all of that????? The religeous right has damned itself to hell, I hope.
Religion continually attacks freedom. It is the true enemy and the reason there is so much war and death. Religion is a disease.
Poet - oh my - I have never known a prochoice individual who believes that "anything goes." Many times I sat with the clinic director/midwife at the Planned Parenthood office in Denver when I was a volunteer and listened to her counsel pregnant teens NOT to have an abortion (she could sense when it would be the wrong thing for an individual to do). Many times she referred them to one of the three prochoice adoption agencies in Denver in hopes they would go that route. YES PLANNED PARENTHOOD WORKS WITH ADOPTION AGENCIES!
As for Norma McCorvey, she made her choice. Now she wants to keep others from having the same right. Shame on her.
People, let's move on. Leave a woman's health to her own VERY capable decision making abilities, and move on.
This entire argument is a perfect example of extremists on both sides highjacking an issue to suit their own ends. As was noted in the above article, the Catholic-Protestant-Muslim morality police are always looking for ways to get their grubby little noses into the sex lives of other people and to advance patriarchal oppression of women whose flowering and liberation to full equality of opportunity continues apace regrardless of such efforts. No abortion will lead to no contraception, will lead to no birth control, will lead to...?
The pro-choicers on the other hand would be quite content with an "anything goes" ethic so long as everybody chips in with money(through government aid) to cover the costs for medical procedures, birth control devices, and sex education. Personal responsibility flies out the window as soon as the bill comes due. At that point they are just so many crass business people schleping for a larger market.
I have known of three women who have had abortions and none of them were ever provided any kind of counseling or support to deal with either the phbysical or emotional consequences of the "safe and legal" procedure they went through by the providers or advocates of such procedures.
So if it is true that pro-lifers just love the fetus until it is born, it is also true that pro-choicers just love the woman needing an abortion until just after she has had the procedure. This whole situation is indicative of a far greater problem than "reproductive rights" and until we begin to grapple with that problem we will just be arguing over the arrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic.
In 2005
The woman known as "Roe" in the landmark case that struck down all state laws restricting abortion is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its 1973 decision.
Norma McCorvey
Norma McCorvey began a quest in 2003 to reopen the case, based on changes in law and new scientific research that make the prior decision "no longer just." She cites the sworn testimony of more than 1,000 women who say they were hurt by abortion.
At a news conference at the Supreme Court tomorrow at 11 a.m. Eastern, McCorvey will announce she wants the high court to reverse Roe vs. Wade, or at least, order a trial on the merits.
"This is the day I've longed for," she said in a statement issued by her legal representation, the San Antonio-based Justice Foundation.
"Now we know so much more, and I plead with the court to listen to the witnesses and re-evaluate Roe vs. Wade," McCorvey said. "It was a dreadful day in America when the Supreme Court allowed a woman to kill her own child."
McCorvey's lead attorney, Allan Parker, president of the Justice Foundation, filed a petition for writ of certiorari Friday that will reach the high court tomorrow, asking it to hear the case.
It was first filed in a district court in Dallas in June 2003.
Parker's argument relies on federal rules that allow an original party to request a ruling be vacated when factual and legal changes make the decision no longer just.
He believes a significant change in most state laws has solved the issue of women being burdened with the unwanted responsibility of raising a child. The new laws allow a woman to take her newborn to a "safe haven" anonymously, providing a safer alternative to abortion.
McCorvey said each aborted child represents another tragedy, the harm to the mother.
"I've worked in abortion facilities, and I've seen firsthand the horrific nature of abortion and its devastation to women and girls," she said.
'Raw judicial power'
In September, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case, saying the issue was moot because it did not present a "live case or controversy."
However, one of the three judges on the panel criticized the Supreme Court that handed down the original ruling, saying it was an "exercise of raw judicial power."
In her concurring opinion, Judge Edith Jones lamented the case was moot, which prevented McCorvey's evidence from being heard: "If courts were to delve into the facts underlying Roe's balancing scheme with present-day knowledge, they might conclude that the woman's 'choice' is far more risky and less beneficial, and the child's sentience far more advanced, than the Roe Court knew."
Jones wrote, "The perverse result of the Court's having determined through constitutional adjudication this fundamental social policy, which affects over a million women and unborn babies each year, is that the facts no longer matter. This is a peculiar outcome for a Court so committed to 'life' that it struggles with the particular facts of dozens of death penalty cases each year."
Among McCorvey's 5,437 pages of evidence are affidavits from more than 1,000 women who testify having an abortion has had devastating emotional, physical and psychological effects.
In 2008 Jane Roe (McCorvey) has endorsed Ron Paul for President because he understands Civil Rights applies to all human beings.
The biggest issue in America today is whether we will be able to continue to get fat or lose some weight. Good president, we get fat, bad president, we lose weight.
Abortion is not the biggest issue in America today. It is one of those polarizing causes like flag burning that keeps the public distracted from the real issues.
The religious right becomes so obsessed with abortion that they will vote for any war-mongering candidate without a thought as long as they tow the line on abortion.
I personally know quite a few vehemently pro-life individuals. They feel all of the outrage one might feel if they saw a baby murdered before their eyes. That is how abortion is viewed. These people are not the enemy. The enemy is the ignorance which allows abortion to become the ONLY issue, while we should really be worrying about environmental destruction and endless warring.
Corrupt politicians love emotionally charged, polarizing issues like this one. They love it when we are distracted.
Human life is sacred.
Foetuses have souls.
Life begins at conception.
Abortion is a sin.
It is right to execute murderers.
Abortionists are murderers.
Abortionists will go to hell.
Abortion deprives a soul of the chance for self-redemption.
This is a SET of beliefs. Note the extremely important role of religion. An atheist biologist, for example, would likely hold none of these beliefs. If you believe that the foetus has a soul and its life on earth is to pay for previous sins then certainly you have to be against abortion.
The only way to get people to consent to abortion is to change their minds.
The argument I hear for abortion is that a woman has a right to chose. Isn't that like saying it's right because she wants it? Isn't it bizarre to expect a nation that believes in God,and the soul, and an afterlife, and paying for past sins in this life, to be comfortable with killing its foetuses?
I do not have the set of beliefs above, and I don't believe killing a foetus is of any importance to the foetus or the universe. I believe humans are delusional to think they are so special because they think. If anything, an understanding of life shows us to be quite pathetic. I don't like abortion, I don't like killing anything, except mosquitoes. I don't like forcing people to do things they don't want to do and don't impinge on my freedom.
I am definitely against forced pregnancy.
I am definitely against religion.
Understanding life comes from studying Biology, not the Bible.
EZE FLYER -- Please clarify "Bush wants to get in yours.
With his head so far up his own a$$, while looking for WMD, I don't understand how he'll fit in mine
That article gave me some new things to think about in regards to this issue.
Safe, legal and rare. It's a cliche, but it's true. I think most people who are pro-choice want that.
It's funny how people on the right make out progressives as having some sort of bloodlust for fetuses, as if we want as many abortions to take place as possible. This coming from those on the other side of the fence who would bomb innocent civilians and allow large segments of their citizenry to fall through the cracks. And what's even funnier is how these callous people are so out of touch with the majority.
hemp4victory sez...
"If there's one major flaw this and other pro-choice articles have, it's their mistaken misuse of the word "pro-life". How many times does it have to hit their heads for them to realize that these social rightwing terrorists are NOT NOT NOT pro-life. Everything about them is pro-DEATH. It's the FRAMING stupid !"
Absolutely. Theirs is the culture of demise not ours. The very fact that they are so virulently anti-sex alone bears that out. Sex, loving sex, is life. They have more in common with Darkseid.
One thing the author misses though is the idea that the issue of abortion drives a wedge between voters. Anti-choice helps get people who are anti-worker, anti-American, anti-poor, anti-black, anti-woman, and anti-life elected.
I'll start calling myself pro-life. All people on the left should too. We want better lives for everyone, they just want better lives for a select few.
How about Mike Huckabee's comment linking abortion to illegal immigration? I just read where he said something along the lines of "if there weren't so many abortions in the US, we wouldn't need all those illegals to come to work here" - !!!!! And this man is a serious contender for president - no wonder we have so little rational discussion of this issue - or any other, for that matter.
Bush wants to get in yours.
Fantastic article, particularly point #8, although I would've expanded it. "Pro-life" politicians not only do not care about the lives of babies, they don't care about life, period. The social conservatives who expound the "pro-life" position the loudest are the same people advocating the death penalty, rallying for increased military spending, and clinging to the sinking ship that is the Iraq War.
The pro-lifers have it figured out and the rest of us just have not seen it yet. If we can keep all women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, then they will not be taking men`s jobs in these times of unemployment and hard times. Also, women should all have to raise a garden to feed their families and make all their clothes to save money and keep them out of trouble. See, it will all work out to everyone`s benefit as long as no birth control is available and abortions are criminal and subject to stoning or prison, with forced Bible reading for punishment.
Why I will never vote for an anti-choice candidate:
Pro-choice means that no woman or doctor should be punished for providing full-range health care to a woman. Women's healthcare is a private matter between a woman and her doctor. That should be the end of the story. Regrettably it is not.
An anti-choice president believes s/he has the right to know the contents of a woman's uterus. Where else in our private lives will that person of power and their following interfere?
If they have their way, anti-choice factions would also do away with some birth control pills, the ones that work by not allowing the implantation of a fertilized egg. These same radical factions will also work to eliminate IUDs (same reason as the pill), Plan B, etc. Those who would remove the choices from a woman's medical options are rarely if ever heard demanding that men use condoms, thus sharing in the responsibility to eliminate unwanted pregnancies.
These same people will exert influence on a president's decision about federal funding for family planning in this nation and worldwide. Just look at what happened to worldwide family planning under THIS administration! A major means to peace (and this is not news) is education of ALL women. So long as women are repressed with lack of education, inability to control their fertility, and the resultant cycle of poverty – they have no voice, and the voices of women must be heard in this world that has become so dangerous in recent years.
A recent Time magazine quoted Ghulam Hazrat Tanha, director of education in Afghanistan's Herat province: "Education is the factory that turns animals into human beings. If women are educated, that means their children will be too. If the people of the world want to solve the hard problems in Afghanistan--kidnapping, beheadings, crime and even al-Qaeda--they should invest in [our] education." Kofi Annan once said that the "empowerment of women is the advancement of humankind."
People – we must start seeing beyond the stretch of our hands to the larger world view. I will never vote for an anti-choice candidate. I believe that to do so is not just harmful to women, it ultimately stands in the way of world peace.
Thank you solrak. It is about the framing, and until people realize that everyone is "anti-abortion" and that some people are pro-choice and some are what I call "pro-fetus" or "anti-choice", we will never change the debate. Take back the debate from the real killers, the right-wing forces that don't care if we all die but pretend to want to save fetuses.
peace,
Tex Shelters
"PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKE
A KEY OPTION, NATO TOLD"
After reading the above article, seems like there isn't much point in worry about much else that's happening on the planet. Sounds like these maniacs are hell-bent on taking care of it all for us.
Gender slavery dies hard. Gender slavery is essential in a slave society where wealth is accumulated by oppressing/depressing labor value. Without economic and biological self-determination, any human is a slave.
Peace.
desaparecido,
it's not haphazard.
justice sectors are usually browner, more radical and deal with more root causes than their mainstream counterparts.
go to http://www.emerj.org to find out more about this growing justice movement...
If there's one major flaw this and other pro-choice articles have, it's their mistaken misuse of the word "pro-life". How many times does it have to hit their heads for them to realize that these social rightwing terrorists are NOT NOT NOT pro-life. Everything about them is pro-DEATH. It's the FRAMING stupid !
I'm pro-choice and all..but I hate how the word "justice" is getting inserted into everything haphazardly..