I’m not a political person. I’m not an activist or an organizer. I don’t protest or actively participate in public demonstrations. I am a citizen observer with thoughts and opinions. I have been watching this whole scenario play out, in the courts and media and public debate; on different sites and articles on social media, and while I had thoughts and opinions and things that came up that I wanted to say I did not feel like I should be the one to publicly chime in. However, as I said I am a citizen who is observing this and I have thoughts on it. The decision to write this and share these thoughts came as I was listening to This American Life podcast this morning, and listening to the stories of the people who are on the ground and in the fight, and in the midst of all that is going on. Specifically, the abortion clinic in Jackson Mississippi, from which this case originated.
My perspective on this is not about the act of an abortion, it is not the procedure or result to which the word speaks. This is about the impact and effect this will have on women. The impact and effect it will have on their lives, on their circumstances, their families, the potential trajectory of their lives. It is not just the word of abortion. Take the word completely out of it. This is such a disregard of women. Of a right to the autonomy of her body. A woman’s right to choose what is the best option for her at this time in her life. This takes away any perceived sense of regard or consideration that we have for women. It makes it seem as though a woman is only a container for the possibility and potentiality of life. But her personal life has no relevance and no significance, or importance.
That six people who have no connection with you, who know nothing about you, who have no right to weigh in on this very personal decision, are able to say for you that you must carry a child to term, and raise this child for the next rest of your life. And to then use the document of the Constitution to justify these decisions. But in its very opening lines, the Constitution says: secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves. What is Liberty if not the right of every person to choose to have autonomy and agency over their body and their lives; and their circumstances of life? How are you able to feel like you have the right to tell half the population that what happens in, and too, your body cannot be, and should not be your choice? Where is it that you feel it is okay to tell women that you are just a vehicle to carry the potentiality and possibility of life; but your life, your choices, your desires, your wants, your health is of no concern?
We look at this issue with a myopic perspective, as if it can only be either/or, using terms like pro-life and pro-choice, as if anyone is anti-life. Because I am for a person having the option and the right to choose to have an abortion if that is what is the best thing for them in the circumstances of their life, that does not mean that I am anti-life, I don’t think anyone is. And I think those who use the terminology pro-life and who are only looking at their objective of being able to prevent someone from having an abortion is only looking at it in terms of what an abortion is. That for them it is just seen as preventing a woman from terminating a potential life. But there is a much broader view that has to be taken into consideration. It is the fact that a woman should have the right to say what she wants to do with her body. She should have the autonomy over her person to say what she chooses to experience and go through. Because it is not just the fact that you are preventing the termination of a potential life, it is the fact that you are telling everyone now, from this point until something different happens, that you no longer have the right to choose what is happening too, and what is being done with your body.
It is not an easy decision to make, to choose to have an abortion; to feel like you have to choose to have an abortion. It is not something that is callously done. It is not a decision you make that you can easily forget or dismiss and put out of mind. When a woman chooses to terminate a pregnancy there are a multitude and myriad of reasons that are going into that choice. There are so many factors and so many things that are influencing that choice that she’s making. It is not just because, ‘oh I don’t feel like it’, or ‘I just don’t want to do this’, but even if those are the reasons, it is her body and her right.
No one wants to have to make that choice or decision, but in life sometimes there are circumstances where that is a decision that is right for that person in that moment. A decision that they feel would best support their life, and that might be the right, best decision for that potential of life. But no one should be able to tell you that that choice should not be yours. And that is what this decision has said, that is what this opinion has done. It has said too all women that your body is not your own; that you do not own the rights to your body and your womb. That we do not feel like you are responsible enough to say what happens to you.
It is not just the fact that a woman is now forced into a pregnancy, it is everything that comes along with that pregnancy. What about the women whose jobs don’t offer maternity leave or, doesn’t offer paid maternity leave? The women that risk losing their jobs because they’re missing too much time at work to go to doctor’s appointments. And when they go into labor, they risk losing their jobs because they don’t have the option of maternity leave to guarantee their job will be there when/if they can come back? What about post pregnancy? Because it doesn’t just end with now this woman has to carry this child to term, this child is going to be born into the world.
You want to preserve the possibility of life, but you have no resources and support systems in place too then support these women, these children once they are born into this actual world. In the This American Life podcast, they did give equal measure to both sides of this argument. There was a Texas lawyer, or it may have been someone in legislation, who mentioned making people feel supported in bringing life into the world. And there was a young woman who ran a pro-life organization in Mississippi that offered some practical resources and support. But this is about more than just providing strollers and cribs.
She herself had a child with extra needs, and had a full support team: mother, husband, friend-for this one child; everyone doesn’t have that. What if this child is born with medical conditions that have to be managed, and it cost millions of dollars managing them? When this child has behavioral problems in school that a parent has to constantly leave work to deal with? Again, risking losing their job or having their wages shortened for the hours that they miss.
And what happens when the option for a legal safe abortion is taken off the table? What happens when a woman feels so much pressure to not have another child that she chooses an unsafe option that results in the ending of her life and the fetus? Or when she chooses to commit suicide because the weight and the possibility of having a child is more than she can mentally handle, and she feels so threatened that she chooses the option of ending her life? Where will you be as this mother who feels scared, anxious, and stressed is carrying this child. There will be a big portion of babies born into stressed, anxious, resentful, nervous environments.
The ability and option to terminate a pregnancy is not some modern age medicine, women have had this option for millennia, this is not new. This has not come out of any women’s lib movement, from feminism, from loose morals, or any sexual revolution. And as it did not start with a court decision, it will not be stopped by one. What this will do is make things more difficult and riskier for those already in precarious situations who need this as an option. The women most affected by this will be the black, the brown, the working poor, women living at or below the poverty line. Women who don’t have the resources and the options to go to another state, to take the extra time off from work, to gather the extra money needed for a more expensive procedure. When what could be the least dangerous and least expensive option is stretched out because they have to figure out a way to be able to take time off from work and leave their state to travel to another state to have an abortion.
And are you going too further criminalize the very act of abortion? Those who seek abortion? There is already existing legislation making all parts of seeking abortion care a criminal act. How does this create a more supportive society that will make women feel safe continuing a pregnancy? What do you think the impact of this will be on actual, existing life? On the lives of those with other children that exist here and now. Will you force pregnant women to go to jail and leave their kids, lose their jobs, sit in jail and possibly deliver in jail? What do you think will be the impact of all of these possibilities?
But this is seen as a victory; a victory with no clear forethought and planning for how these decisions are going to impact and affect so many whose voices have been disregarded and dismissed.
And this is not something that should rest solely on the shoulder of women, because unless these are immaculate conceptions, these women had help in becoming pregnant; the men who are affected by this should also be vocal and speaking up.
There are a number of other considerations to factor in to this conversation:
- Pregnancies as a result of rape and incest. Will these women and little girls be forced to carry to term?
- The disparities in health care, and the high maternal mortality of black women because of a biased and prejudiced perception of them by medical staff.
- How this will add more burden to an already over burdened children and families, and foster care system.
- How difficult and expensive it is to adopt a child. And the hypocrisy of the standards you hold for adoption approval, when you then force people who do not feel they can handle taking care of a child to do so.
The more I type, the more I think of, so I’ll restrain myself with these few.
I’m not speaking out on this because I have had to make this choice. That may be part of what caused my hesitation. I needed to be sure my personal experience was not influencing my perspective: that I could assess this with complete objectivity, and that I was ready to be this vulnerable and open. The answer was yes to both. And as I said before, this is not an easy choice to make. You do not forget and just continue on, never revisiting that decision. It is something I think about periodically: the fact that I made that choice and who I would be as a person if I had not chosen to terminate a pregnancy. Who I would be as a mother, who that child might be? Though I do not look at it from the perspective of regret, it is more from the perspective of ‘I wonder’? It is not an act that I regret, though I would have preferred it not to have been a choice I had to make. However, at that time in my life that is the choice that I made and I stand by it right now 100%.
Because it was my choice to make, and my body and life for which I was choosing.
Just a citizen observer, sharing my thoughts.
Ways to donate:https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a40407068/abortion-funds-donate/
https://abortionfunds.org/funds/
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