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Beyond Motherhood: Reclaiming Women's Agency in an Era of Control
We must advocate for a society where women's autonomy, choices, and identities are respected and celebrated in all their diverse forms, irrespective of their maternal status.
Jul 16, 2025
I have yet to be a mother, but I froze my eggs a few years ago, and am thankful to have that choice to have a family of my own one day—that ability to have a choice was taken away from a woman in Georgia who was declared brain dead in February, yet kept on life support and forced to carry her fetus until she gave birth this June. This harrowing situation unfolded because hospital officials feared they'd violate Georgia's law banning most abortions after fetal cardiac activity.
A few years ago, after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, some anti-abortion advocates were taking issue with IVF procedures, citing that destroying unused embryos is equivalent to taking a life.
In May 2025, a car bomb exploded in the parking lot at a fertility clinic in Palm Springs. Upon hearing the news, I immediately felt concern for the individuals who kept their eggs and embryos at this clinic. While no individuals or reproductive materials were harmed, the fear was palpable for me, having stored my own eggs in a Massachusetts clinic. This incident was deemed an act of terrorism, carried out by the perpetrator because of his anti-natalist views—his belief that it is wrong to have children.
What all these stories have in common is the insidious attempt to control women—control our reproductive health, our bodies, whether we live or die. They are only the most recent examples of how women's choices are being systematically stripped away.
This societal obsession with motherhood as the pinnacle of female existence not only devalues women who choose not to have children or are unable to, but it also places undue pressure on those who do.
Even the way those in power respond shows a disturbing and deeply ingrained narrow view of women and their choices. In response to the Palm Springs incident, Attorney General Pam Bondi stated in a post on X, "Let me be clear: The Trump administration understands that women and mothers are the heartbeat of America. Violence against a fertility clinic is unforgivable." That sentence, though seemingly innocuous, reveals a troubling worldview. It implies that women are primarily valued as mothers, that our worth as women is intimately connected to our reproductive lives, and our health choices are directly tied to our ability to fulfill this singular role.
Yet, there are myriad valid reasons why a woman may never have children: health issues, infertility, personal choice, not finding a suitable partner, or socioeconomic instability, to name a few. Despite this, the current Trump administration and the conservative faction in our country seem fixated on justifying womanhood solely through the lens of motherhood. This reductive stance is evidenced by Vice President JD Vance's dismissive "childless cat lady" comment, where he questioned the stake of childless individuals in the nation's future, and further underscored by the Trump administration's proposals for 'baby bonuses' and tax-deferred investment accounts designed to incentivize childbirth.
Consider the ripple effects of this narrow perspective.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade has paved the way for states to make abortion illegal or incredibly restrictive, fundamentally stripping women of their agency and bodily autonomy. Once pregnant, in 41 states, a woman's body is now no longer entirely her own, but rather a vessel subject to state control.
The very act of bombing a fertility clinic, while deplorable, was deemed so primarily because a fertility clinic is associated with the creation of babies. The outrage stemmed from the perceived threat to potential motherhood, not necessarily the broader violation of individual liberty or the act of terrorism itself.
This singular focus extends to how women are perceived even in death. The Georgia case forces us to confront a horrifying reality: Even when a woman is brain dead, her bodily autonomy can be overridden in favor of a fetus. Her existence, in this context, is reduced to her reproductive capacity, even in her final moments. This legal and ethical quagmire highlights how deeply ingrained the concept of women as mere incubators has become in some interpretations of the law.
Individuals should be valued for more than their potential or actual role as mothers. I do not disagree that motherhood can be a profoundly important and vital aspect of life, and for many, it is. As someone who still hopes to be a mother, it is for me. Yet, I do not know the future, and there is a real possibility that I may never have children. Therefore, to define a woman's entire identity and worth by her reproductive capacity is a dangerous reduction, not to mention emotionally charged for individuals such as myself. Like any human, women are multifaceted beings with diverse aspirations, careers, contributions to society, and personal lives that extend far beyond the biological function of childbearing.
This societal obsession with motherhood as the pinnacle of female existence not only devalues women who choose not to have children or are unable to, but it also places undue pressure on those who do. It limits our collective imagination of what a woman can be and achieve. We must challenge this pervasive narrative and advocate for a society where women's autonomy, choices, and identities are respected and celebrated in all their diverse forms, irrespective of their maternal status. It is time to assert that a woman's life, and her death, should be her own.
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Cancel Culture, GOP Style
What far-right Republicans don’t seem to realize is that prohibition does not work.
Mar 07, 2024
Republican lawmakers across America are increasingly introducing bills that prohibit rights that many Americans assumed were enshrined in law. The laws introduced by the Republicans have a domino effect.
It started with the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, in which the Republican-dominated U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a landmark 1973 decision in which the court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many state abortion laws. Republican legislators reacted by making prohibitions to abortion in their states. Fourteen Republican states invoked six-week term limits (most women do not know they are pregnant at six weeks) and often ignored provisions for incest and rape.
Thousands of American women, Republicans and Democrats, had their previous rights curtailed. There were conservatively 620,327 abortions in America in 2020, according to the CDC.
From climate change to the coronavirus pandemic, far-right Republicans consistently refuse to accept basic science and pan intellectualism as elitist or made-up.
Republican then extrapolated the Dobbs decision to all embryos, including those used in IVF (in vitro fertilization).
On February 16, Alabama's Republican dominated State Court ruled that frozen embryos have the same rights as children, and people can be held liable for destroying them ( Le Page/ Burdick-Aysenne v. The Center for Reproductive Medicine). While it did not completely ban IVF, it created a legal headache for clinics, and some pulled their services. Many Republicans nationwide, including leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, quickly rushed to declare that this was not official GOP policy. Many falsely claimed this was not related to the Dobbs decision; however, the Alabama court repeatedly cited Dobbs in its ruling.
This coincided with their attacks on LGBTQ+ people.
On March 8, 2022, Republicans in Florida passed the Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly referred to as the "Don't Say Gay" law. The law contains sections which prohibit public schools from having "classroom discussion" or giving "classroom instruction" about sexual orientation or gender identity.
Originally it was to apply to children up to third grade, but Republicans increased this to grade 12 in a later amendment ( Florida House Bill 1069). Using deliberately vague and broad provisions it has the potential to undercut the equal dignity of LGBTQ+ people and have the effect of stigmatizing and silencing LGBTQ+ teachers and students.
It also runs afoul of the First Amendment, according to the American Bar Association. Twenty other Republican states introduced versions of the law.
This led to books being banned in Florida schools.
Books included the Harry Potter series, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Kite Runner, Anne Frank's Diary, Go Ask Alice, The Color Purple, and even the children's poetry collection A Light in the Attic. While these books may cause offence to some people, the schools that banned them cannot prove any identifiable harm. Schools and libraries in Mississippi, Arkansas, Ohio, and Tennessee started culling books. Several parents claim the books contain subjects such as incest, rape, and extreme violence—so does the Bible, but they have no plans to ban that.
The books banned are not just related to culture, but also to science.
From climate change to the coronavirus pandemic, far-right Republicans consistently refuse to accept basic science and pan intellectualism as elitist or made-up. Their attacks on vaccinations led to the first increase in measles outbreaks in decades. They consistently denigrate scientists, defund scientific research by organizations such as NASA, and edit bits they don't like out of textbooks and publish their own versions.
For example, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee published an educational magazine aimed at children titled "The Kids Guide to the Truth About Climate Change," which some education advocates denounced as ideological propaganda. The magazine asserts that climate change is occurring as part of the planet's natural cycle and ignores the scientific evidence that shows that temperatures warmed 10 times faster in the last century than they did in the previous 5,000 years—a trend change that corresponds with industrialization and fossil fuel use.
Books based on extensive scientific research on puberty, such as Where Did I Come From? and What's Happening to My Body? were also banned.
What far-right Republicans don't seem to realize is that prohibition does not work. Banning abortion doesn't stop people from getting them. It just stops women from getting safe abortions. LGBTQ+ people are not going away—they make up over 7% of the U.S. population. Banning a controversial book doesn't make its subject disappear. Banning books only makes them more sought after. For children about to face puberty, it is better to get information from a book rather than from other children, or online pornography.
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This November, Women Will Remember Who Took Away Their Rights
Women—both those who want abortion to be legal and those who want to become pregnant through in-vitro fertilization—are furious.
Mar 01, 2024
It’s 2024, but it feels like we’re back in 1991 this Women’s History Month.
Back then, President George H.W. Bush was following in the footsteps of his predecessor Ronald Reagan by continuing to appoint conservative judges to the federal bench, and Roe v. Wade was expected to fall.
Radical anti-abortion activism had gained prominence and strength. Popular media was awash with stories pushing the myth that women were dissatisfied and unhappy—and feminist ideals of women’s empowerment were to blame.
Then a blockbuster book hit the streets: Backlash by Susan Faludi.
There’s a new backlash, all right—but this time it’s not against women’s progress, but against the loss of women’s rights and their own personhood.
It came out just as the legal notion of “fetal personhood” was taking shape. Among other things, the book captured the horror of giving a fetus, even a hypothetical potential fetus, precedence over an actual living person. Backlash posited that any so-called women’s unhappiness was not the fault of feminism, but the fact that the struggle for equality was far from finished.
Faludi anticipated by over 20 years the deadly choices that women and their doctors are now being forced to make in a post-Roe world.
She was distressed at the prospect of backward momentum—of a world that treated women as vessels for childbearing above all. “What unites women is the blatant, ugly evidence of oppression,” she said at the time, “that will come with the inevitable demise of Roe vs. Wade.”
Faludi was right. There’s a new backlash, all right—but this time it’s not against women’s progress, but against the loss of women’s rights and their own personhood. Since Roe was overturned, at least three states have blocked new abortion bans, and 16 more have strengthened existing pro-statutes with new protections.
Safeguarding women’s autonomy was also front and center in last November’s midterm elections.
Ohio was the epicenter. Advocates put forth a bold ballot question on whether to amend the state constitution affirming the right of individuals to make their own reproductive health decisions—including abortion. The outcome? No contest. Voters opted to enshrine abortion rights by a margin of 57-43%.
Abortion was also on the ballot indirectly in Virginia. Anti-choice governor Glen Youngkin was pushing voters to flip the state Senate to Republicans while keeping the Republican majority in the House of Delegates.
That would have allowed the governor and his lackeys in the legislature to pass a 15-week abortion ban. That grand plan went down in flames—pro-choicers took full control of both houses of the General Assembly after two years of divided power.
The latest trend in the reproduction wars comes from Alabama. Another attack on women’s rights to self determination—but this time from the other end of the argument.
In a first-of-its-kind ruling, Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children and anyone who destroys them can be held liable for wrongful death. At several facilities in the state, the decision has virtually stopped in-vitro fertilization in its tracks for women who are trying to conceive.
It’s reminiscent of struggles of the past. It took nearly a century and a half after independence for women to win the constitutional right to vote in 1919. Winning abortion rights took even longer—until 1973, when Roe guaranteed it under the 14th Amendment. But that ruling lasted only 49 years. One step forward, two steps back.
Women—both those who want abortion to be legal and those who want to become pregnant through in-vitro fertilization—are furious.
The upshot? Women are the majority of the population, the majority of registered voters, and the majority of those who actually show up at the polls. It’s a good bet they’ll remember in November.
Hell hath no fury like a woman deprived of her basic rights.
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