RSS feedAbortion Ban Debate
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| The Fall issue of Ms. features the cover story �We Had Abortions. |
Ms. magazine recently launched their second “I had an abortion” campaign and petition. The first one was in 1972 in the debut issue of the magazine when over 50 well-known women declared that they had abortions—even though it was illegal at the time.
With the influx of discussions in the media, online publications and the blog-sphere, I must admit I have grown somewhat weary of reading about the subject. Until I came across ‘Reflections from a Former Anti-Abortion Activist’ by Elizabeth Wardle, PhD, on AlterNet: As a good Christian teenager, Wardle was active in the anti-abortion movement. But it was her college women’s studies classes that turned her worldview upside down. The article is somewhat of a coming-of-age story if you will, that describes Wardle’s transformation from seeing the world in black-and-white to accepting the existence of shades of grey.
The most interesting part of the article comes at the end, and is maybe the most pragmatic and sensible argumentation I have read about abortion laws recently:
“Here is a pro-choice position I can get behind: Abortion is generally not the problem in need of our attention. In most cases, abortion is one result of a number of related problems; abortion is wrapped up in intimate ways with attitudes about sex, living wages, access to good jobs, healthcare, childcare, education, and so on.If we want to prevent bringing unwanted or unsupported life into this world, birth control must be accessible to all; men and women alike need education about the necessities of birth control. Birth control, sex education, and factually correct abstinence-only programs are abortion issues.Girls from conservative homes like mine do not need lectures about the shame of sex, but about the beauties and dangers of sex, and ways to avoid the dangers. They must learn to love their bodies, draw appropriate boundaries, and know what precautions to take when they are ready for sex. Hatred of women and women’s bodies in the Christian tradition are abortion issues.Women from all walks of life must make a living wage so they can support children when they are ready to have them. If two-thirds of all women who seek abortions say they cannot afford a child, improving economic conditions by providing viable job opportunities for both men and women should greatly decrease the number of abortions. Raising the minimum wage is an abortion issue.Women everywhere must have affordable health care for themselves and their children, so they can bring healthy children into the world and keep them healthy. Affordable universal healthcare is an abortion issue.Women must have access to quality daycare that will not cost more than they make at work. Government-subsidized child care is an abortion issue.Women must have access to affordable education so they can compete for living-wage jobs, and so they can promise that same access to their children. Education-related government grants and loans are abortion issues.Adoption must be demystified, shown to be a loving and generous choice, not abandonment. Adoption laws, adoption agency regulations and oversight, and attitudes about adoption are abortion issues.To engage in productive dialogue about abortion, we must account for justice and equity; we must strive to make our country one where laws, practices, programs, and attitudes nurture women and allow them the opportunity to bring babies into the world when they can support them, provide them excellent healthcare, send them to college without putting themselves in massive debt, and promise them truthfully there are living-wage jobs waiting for them.Come to think of it, if this isn’t a genuinely pro-life position, I don’t know what is.”