As Election Day approaches, Roe v Wade remains the law of the land, but with a Republican victory and an aging Supreme Court, this law may very well be in jeopardy. As President Barack Obama said on August 8th in Denver, "The next president could tip the balance of the court in a way that turns back the clock for women and families for decades to come."
As troubling as this reality may be, regardless of who wins the Presidential election we'll still have a ways to go when it comes to reaching true reproductive freedom. Now and after the election, two stubborn stigmas that prevent it will be with us. One has been talked about more than ever before in the last decade. The other relates to a central social issue of this election, and needs to be talked about a lot more.
What stigma has been recently talked about more than ever before? Not having children by choice. A decade ago, there were a just few books out on the topic, and a bit of research had been done in the area of "voluntary childlessness." Rarely did we see this topic discussed in the media.
Over the last decade or so, not only have more books been published on this topic than ever before, more research on the childfree choice has been conducted than ever before, and this growing trend has been profiled in television, radio, print and digital media more ever before.
However, even with all the exposure and education, as Norma Lizeth Morales' describes in her recent piece, "a 'purposely childless family' isn't quite socially acceptable yet." She's right. While better than in generations past, the stigma around not wanting to become parents remains alive and well. The childfree on TV segments, radio shows, books and articles are still explaining, justifying, and debunking untrue notions, including that it's not "normal" to say no to raising children, that the childfree hate children, they are selfish, and will surely will end up alone and lonely when they are old.
Why does society still stigmatize having no children by choice? Because the majority remain fundamentally stuck on the long-held pronatalist belief that we are all wired to want to become parents.
Bucking pronatalist assumptions takes us to the second stubborn stigma. It's the stigma surrounding abortion. Now, we expect anti-abortion proponents to stigmatize abortion. However, how even the pro-choice community buys into and furthers abortion stigma needs a deeper look.
According to researcher and Board Chair of the Global Fund for Women Leila Hessini, the "root of all barriers that women--and even providers--face to obtain or perform abortions" is the "the social construct" behind abortion stigma. What's at the heart of the construct? Pronatalist beliefs about motherhood.
Leila Hessini and her colleagues Anuradha Kumara and Ellen M.H. Mitchell speak to pronatalist assumptions about the "essential nature" of women that are violated when they choose to end pregnancy, including "the inevitability of motherhood," how "all women are expected to need motherhood," their "perpetual fecundity" and "instinctive nurturing." In their article, "Conceptualising Abortion Stigma," they make the point that choosing to end a pregnancy "counters prevailing views of women as perpetual life givers, and asserts women's moral autonomy in a way that can be deeply threatening."
Despite the fact that one in three women have abortions in the United States, and "a much higher share of all women globally terminate a pregnancy sometime during their reproductive lives," because it goes against these and other ways in which women are supposed to be, abortion is still viewed as something that is "wrong, inappropriate, or deviant."
The language surrounding abortion also supports negative associations. For example, the popular language in which it is talked about - wanting it be "safe, legal and rare," reinforces the idea that abortion is wrong and abnormal. And as Hessini describes, "even abortion providers and clinics--sometimes unknowingly--create an atmosphere that stigmatizes women. Some American women have shared that paying for their abortion felt 'like a drug deal' and others say the security, while justified, made it 'seem all the more like a shameful, secretive thing.'"
When it has to remain secret or when it brings shame, women don't have true reproductive freedom. As long as there are stigmas related to not wanting children or ending unwanted or unhealthy pregnancy, women will not have full reproductive liberty. Women should not only have the power and the legal right to make their own reproductive decisions, they should not, as Hessini so aptly says, "be judged--by society, by their communities, by the health system, nor by us."
There are signs of progress. Hessini and her colleagues at Ipas (International Pregnancy Advisory Services) are working towards "stigma-free language, concepts and services." They see the need to change "the narrative" around abortion. The narrative needs to change around having no children by choice as well. To successfully change the narrative means taking a hard look at what we've been taught to believe about women and their reproductive lives. Ultimately, it means challenging the assumptions of a pronatal society.
Laura Carroll is the author of The Baby Matrix: Why Freeing Our Minds From Outmoded Thinking About Parenthood & Reproduction Will Create a Better World.
Follow Laura Carroll on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@lauracarroll88
Lana Citron: My Very Own Stockholm Syndrome
So I guess my question is; Why let such a fundamental right (in your view) be subject to the majority one a nine judge panel? Slavery was abolished with a Constitutional Amendment . Women's Suffrage was accomplished with a Constitutional Amendment. If Abortion Rights has the grass roots support that most liberals claim, why not enshrine that fundamental right (in your view) in a Constitution Amendment and not worry every election that a Republican politician is going to strip you of your 'rights'?
Oh wait!!
Even discussing it is incredibly stupid. No person has a right to take or use you body to extend their own life.
So imaginary people certainly can't co-or mine.
Please develop a modicum of real politic.
tyrannical forces are keeping even the no-brainer stuff from getting through.
As a Conservative, my personal view is that all innocent human life should be protected by law except in extraordinary circumstances. In my view, most abortions aren't due to extraordinary circumstances but my personal view is irrelevant when it comes to national policy.
Setting National Abortion policy is simply not an enumerated power of the Federal government. The Majority Opinion of Roe v Wade does reference specific statutes in the Constitution specifically the 4th and 14th Amendments, however a quick review of history tells us that the issue of abortion was not discussed during the adoption or ratification of these Amendments. Futhermore, the historical context of these Amendments tells us that the inclusion of abortion rights language as defined by the majority opinion of Roe v Wade would have certainly stopped the adoption of these amendments. This is the reason why conservative view Roe v Wade as an activist decision not based on the rule of law.
But if I were a liberal, I would be equally concerned with the fragility of Roe v Wade, just as Ruth Bader Ginsburg has voiced her concerns in the past.
So, in your assumption, she is guilty of something, right? So, she should have her right to decide not to keep another entity alive by having her body taken over, used, abused and possibly killed taken away, right?
That's what you are saying - that she should have the GOVERNMENT tell her she HAS to let another entity steal her blood, her organs, her body, and possibly her life from her.
No man is expected to do that, by law by the GOVERNMENT. He is not forced to give parts of his body to let another survive. Why should girls and women be forced to?
The reason that there are vast empty or nearly empty prairies is because they lack one or more resources to support dense human populations, or else they too would already be filled.
Los Angeles has from time to time considered an aqueduct to bring water from Washington state.
Reckless procreation is not a good plan. All children should be planned and wanted. Wider-spread birth control is one path to less abortions opposed by the religious stubborn. Instead, they want "PERSONHOOD Amendments" which would make three of Mitt Romney's daughters-in-law criminal accomplices to MURDER because they had In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) help. Romney has promised to sign any Personhood bill they send him.
Many conservative voters simply have not heard clearly the message that Romney/Ryan are not just proposing cutting federal funding, they are proposing making many forms of birth control ILLEGAL, and NOT JUST ABORTION. Ryan's proposed "personhood" law declares that an embryo has full human rights at the moment of conception. Most analysts agree that would mean that any birth control consumed after conception would be illegal as it could abort the fetus, which could lead to the illegality of even the most common forms of BC.
I expect that this type of insanity would never make it through Congress, but considering that 99% of women in this country have used birth control, and that women spend over 70% of their lives actively trying to avoid pregnancy, I'm not sure how any woman could support Romney/Ryan in pushing this platform forward.
Yes i do, i am and i will. but it's none of your da_n business.
On abortion history, from Hessini,Kumara and Mitchell's article, which is well worth the full read: "Unwanted pregnancies and abortion have existed since time immemorial. The seminal work of George Devereux on the history of abortion around the world points to the frequency of abortion across cultures and time. Chinese, Greek and Roman cultures all developed systems of dealing with unwanted pregnancies and regulating population growth in their respective societies. The Egyptians were some of the first to create abortion techniques, which were discussed and reported in some of their first, and our oldest, medical texts."
So there is that choice word again, which I remind you that I approve of...but are we missing a few important nuances as we continually abstract the issue with terms like 'reproductive freedom'? Could we make more progress by keeping contraception and abortion as separate issues?
What is the term for someone who believes in accessibility to contraception, is not a fan of abortion but supports a woman's choice to have one, and believes that late-term abortions should only be conducted for health reasons?
A feminist?
That would be Pro-Choice, as those who are pro-choice actually define it. No one who is truely Pro-Choice WANTS people to have abortions, but they understand that in some circumstances it may be needed and that it should be the women (hopefully with family) who make that choice for themselves based on their specific circumstances at that time. And to be truly pro-choice you also have to fully respect any women who choose to continue a pregnancy even if you think its a bad choice.
Pretty much everyone I know who identifies as pro-choice agrees that there should be gestational limits for non-health related abortions. What those limits should be is still up for debate, but that is a different dicussion.
It comes with minding ones own business and not being a control freak. There is rather a lot of believing in freedom and individual liberty there as well.
Basically, if someone doesn't want a child badly enough to willingly endure pregnancy to get one then they obviously won't do a good job as a parent so better to wait until they are ready.
Kids are to important to do wrong.