by Ruth Moss
Well, yesterday was blog for choice day and I missed it. But by the power of twitter, and thanks to blue milk, I’ve managed to get my act together in time for today.
I have a confession, which is that I haven’t always been pro-choice. To be fair, I was raised as an evangelical Christian and my “only in cases of rape and incest” views were actually pretty damn liberal amongst my peers!
When I rejected the religion I was brought up into, I started to reject the “pro-life” stance I’d been taking. It happened slowly, mind you. I came, at first, to view abortion as a kind of “sometimes-necessary evil”. I supposed, that in some cases, say, where contraception had failed, or where economic circumstances were such that a baby would be born into breathtaking poverty, or where a baby would be so severely disabled they would have no quality of life or… well, you get the picture.
I thought of abortion kind of in the way my sister-in-law (a vegetarian) thinks of meat eating. Not particularly nice, and she’d never do it herself, but as long as it’s done as humanely as possible and as little as possible it was the best of a bad job.
Gradually my views started to change. But it wasn’t until I became pregnant and had a baby myself that I realised I really was totally pro-choice. Because pregnancy was awful; the morning sickness (and afternoon, and evening sickness, and night sickness), the exhaustion and lethargy and sheer inability to move on occasion; and then the labour, with the pain which was like torture to me and about which I still get flashbacks; then the episiotomy which had me weeing standing up for several weeks (and I still can’t use my mooncup even now); the pelvic floor problems, the occasional leakage; the sleepless nights… and this was all for a much-wanted and much-loved child.
(Don’t get me wrong, I know not every woman’s pregnancy is like this. There were some complications in my case – won’t go into them now – and I know for some women a pregnancy is a joy. I think if I ever have a second child it might be a different story.)
The thought of putting another woman through this, against her will? Seems like torture to me. And that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about being anti-abortion. Forcing women to endure pregnancy and labour against their will.
However, once you identify as “pro choice” you have some uneasy decisions to make. Are you pro-choice all the time? Are you, for example, pro-choice whe it comes to women aborting only female foetuses? Are you pro-choice when it comes to abortion for foetuses where the resulting child could have a disability?
And… are you pro-choice when it comes to the other choice, the choice to keep the foetus, and have a baby? Are you pro-choice when it comes to, say, a post-menopausal woman gaining fertility treatment to conceive a child? Are you pro-choice even in an over-populated world? Are you pro-choice even though you believe motherhood is a problematic, even patriarchal construct?
Are you pro-choice, all the time?
Oh, should have added, in answer to my own question my answer is “yes”!
Great Question, and I never really thought of it like that!
I think these are good and important questions. Victoria’s article on the F-word certainly made me think about this more. I think a lot of feminists have this knee-jerk pro-feminist-all-the-time reaction to abortion, often to the point of denying the complexities of the issues.
At this point I will hesitantly say that I am pro-choice all the time (and yes, this definitely also includes the choice to have children and to raise them), but that I am still thinking through the complexities and implications around dis/ability and choice in a culture which discriminates against dis/abled people.
Ok in the first paragraph that was obviously meant to say “pro-choice-all-the-time”
First, I just want to say that this is possibly one of the most awesome blog posts I’ve seen on being pro choice.
Secondly, I, have to say yes I am pro choice all the time. It isn’t up to me to decide what another woman does with her body. It is up to me to fight to make sure that every woman is able to make the choices she needs to make, with all the information she needs available to her.
Hi Ruth
Great blog and great post. SuziFemAcam’s thoughts sum it up for me: “It isn’t up to me to decide what another woman does with her body.” And therein is the true heart of evangelistic Christian thinking (and the Catholicism I was brought up with) – that women having control over their bodies is a bad thing.
I clearly remember at the age of 7, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child showing up at church and planting huge full colour placards of aborted foetuses round the church. And at the same time ranting about the evils of contraception. It’s all about control, through shame and lack of knowledge. I will not bring my daughter up to be ashamed of her body and her sexuality.
Great question!
I am pro-choice, all of the time. That is not to say that I would never judge someone’s choice. But I think they have the right to choose and I would support that choice.
I feel the same way about breastfeeding versus formula feeding. I think the woman has the right to choose. But I do think that in most cases, breastfeeding is best and I am inwardly critical of people that choose formula for what I may consider to be not good reasons.
I found this post from another blog, and while I am in total agreement with this post, I am mostly excited about the fact that you, the poster, is named Ruth. Not too many of us these days, is there?