Saturday, May 26, 2007
Pro-choicers bid to eradicate guilt, babies, and poverty — in that order
Alternet writers Carole Joffe, a UC Davis professor, and Kate Cosby take on "The Loneliness and Shame of the Abortion Patient" and conclude that the main problem facing women who seek abortion is shame. Not shame at the thought of bringing forth a child, mind you, but shame over their abortion: The situation we describe is very different from the one that existed in the United States in the 1970s, around the time of legalization of abortion. Then, many women seeking abortions felt part of a larger movement. "Second wave" feminism was flourishing and women's health issues were a central focus of the movement. People still had fresh memories of when abortion was illegal, and thousands of women died and many more were injured from unsafe abortions. Rather than being ashamed, many abortion patients of the pre-Roe v. Wade era recall feeling entitled to having this once dangerous procedure done in a professional and women-centered setting. Ah, for the days when a baby wasn't a baby, but an opportunity to make a political statement! Snuff out that "blob of tissue" and stick it to The Man! You're not merely a woman with a unique, irreplaceable life growing inside you — you're "part of a movement"! Rejoice and be glad!
The authors go on:The new occupation of "abortion counselor" was established in this period -- someone who explained the procedure to the patient and accompanied her throughout her stay at the clinic. Feminist health activists pressured the newly established clinics to keep prices low and to make sure doctors were sufficiently respectful to their patients. In short, for many patients in the early years of legal abortion, the experience was both "personal and political," in that there were constant reminders that this medical procedure was tied to a larger movement. In contrast, in many of today's clinics, the staff is so busy complying with state-imposed "informed consent" requirements, which often involve telling patients downright lies -- for example, the supposed link between abortion and breast cancer and other distortions of risks of the procedure -- that there is rarely the opportunity to impart a positive political message about reproductive justice. Again with the "larger movement," enabling the woman to make a decision that is "personal and political." But hey, there were a lot of larger movements killing people for personal and political reasons back in the early Seventies: the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Weather Underground; it was the thing to do. Why just go to the doctor for a prenatal exam when you can instead kill your child and "impart a positive political message about reproductive justice"?
Ah, but times have changed, and contemporary abortion patients no longer understand that they can effect positive social change merely by having their preborn child destroyed. "[A] clear gap -- of class, income and education -- exists between those who work in this increasingly professionalized reproductive justice movement and those women who now form the majority of abortion patients," Jacobs and Cosby note sadly. They go on:The women we encountered in the waiting rooms of three abortion clinics, located in the South and Midwest, have little experience with the contemporary reproductive justice movement, or indeed of politics in general. But they are highly aware of the shame and stigma surrounding abortion. Some spoke of their fears of being recognized in the waiting room by acquaintances. Others, when asked if they would have preferred to have their abortions performed by their own doctors, in their home towns, rather than undertaking a drive of several hours to a clinic, recoiled at the thought. "I don't think that I would be comfortable going to my ob-gyn for an abortion, knowing that's the same man that delivered my children. ... I would think he would think of me differently. ... I mean, he sees me in one light, and that's the way I want him to see me."
None of the women interviewed said they thought abortion should be illegal. But many expressed ambivalence about their decision to have one. An unmistakable sense of sadness hovered around our conversations. Ultimately, these women made the decision to have an abortion for the same reasons women always have: Their recognition that they could not adequately care for a child at this moment in their lives. This seemed especially true for the more than half of our interviewees who already have children. This would seem to be a wonderful opportunity to make common cause with the thousands of pregnancy resource centers throughout the country that give free material aid to pregnant women, or with groups like the Sisters of Life, Good Counsel Homes, and Expectant Mother Care that provide a full range of social services — including, if necessary, a safe place to life. No such network exists among pro-choicers to make life a more attractive choice to women in need. A donation to Planned Parenthood does not buy baby clothes, let alone shelter. A donation to NARAL does not pay for a crib.
Instead of calling upon readers to dig into their own pockets like activist pro-lifers do, or pull together to form pro-choice pregnancy centers for women who do not wish to abort their children, Joffe and Cosby call only for solutions requiring more taxes and more regulations. "Affordable housing, living wages, better child care, intimate partner violence programs and universal health care are things the movement must fight for in order to give these women and their children a shot at a decent life," they write.
In other words, give us universal health care or the kid gets it. Kind of like the infamous National Lampoon cover: "If You Don't Buy this Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog."
But even universal health care won't call off these pro-choice dogs. The only real answer, they conclude, is an end to guilt: "And if that weren't enough," they write of their movement goals, "a challenge of a different nature is to make the lonely women in the waiting rooms feel part of that struggle."
In other words, you may be poor, you may be abused, you may have been dumped by the father of your child, say these pro-choicers. We cannot help you. Society is to blame. But we can make you feel that your abortion is part of the reproductive-rights struggle.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time that a preborn child was a martyr. And it wouldn't be the first time that left-wingers told a woman that her position in "the movement" was horizontal.
9:26 PM
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