If Men Could Get Pregnant, Abortion Would be a Sacrament
Thirty five years ago (22 January 1973) the Supreme Court decided a case titled Roe v. Wade which held that until a fetus is viable outside its mother's body (twenty eight weeks), it is not a legal individual whose rights extend beyond the rights of its mother, that in fact the mother's health preempts any rights the partially formed embryo has.
This case overturned a law in Texas that criminalized abortion and reverberated through the states. According to the Roe decision, laws against abortion violated a woman's right to privacy under due process (in the Fourteenth Amendment). This decision superceded state laws restricting abortion.
Roe v. Wade is one of the most controversial cases in U.S. Supreme Court history. Even before it was decided there were men and women whose stomachs turned at the idea of abortion. The issue had been argued many times before in fairly recent history. In 18th century England, mothers accused of murder were not put to death if they could prove they were "with child." In infamous London prisons of the day there were "child-getters"--fertile men who could reliably make a woman pregnant. Some female criminals availed themselves of their services repeatedly so as not to be hanged.
In the early Soviet Union, abortion was freely available. It was later abolished because too many women were using it in place of birth control--which was hard for most women to get up until the sixties and seventies. Rich women had it, but often not the working classes. Remember Mary McCarthy's The Group? Vassar girls had diaphragms in the thirties--but not blue collar women who relied on condoms and men who would wear them or withdraw before ejaculation. As a seventeen-year-old freshman at Barnard, I got my first diaphragm from Planned Parenthood (a college tradition). I never got pregnant accidentally because I knew that an abortion would make me terribly sad. I loved children, dogs, cats and other living things, and I understood that terminating a pregnancy would be extremely hard for me emotionally. (But then I had sophisticated New York gynecologists all my life and grew up in liberal, enlightened Manhattan with parents who were bohemians of the thirties before they surprised themselves by getting rich).
In my own Manhattan high school years, girls disappeared from New York to darkest New Jersey or Pennsylvania to seek the services of illegal abortionists and many of them were accidentally sterilized while others may have died. Rich women in New York went to Flower Fifth Avenue hospital for a "D & C." My mother did this as late as 1960, but our housekeepers and baby nurses from Jamaica or the Deep South didn't have that option. A safe medical abortion (my mother referred to it in whispers as an "a- b") was expensive and hard to find. Many poor women got infected and died. In my mother's case, as I later learned, my father was adamant about not having another baby. There were already three girls growing up and needing private schools, hand-smocked party dresses, music lessons, art lessons, ballet, figure skating, charge accounts at Saks, Best and Company and Bergdorf's, Doubleday book stores (with their listening booths for LPS--which we quaintly called "records."
How interesting that the thirty-fifth anniversary of Roe comes on the very day that my daughter will go home from the hospital after having had twins. She had a really tough time, and has been warned that she would be at risk if she got pregnant again. She is not yet thirty and has had, thank the goddess, three beautiful children and a lovely husband. She also has generous parents and in-laws, step-parents who adore her and can refuse her nothing. But she was still terrified by a very difficult delivery (the details of which are hers not mine to describe. Since she is a much-published novelist, I'm sure she will).
The babies, a girl and a boy, are miraculous--like all babies--bringing back to me Ordinary Miracles, a book of poems about childbirth I wrote when Molly was born. (The phrase has entered the language--or been ripped off by various ASCAPniks and jingle writers). Babies are miraculous, especially just when they just wake to the world.
They seem to come from a better place which some call 'God,' some call 'Mother Nature,' and some call human evolution, depending on your point of view. (I happen to think that evolution is every bit as numinous as 'God'). But one thing is clear: Having them ain't easy. And that's long before you have to raise them.
For centuries, death in childbirth was woman's lot. In some places, it still is. In mountainous Afghanistan where women can't get to hospitals or there are none, in war zones, in occupied zones with barriers or curfews, in many parts of Africa, in rural India, and China, in rural America, giving birth is still no joke. Even in big cities, it can be dangerous. There is massive bleeding, the placentas don't always detach promptly, babies are often transverse or breach, just for starters. Then there is the question of medical care.
Again, in the eighteenth-century, my favorite period in English Literature, (at the dawn of the modern era--but before Louis Pasteur), accoucheurs (the precursors of obstetricians) killed many women with the microbes they unknowingly carried from the sickbeds of other patients. There was a great political struggle between midwives, who only dealt with women, and doctors who treated everyone, because the doctors wanted their monopoly.
Many women died of infection--like Charlotte Bronte--or nearly died like Mary Shelley. Women's health had always been a political football in the supposedly "civilized" Christian era. Many midwives (always specialists in women's health) were burned as witches throughout modern history.
Now we know about bacteria and viruses and we are much more aware of unconscious infection, but childbirth can still be a big deal--especially for older women, very young women, the ill, the malnourished, the poor, the mothers of multiple babies. It seems to me incredible that anyone without a uterus would try to dictate what a woman should do with hers.
So I am appalled that abortion remains under attack--and that birth control in America has been impeded. We came so far with so much struggle. To give it back now is no less than an assault on women's health.
Of course babies are precious and should be cherished. Nobody doubts that. But should a woman be forced by the law to give birth if she has health issues, a dead baby, twins or triplets, or can't get to a hospital or must be accompanied but a male relative--who may be at war or dead or unwilling? Fundamentalist Muslims, like fundamentalist Christians would deny her that.
No wonder the late great Florynce Kennedy said: If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Here is an example of how birth control is being controled right now in this country. First I know this is hard for some of you to believe, but not everyone lives within a few miles of a wally-world pharmacy. Some of us don't even live within walking distance to any pharmacy. Many rural places are just like this county. There is one pharmacy in the whole county. It's at least a 20 mile drive to another pharmacy. One of the pharmaceutist in this large chain pharmacy is against all birth control. This person is allowed to work there and not fill legal prescriptions authoriaed and written by trained medical people. So not only is the customer inconvienced, but could be embarressed when called on the carpet by this loud mouth woman that she, the pharmaceutist will not honor this prescription and she will have to come back or go else where. Of course this woman is past child bearing age, however she is a good catholic with only one child. Hummmmm perhaps she is in such a mood because she and all the catholics in the community are not having sex. But I digress. Like I said, these customers can't just go around the corner to another pharmacy.
I thought Al Gore was pregnant.
If laws favor men, and men get whatever laws are convenient for them, then how do you explain the lack of male choice 35 years after Roe v. Wade?
Sex Causes Pregnancy - A Decision Causes Birth
http://www
Is your claim of liberalism and equality a farce?
One day we will evolve out of such discusssions. After all, we can lab create life today (at least, bacteria).
Here is a little something from Jipi and the Paranoid Chip by Neal Stephenson ... “It’s like they make a bunch of little pieces of software and see which ones are best at doing some job. Each one’s a little different. Some do a good job, some don’t. The ones that don’t get erased. The others are reproduced, except with small random differences, and then they repeat the cycle for, like, millions of times.”
Now, if this seems like software, just take a look at the ATCG DNA coding of all our little babies who grow up and have babies.
The amount of stonewalling, dishonesty and personal demonization on both sides of this debate makes it impossible to deal with.
With regard to the above discussion about the terms: tissue, embryo, fetus (but not a "baby"), do you really believe that passage through the birth canal bestows "babyhood"?
Are you arguing that a "blob" suddenly becomes a "baby" when it exits the womb? How is such an argument defended when nature itself refutes it everytime a pre-term infant is removed by C Section?
No, that which is growing inside a women's womb is a baby. Prior to Roe, people normally asked pregnant women "how is the baby today?"
Businesses selling baby products still to this day do not ask pregnant women to prepare for the arrival of a "fetus".
So we can establish by reasoning that which is growing in the womb is a baby.
Now when does an embryo or fetus become a baby?
The day before 9 months expire? A month before? In fact the term embryo and fetus are simply descriptive terms to present a concept about the age and size of the baby growing in the womb.
No human being has failed to pass through the embryonic stage. No one can deny that the living organism is a human being.
So when a woman chooses abortion, she has choosen to cause the death of a baby. To argue otherwise weakens the believability of pro-choice advocates.
Tomor
Could we keep arguments on track? Erica writes "But should a woman be forced by the law to give birth if she has health issues, a dead baby, twins or triplets, or can't get to a hospital or must be accompanied but a male relative--who may be at war or dead or unwilling?"
While this is a valid question, I doubt that a significant percent of the 1.2M US abortions last year were due to these causes. Instead, the vast majority of women who abort simply--all things considered--do not want the baby. So let's not misrepresent the core underlying rationale and decision-making.
Illogical - appeal to emotion. Boo hoo. Now that I've got that out of the way: I am a rabid pro-choicer, but even I don't like abortion. Lets start talking about conception control.
First of all, EVERYONE IS PRO-LIFE (the opposite being anti-life).
The accurate opposite of PRO-CHOICE is ANTI-CHOICE, which is the term we should insist be used in these discussions.
Erica, your headline is 1000% dead-on! I defy any man to deal with the physical aspects of being a woman OR the life-altering decisions that we face.
If the government is going to have a say in women's fertility issues, let it begin with those who are asking the government to support them and their children..
Those applying for welfare should have to take a pregnancy test. Any existing children would receive benefits, and if the woman is pregnant at the time of application, she would have to receive pre-natal care and attend parenting classes to receive her (additional child) benefits..
Also, raising a child shouldn't be the "punishment" or "the price you pay" for youthful indiscretion. Therefore, surrender for adoption must be made less of a social stigma (hopefully the movie JUNO will help with that) and must be made "safer", i.e., by legislating that birth-mothers cannot show up in a year or two (or six or nine) to claim/demand parental rights, as the courts has horrifyingly allowed in the past.(Not to deny access, BUT only with the permission of the adoptive parents).
I speak on this subject with some credibility, as I was a teenager in the late '60's who made that difficult but CORRECT decision to surrender a baby for adoption..
Right choices aren't always easy choices.
If women were equal to men they wouldn't have been subservient through out history. Yes, you can sight the exceptions, but it is a rule simply because it is true. Why lie to yourselves about this? Is simply nature.
Women should have equal rights, but that's not the same thing is it?
As for abortion..
Okay, I'd like to bring up another argument for you all to ponder. I can hear the groans already. Relax.
A totally different case I bring out is the fact that if the pro life movement is concerned about the welfare of the unborn "child", wouldn't they then be concerned with that environment in which the unborn "child" is made to live?
This is where the thinking comes in. If a government can deny a woman's right to choice, the next obvious step would be to regulate pregnancies. Therefore the government would take it upon themselves to tell a pregnant woman that she can't: drink alcoholic beverages, smoke tobacco, take unapproved drugs (unless she obtains a doctor's note, but she must take doctor prescribed vitamins and iron pills), eat too much sugar, drink too much sugar, eat or drink any chemical sweeteners, eat too much fat, drive a car (after several months due to the steering wheel should she get into an accident), wear a seat belt (also, in case of accident - probably best to avoid getting into a car at all), live with a smoker or drinker - very unhealthy for the unborn, and mandate regular doctor's appointments and exercise.
As an example, with my third pregnancy and being of "advanced maternal age" my doctor wanted me to go for amniocentesis. I refused, basically stating that I would take my chances on what came out, and I didn't want to risk a miscarriage. Plus, I hate needles and the thought disgusted me.
Were the above situation a reality, namely government regulated pregnancies, I could have been fined or sent to jail.
For all of you who believe that the government should step in to cease abortion rights, I would like to know what you think about the argument I presented above.
The body of a woman it's a sacred place,why she would stain it with innocent blood of a fetus which has also his own body that temporarily can't live outside his mother body and with a soul from even the moment of his conception ? Every woman should decide whatever she likes regarding her own body,but not about her fetus life which has a body distinct from hers,only when his not viable or is threatening her life she could abort her pregnancy,even there are lots of mother which are deciding to carry their unborn children till their natural delivering term;think at Beethoven,her mother decided to deliver him against all odds and what artist would be missing for the entire world otherwise.
I dont it would be a sacrament if men were the childbearers, I think abortion would be simply a medical decision. The morale and religious attachments placed on abortion is because men and insitutions like government and churches (which are still run by men) want to control women.
Men and their partriarchal institutions want to dominate female reproduction and control women by limiting their choices in life.
If men got pregnant, every nation would have goverment funded and regulated daycare, adoption would be a federal responsibility and every man with a child would be paid a salary to survive.
I think abortion is a terrible choice one that inflicts great emotional and psychological distress and is not taken lightly and we as a society need to trust that the vast majority of women are making the best possible choice when deciding abortion is the best option.
"We have come so far with so much struggle."
By "we," Ms. Jong means "women." She doesn't mean "society," or "babies." The pro-abortion (all right, pro-choice) movement has always been a matter of women vs. men...idea being, if one is opposed to abortion, one is against women's rights.
But conscientious people have known for years that abortion isn't only about women's rights. The decision to abort a child isn't just about the mother; it's about the father, the doctor, the siblings, the grandparents, and society in general. Granted, some cases, e.g., rape and incest are exceptionql and deserve special consideration. But Ms. Jong and her cohort have never been willing to settle for such concession
Erica,
Let it go. The Republicans are never going to do anything about abortion. Its their favorite carrot to lure in the fundies and if they lose that and gay marriage by getting rid of it, they lose a HUGE voting block. Dems need to ignore the argument and it'll go away. By arguing with them, you just give them political power.
Think about it, 8 years of Reagan, 4 years of G.H.W. Bush, 8 years of Dubya and NOTHING has changed. They are hoping you'll get out and picket, put things on the ballot and scream at the top of your lungs so they can show videos to fundies who have been led along by the GOP for decades over two issues.
Put and end to it. Just ignore the bait.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
