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 This decision superceded state laws restricting abortion.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."
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On campus a couple years back I walked past a table promoting Planned Parenthood or some pro-choice campus organization. The banner hanging over the front of the table read:
"Happy Birthday Roe v. Wade"
I just had to shake my head at the unintended irony.
I'm just going to keep this simple because usually on this issue people will not compromise either way. I understand that. But Erica Jong: You are my hero and thank you.
Women are so silly. That's why 5 old white men have to tell them what to do with their bodies. It's just plain common sense.
I am an old woman and I am pissed. If women do not have the right to control their own bodies like men do than we are slaves. It takes two to get pregnant so why is only the woman "punished" for having sex??? I agree with those who say that the father of the child should be forced to care for and support the child. We could have a national database of every man's DNA so not one slips through the crack. We are your equals men who believe that their god demands our punishment, get that through your heads. Not everyone believes in god nor that sex is somehow great for men and evil for women. You born-againers and Catholics say all life is sacred even a fertilized egg, but you have no problem with war and the death penalty, and even worse you don't adopt unwanted children or care about the poor children in this country who sleep in shelters or on the streets or don't get enough to eat!!! You hypocrites! How un-Christ like! Jesus preached love and forgiveness; you preach hate no matter how you try to sugar coat it. Keep your superstitious beliefs to yourself. If you are against abortion, don't have one. It really is that simple. Keep your religion out of the rest of our lives.
Every time a child is concieved, it's a man and a woman---both---who are responsible [yes I know about baster babies, nobody's come up with "Pregnancy Helper" for Parthogenisis---yet]. If the sexual partners are properly educated, the creation of offspring will be an act of will and intent and joy, not a burden brought on by the imposition of a moral code that never functioned properly in the first place.
I don't know about you, but I think sex is good and increasing the earth's population is bad. Pregnancy, like abortion, should be safe and rare. There's only so much room for Homo Sapiens here, and the moral landscape did change since a large number of various authors and editors came up with "The Good Book" [edicts usually ignored, but hey---that's somebody else's book, I'll take the word of any reasonably edited Grimoire first anyway]. Sorry but "be fruitful and multiply" no longer applies. We need Roe V. Wade, but even more we need real sex education including but not limited to prevention of pregnancy. Most of the harrowing edicts concerning sex in the bible come from Paul of the New Testament. What he wrote indicates a man who needs a whole lot of therapy before he's in any postion to tell anybody else how to run their lives. Citing the Bible as regards sex is usually the sign of sombody incapable of reading. Seriously, have these people even attempted "Song of Songs"? Having the rules of the game determined by quarter-wits like Bush & Huckabee is just plain stupid.
The late Flo Kennedy & you are right, Erica. To be almost rabidly as only as an ex-catholic can be -abortion would have been an RC before marriage became an RC sacrement.
To repeat the boring story an old man who was a member of the lumpen-prole's but is now a limosine liberal-I had an aunt, a free spirit as I see it, who died of complications of a back street abortion in 1940 & a couple of aunts who had abortions & survived after WWII. I heard the whispers after I left my birth family & the RC's. I thought g-d-damn, if priests could get pregnant- abortion would be a sacrement. I still think that. I will not go on an anti-RC screed. I'm retired. I seek peace & serenety. Sorry about the typos but turning on spell check slows my computer when I use HP.
The Church folks are still using the same thinking that punished anyone that thought the Earth revolved around the sun! Are we to believe the Earth is only 6,000 or so years old?
Men seem to love the way out religions that try to remind women that "God" says they are to mind there husbands!
Do these 'Christians' try to follow the teachings of Christ, or do they hop all over the bible taking whatever passages that will back up whatever the want?
I have no problem with those that read the bible, but I do have a problem with using the bible as a weapon!
Some are very proficient at 'Quoting' the bible
yet seem to know nothing about the dubious way the bible was handed down with MAN deciding what 'books' belonged.
The "Punishing" god of the old testament is a fear tactic designed to control the masses through fear! Kind of reminds me of this administration and it's fear campaign.
Why should the bible pounders be concerned about my afterlife? Tend your own flock and leave your neighbor to decide for him/her self!!
Right on Erica.
I always thought that a possible solution to this would be for everyone who is against abortion to offer to adopt one or more children kind of like a safety net so that okay carry the child to term but we will take responsibility for this unwanted child. Kind of like the "no child left behind" thing with schools.
It could be called Rescue Children of America and people who are against abortions could register with the planned parenthood clinics to give these mothers another option. Regular adoption is too fickle a process. Imagine a woman given a choice between having a regular adoption or having someone from Rescue Children of American Organization come forward and say yes we promise to raise this unwanted child.
I think that this is what the message must be in order to be creditable. After all its one thing to say give up your baby it's another to say yes we will take care of it. It sounds like the Christian thing to do don't you think. I think that someone should start a list of people in the Right to Life movement of everyone willing to take on at least one or two unwanted children regardless of race too. Then instead of protesting they could tell the mothers that they would be more than willing to raise their babies.
This way they of place themselves in the mother's shoes who cannot think of a way to raise this child, or hasn't a husband.
If the right to life people say no they cannot do this or it isn't their responsibility aren't they in effect saying they don't want this baby. You see if they say they don't want the baby or want to have the baby randomly assigned by an adoption agency then it is still an unwanted child.
Just my two cents
Although I concur to Ms. Jong's logic about the possibility of a mother dyng in certain instances, but if heroic means are going to be taken to keep the mother healthy, then what about the baby. Although yor logic is flawless in pro-abortion beliefs, and the arguements have many good merits, you still do not take into account the baby as being part of the equation, you look at like, well they're going to do it anyway so make sure the abortionist is safe. I understand this is a sticky topic, and I swing to both sides of the pendulum, but when it all boils down, there is an adult whom in most cases made a conscious choice to be in that situation, and a baby yes a baby not an embryo who's life is very rarely taken into consideration. Everyone makes a bad decisions in life, and usually people get to pay the consequences and learn from them. Abortion is too easy and too many people use it for selfish reasons. I don't beleive in forcing a sick woman or forcing a raped woman or anything along those lines, I don't even beleive R Vs W should be repealed, but it is a sad commentary on character when a place like Planned Parenthood is booked solid with young 20 somethings opting out of respnsibility because it's not convenient for them at this juncture. There's a million logical reasons why abortion should be legal, and there is only one reason why not, and that's the babies who die before they live. It all matters where you heart is, and America's heart is focused on itself.
The whole abortion issue (like so many other things like gays, illegitimacy and sex out of wedlock) is an issue of learning to respect someone else's belief's! This is why the issue is even at the fore front of the Republican political agenda. Those who want to outlaw it are not respecting anyone else's belief's but their own. They don't seem to comprehend that other people in this country have right to their own belief's as they do. Even when they don't coincide with theirs. This is something that I feel Christianity is falling dangerous short of instilling in followers of their faith. Other people's right to believe differently. This is why I did not raise my children with any religious training. Yes, I instilled in them the basic moral code of 'do unto other's as you would have them do unto you'! But, I deliberately left all of the religious bigotry out of it. Because I feel it does young children more harm than good. I feel that religion has grown more bigoted, hypocritical and mind controlling over the years. They are not teaching their children the essentials it's going to take to survive in a multi-cultured world. To get along with people of different nationalities and cultural backgrounds. They are teaching their children there is only one truth and that's what is in the Bible. Or what someone else has interpreted the Bible to mean. They are severely handicapping their young to where they aren't going to be able to function in a normal manner. I expect abortion to eventually become illegal until people grow tired of religion calling all the shots again. And we go back to the revolution of the 60's. I firmly believe people are going to get tired of all the religion and start putting it back in it's place. In the church pew and leaving it there.
PERHAPS THE "ANTI ABORTIONIST" SHOULD CONSIDER "WHAT IF" THEIR DAUGHTER BECAME PREGNANT AFTER A RAPE, OR WOULD LOSE HER LIFE AND LEAVE OTHER CHILDREN MOTHERLESS. PERHAPS THEY SHOULD PUT THEIR "MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTHS ARE" AND ADOPT OR FINANCIALLY AID THOSE WITH UNWANTED PREGNANCIES THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN. ANOTHER SERIOUS CONSIDERATION..A YOUNG GIRL MADE PREGNANT BY FATHER, UNCLE OR A DEMENTED MALE RELATIVE? TOO MANY SO CALLED "GOOD PEOPLE" DON'T THINK IT THROUGH BEFORE SPEWING THEIR CLOSE MINDED EDICTS!!
The "pro-life" folks can claim they so love life--haaaa what a bunch of BS when you look at everything else they like--like uncontrolled guns, the death penalty, war----
Most of the most virulent of "pro-lifers" are almost invariably men of course---they are the ones who will kill abortion docs and blow up their clinics and are glad when that kills or maims clinic workers, women seeking clinic services and even law enforcement and rescue workers who respond to the scene of such a terrorist attack.
With these men, I dare say that most of their stance does not come from their concern about the precious little fetuses----but it comes more from their being pissed that women have control over their ablity to have or not have babies as they see fit----
These people are not lovers of life nor are they lovers of "liberty and justice for all."
Just the freedom to have their guns, not pay taxes --things like that----and of course---control over those haughty women who think they have any kind of rights of at all when it comes to being breeders or not---I mean---isn't that the only thing women are really good for--the pleasure of men and to have the little ones??
Abortion should be, as others have stated, legal but rare. As a man, and a father, it's impossible for me to understand why some women would use this process as birth control, and although there are many perfectly good reasons to consider abortion, others are irresponsible.
But to another point. If women want true equality, they should offer men that same equality when it comes to deciding to become a parent. If women can opt out, why can't men? How is it that a woman has full control of her decision, and I can deal with that, but when she decides to have the child, she can force the man to pay thousands of dollars for the next 18 to 21 years? Why can't he decide at that time to opt out? How can anyone think that's equal? Notifying the would-be father and knowing his decision concerning whether he wants to be a parent should be part of her deciding whether to become a parent. And frankly it might also make them both decide not to jump in the sack so easily.
Some thoughts on Abortion:
Roe v. Wade was a comprmise, to realize that we need a national standard as to access to abortion, not a quilt of different laws that create limits on legal access for many.
To me many of those who want to ban legal abortion are strong believers in a faith and are very selfish in counter to their faiths beliefs they will enter easier in 'heaven' if they try to ban abortions.
Government or society's pressures should not force a woman to have an abortion as in China with their 1 child policies)nor totally ban legal access or just because the developing child is to be a girl (in many countries).
Far too often, abortions are as a result of men demanding and/or forcing women to have sex with them, threating extortional emotional and economic damage if they don't submit. In effect that is rape.
Socitial pressures to have sex as to both men and women, especially those who are still children needs to be curbed.
Until we deal far better with the sexual responsibilty of both men and women the number of abortions and unwanted children will continue to be higher than desirable.
Health of the mother is one of few reasons a person should be counseled in aborting a fetus at the early stages of a pregnancy if possible. Those arguments are always convenient to those who whole heartedly support abortion and the taking of a life. In those situations the thought of killing the baby would be agonizing to anyone. But for every case such as these you have 15 that are as a result of one night stands, a person who uses abortion as a birth control alternative. I am acutally quite amazed at those who have such militant support for taking the life of a baby that would have the same level of militancy when a pregnant mother is seen smoking and drinking. If a pregnant mother wants to drink and smoke is that not her right to do so? After all its her body is it not?
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