The Guy knows I’ve thought about abortion a couple of times this week, and he coincidentally found a pretty horrific story in the New York Times about abortions in El Savador on the same day I happened to buy the Mike Leigh film “Vera Drake” on DVD.
It’s an interesting time for abortion.
On January 22nd, 1973, Roe v. Wade was decided in the American Supreme Court, which ruled, essentially, that a woman’s right to privacy superseded a state’s law on abortion, thus legalizing the highly controversial practice.
That means, being 32, abortion has been legal for my entire life. Yet I can recall being a child and seeing the “Dr. Death” propaganda waved in front of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who was a legendary abortion activist. I was a staunch Catholic as a kid and perceived abortion to be “killing babies.”
Now, though, I perceive it as a necessary evil in a world where mistakes – and yes, crimes against women – can transpire. Should I find out I’m pregnant tomorrow, I’ll be at the clinic Monday. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve used the so-called “morning after” pill three times, the first being back when I was about 20. I even remember the condom breaking, that one catalyst that forced me into that situation. I take the birth control pill now, and use the condom as well. I’m vigilant. But if something were to happen, I’d go to a clinic and deal with it.
Because it’s my body, because it’s my choice, because it’s nine months of my life that’s at stake, because I know that my genes are likely to mean a kid may have too many medical problems in their youth, because there are too many reasons for me not to have a kid. Because.
I feel for men who believe that it’s their kid too. I feel badly that they might think they should have more of a say in the matter. But until they’re able to have a distended belly, all-over bloating, utter discomfort and unease for a nine-month period, until they’re able to “squeeze one out,” the choice needs to be that of the female.
I can say a lot of shit right now, and I’ll have many men on my ass as a result, so I’ll keep it short and not so sweet. Men have great intentions. They want to be daddies. They want to bring a kid in the world. Ultimately, the majority of them take their responsibilities too simply, and the women tend to have to do most of the cleaning, cooking, and whatever the hell else the Soccer Mom of the Year tends to do. It’s the way it’s always been, and while dads are getting more involved and taking on more, they’re kidding themselves if they think it’s all evened out now. There are exceptions, of course, and yes, I’m speaking in generalities, but generalities being “the norm,” we know this is largely true, so please spare me the arguments on this. There are exceptions, but let’s look at the norms, all right? For the sake of argument.
When some guy – a boyfriend, a lover, whatever – says he wants the kid, he’s going to take care of it, there’s not a whole lot to go on there. Intentions don’t make the world go round, and promises are made to be broken. When it’s 18 years to life, one doesn’t wish to take a gamble, not when one knows who’s to pay the price when it all goes belly up. She will.
When the religious right and all those other bubbleheads get on their soapboxes to proclaim the sanctity of sperm and the amorality of abortion, they’re forgetting that the world isn’t some idealist’s wet dream. Ideals are for fools, and reality is for the rest of us. Yes, kids can be put up for adoption, but there are already kids out there needing parents – they’re just not the cute and cuddly little things in pink bunny slippers that every yuppie this side of suburbia’s got designs on. Let’s take care of those already neglected before we bring more into the picture. Yes, there’s social assistance for mothers who can’t make the finances work, but it’s not enough. Yes, everyone claims they’ll be there for the women when the women need help, but three years down the line, she’s going to be all alone, and she essentially knows it.
The thing that makes me most mad about this whole anti-abortion thing is this: It’s Christians leading the charge against it – whether it be El Salvador, Guatemala, or here in our own backyard – and they seem to have missed that very, very important part in the book of Genesis. God allegedly put an apple on a tree, and told Adam and Eve it was there, and the choice was theirs as to whether to eat it. He said there would be consequences for their actions, the expulsion from Eden, but He chose as a Creator to give them the option to decide what they would do with their life. Consequences would be doled out in the afterlife, and purgatory would be the resting ground for debts to be paid. Them were the rules set out by the Big Cheese oh so many millennia ago.
So, here we are, thousands and thousands of years after these alleged events, and these fucking Bubbleheads have decided that God’s choice to allow us the freedom of choice just isn’t good enough for their little right wing mission.
I love how they want to adhere to the Bible when it suits them, yet throw it out the window when it means they have to live in a society that doesn’t adhere to their little cookie-cutter mentality of Utopia.
Get over it. Choice, according to your beliefs, was divinely given. Man cannot usurp it, is what the Good Book claims. Or is yours a faith of convenience after all? Oh, the hypocrisy. Fuck, I hate hypocrites.
*As for El Salvador and Vera Drake, I’ve more thoughts on those. I’ll get back to that another time. Abortion’s being messed with in a major way, and Bush is on a mission. Well, la di da. So am I.
The Cunting Linguist
It seems I always have something on the tip of my tongue.
You’re absolutely right. In our culture, I think it would be fair to assume our world wide culture, we seem to have never left the world in which mommy rules the roost and daddy…does something. I think it fair to say that our culture has waxed and waned on this, periods of paternal involvement exceeding that of normality. Unfortunately those periods seem to never last more than a few seconds. [I think it interesting to note that while this waxing/waning – at least within the social/media consciousness – is particular to white society, the lack of paternal involvement is endemic in black society. Though that may be a strictly American observation. Pun intended.]
I think you’ve talked before about the image little girls are imprisoned by as they grow up. Little boys are similarly imprisoned. That and all the other little pieces of our society which define social separation imprison us in this inability to…coexist
Wow, an honest-to-goodness rational discussion of abortion. You rock Steff.
And I agree about men and women and their involvment with child raising. We men could do everything after birth, but we would still not match the feat of carrying and giving birth to a child.
My only issue is with the abortion decision. Men can’t opt in or opt out. They have to live with the woman’s decision. It is a woman’s to make and I don’t ever want to take that away from her. The problem occurs when the woman and the man disagree.
Well, yes, and no. Abortion has been legal in the USA for your whole life, but you’re not an American. 🙂
It’s only been legal in Canada since 1988, with the 9-0 Supreme Court of Canada ruling on abortion which overturned the federal law criminalizing it, and the 1989 9-0 ruling in the Daigle case which reinforced a woman’s right to an abortion over the objections of the father (and this is where I disagree with mhorts; that is, I agree with this ruling and thus don’t think the father should have any legally-enforced input, and in Canada, this is a non-issue, particularly because the Daigle ruling was unanimous and the majority of the justices in 1989 were Conservative appointees).
And, sure, I sent you that horrific article about El Salvador, but it’s not really fair, I think, to say that it’s the Christians leading the charge against abortion, because abortion is either completely or mostly illegal in every Muslim nation on the planet as well as in Myanmar (which is officially Buddhist).
But on the subject of Christianity in particular, my argument against Xtian influence on our laws is to ask them to remember to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. That is, keep your god off of my legislation. I am, of course, unsurprised when they disagree with my interpretation of their (ahem) infallible font of all wisdom.
It really is surprising when Christians (ie, the ignorant people who I’m called to consider brothers and sisters in Christ) ignore the decree of Christ Himself that there must not only be a distinction but a separation between the church and the state. From my perspective, that decree and the (somewhat similar) decree of “those without sin cast the first stone” are those most ignored by the church today. Sadly, they’re the most important in today’s inherently associated world.
…I’d like to raise a question. I hope it isn’t insulting or judgmental or insiting. For background, my essential qualm with abortion is that I presume “the little guy growing in there” (*ignoring the many periods and names of gestation and going for a delightfully non-scientific moniker*) to be inherently alive from the moment of conception. I must be honest and admit that I truly don’t know how heavily my faith has influenced that presumption. I’d like to say that I know my faith only affirms or supports that presumption, but I simply can’t be that objective.
So my question is, is the acceptance of a necessary evil accepted because of an assumed and particular definition of life or is it because of an authority over acknowledged life which cannot exist apart from the woman? (I personally hold it incredible that a group of people, old and unscientific types, actually defined life, what it is and what it isn’t. As incredible as, say, who is fully human and who isn’t. As much as I find it incredible, Roe vs. Wade is the law and my people want it. That is indeed the power and the beauty of democracy.)
An odd thought. I have always wondered why there has been no scientific study regarding the influence abortion has had on our gene pool. Ever since studying the mixture of genes over various periods of time in the world’s history, I’ve been curious as to the possible impact a removal of a population has on the gene pool. Perhaps, on reflection, that impact is similar to the “lost generation” of WWII – ie, the numbers might be similar. I have no clue as to the answer, but it has always made me wonder.
For the record, with thoughts centering on the political turmoil in America, I don’t believe any politician whose faith is in religion can or should exercise power in the name of faith whilst ignoring the desires of the people. I will never understand why those who wave faith like a banner ignorant a decree/admonition made by someone who is, at the very least, a pretty cool guy.
If you don’t mind me chiming in again, PS, my feeling on abortion is that it doesn’t matter whether or not a fetus is alive (although it clearly is), and it doesn’t matter if a fetus is a legal person (and in the US and Canada, it is not). My pro-choice stance comes from the ideal that the rights of a sentient, sapient being should always trump the rights of a non-sentient, non-sapient being, except where exercising those rights would be abjectly cruel.
That is, we have laws against torturing pets, not because dogs should have rights that supersede those of adult humans but because we, as a society, hate cruelty. And while I don’t think it is abjectly cruel to abort a 13-week-old fetus, I think that it would be cruel to abort a 32-week fetus. The woman should have the right to terminate that pregnancy, yes — but not abort. A 32-week fetus could survive outside the womb as an infant.
(In the final analysis, my stance is that a woman should always, without exception, have the right to terminate a pregnancy, but that if it can be done without killing the fetus, it must be terminated in such a way. If the fetus cannot survive outside the womb, them’s the breaks.)
Interesting take on the apple and life choices. I hadn’t ever thought of it in that way. one thing, there is no mention of purgatory in the bible. a totally made up idea. don’t take my word for it, google it, use a bible dictonary….. anyway.. I like your posts.
Yeah, Purgatory’s totally my Catholic upbringing, for sure, coming through. I was aware of that when I wrote it, but figured what the hell.
PS — I don’t know any long, brilliant answer to your question. I’ll just say this, in my world, in my mind, what is always trumps what might be.
I don’t think a scientific study could ever be done about what effects abortion may or may not have had. How do you study something that is no longer there?
Here in Canada, we had a rollicking good time when our lovely prejudist buddies in the government in Alberta back in the 1920s – 1930s practiced eugenics and sterilized anyone who wasn’t perfectly fit mentally, as well as native indians, so they couldn’t muddy the gene pool with their imperfect genes. How do you study what impact that had? You can’t. You can only study the impact on the victims.
With abortions, you could only study the emotional impact on moms who’d aborted, really.
Boyfriend — Yeah, I could say I agree with most of what you say there.
Now they’re arguing whether fetuses can feel pain. In the US they’re considering legislation where they would be compelled to tell mothers they will be hurting the baby via abortion, and they’re talking about the idea of requiring painkillers to be delivered in vitro to the baby, despite the fact that harm may come to the mothers.
(Granted, that discussion’s about fetuses over the age of about 20 weeks, and here’s the story.)
As for your earlier comments, yes, I know I’m Canadian. Sometimes I write too much from the US perspective since my stats tell me my readers are predominantly Americans. Oh, well. Plus, I’m pretty ignorant about Canadian abortion history, as I mentioned to you. So, good information there.
And yeah, I realized when I was writing it that I should be including all right-wing and fundamentalist religious nations, not just Christian ones. I’m just really, really pissed off at the Catholic Church and their hellish bent on declaring all sperm sacred, and what the end results of that are in Africa these days with the lack of condom dispensation, etc, so I take any opportunity I can to attack Christian fundamentalism.
But that’s my baggage, I guess.
Mhorts — I agree, the chick should decide. I love the fact that here in Canada, it works absolutely that way.
PS — Yeah, it’s definitely still a mommy-centered thing, child-rearing. Too bad, too. Men seem to be picking up more slack these days, and I’m happy about that, but they’re still way behind the gameplay.
I agree with most of what you have to say about abortion. The sad fact is, we seldom realize the impact of even the least of our decisions let alone when we are just caught up in the moment and throw care to the wind. We are ALL guilty of this to some degree. But the ultimate price is paid by our offspring, whether they are born and raised or aborted. Life is complicated. One of my daughters became pregnant and If I were her, I would have aborted that jerks baby. But Collin is a precious little boy and I’m proud to have him as my grandson, mistake or not. What some of the well meaning Christians need to remember is that we have all sinned and fallen short. We all fuck up. It is a matter of how we pick ourselves up afterwards that counts.
Rob
You said it, girl. Reminds me of a post I wrote myself titled “A Woman Who Has an Abortion.” I had to rant, sort of, about all the assumptions made about women faced with that decision and choosing that solution. I don’t fit the stereotype. 😉 A woman can be intelligent, completely rational, and sensibly selfish and hold “life” in such high esteem that she bases her decision on what’s truly best for all involved…even for our struggling world at large. 🙂
Let’s go beyond the abortion issue for a moment. Suppose the woman has opted to give birth. Should she have a legal obligation to inform anyone who might be the father (or just the actual father, if that person can be clearly identified), no later than the end of the seventh month of pregnancy?
Or should a woman be free to deny the father not only access to the child, but also the knowledge that he even has a child – while still potentially suing him later for 18 years of child support payments for a child he never even knew he had?
Hmm… that’s tricky.
I’d say “it depends.” Has he been violent towards her? Has he been abusing drugs?
There are legit reasons to NOT inform him, but I’d say that, in the majority of cases, he should have a right to know there’s a kid kicking around that’s carrying his genes.
ACCESS to that kid is a more complicated issue, and would have to be decided case-by-case.
I think too many men are omitted from the lives of the kids without good reason, so it’s an issue that needs discussion. There’s not gonna be an easy, pat answer, no matter how much we wish there was one.
There was a news story a few months back about a female doctor who had a relationship with a male
doctor. It seems that they only had oral sex (perhaps because the male didn’t want a pregnancy with
this woman at this time), and the female doctor slyly captured the sperm and later used it to inseminate herself. She gave birth without telling the father. She kept the child to herself – effectively cutting him out of both the joy of watching the birth of his own child and the intense parental pleasures of the first few years of a child’s life. After the child got older, she sued the male doctor for 18 years of child support, which came as quite a shock to him since he had no idea how he could possibly have had a child with this woman with whom he had only had oral sex. She will apparently get away with it, since at present there is no law requiring fathers to be informed of the existence of their children at all, and no law requiring notification in a timely manner. It could well be the case that this man would be a far better father than this deceptive and fraudulent mother – but without notification, he would
never even have an opportunity to argue that he should have access, since he is not even aware of
the fact that a child of his exists.