Abortion Rights: Back in the Spotlight
Throughout a long election campaign, the future of abortion rights and the right to choose has remained a silent concern for many women and men as the higher-profile issues of the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dominated debate. But the question on Roe v. Wade put to the presidential candidates at the final debate on Wednesday moved the issue front and center once again. It is an intensely personal and relevant issue for women, and for most of us it is not an abstraction.
It became central to my life a couple of years back, when my primary physician refused my request to prescribe the morning-after-pill, citing medical reasons that made no sense to me. I was in a better position than most women in the United States. I was in a dual-income relationship and had a steady job that serendipitously afforded me all the information I needed to assess my situation.
I knew I had a number of options. I had the resources to seek out another health care provider, and I would be able to afford a safe abortion if it came to that. The only option I had ruled out was to carry a potential pregnancy to term: we simply would not be able to afford childcare and other expenses for a second child.
This, to me, is the real question of choice. As voters in California, Colorado, and South Dakota are asked to decide on proposals that would limit women's access to abortion and contraception, there is precious little public debate on whether actually having a child is necessarily a viable choice, financially and professionally.
For many, it is not. Federal law affords just 12 weeks of unpaid maternity or paternity leave, and only for those who are eligible, which excludes about 40 percent of American workers. There are no allowances for time off to breastfeed. There are few public child care options before primary school, and even private alternatives generally will not take children under 2.
Perhaps most disturbing in terms of lack of support, 8.7 million children in the United States currently have no health insurance. In the eyes of the law, it would seem, physically giving birth is the only consideration: you are afforded a short time to regain your strength after the delivery, but are otherwise on your own.
Some -- even advocates for choice -- would say that if you plan to depend on the government, you shouldn't have a child in the first place. But this argument also presumes that if there were public health care and childcare, and provisions for family support, birth rates would shoot through the roof, draining government coffers. Experience from countries with much better maternity and child protections shows otherwise. In my own country, Denmark, there are provisions that are generous by American standards - 52 weeks of paid parental leave, child care and public health care. But the birth rate also is quite low, 1.74 per woman in her lifetime, compared with 2.1 in the United States.
Support services are not the only factor in making a choice about parenthood, but clearly in the United States, from a purely economic point of view, fertility is not a matter of choice for everyone.
In the United States the lack of support for child care and parental benefits also coexists with serious legal or financial obstacles to accessing safe abortion services and even, at times, contraception. Since 1973, both state and federal legislators have limited access to legal abortion through burdensome regulation. Women with limited economic resources face additional obstacles because abortion services have been subject to a federal funding freeze since 1977 except in cases of rape, or incest or where the mother's life is in danger. Furthermore, the majority of states do not provide health care funding for abortion services that fall outside these exceptions.
In fact, fertility (and, by extension, choice) often comes down to a class issue. While the overall fertility rate has stayed the same, the number of children living in low-income families has steadily increased since 2000. The point is not that poor women shouldn't have children, but that all women should have a real choice - and that means access to information about contraception and abortion, and the support they need to raise children.
In my case, I ended up finding an alternative health care provider, who prescribed me the morning-after-pill.
For me, this is more than a personal issue. I have made a commitment to press for a real opportunity for choice for all women, including access to safe abortion services for poor, adolescent, or otherwise vulnerable women.
But choice also requires science-based sex education, contraception, maternity and paternity benefits, and access to child care and health care. The rationale behind polices such as Denmark's is that rearing a child is a service to all: reproduction, at its most basic, is the reproduction of society. Both the personal and the collective nature of that choice need to be protected by law and defended by the next president.
Marianne Mollmann is the women's rights advocate at Human Rights Watch
Follow Marianne Mollmann on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cluelesscamper
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Your commitment is obvious.
The facts presented in this blog are amazing and it will take me a long time to verify.
What is so sad is that the vulnerable women are not expected to make it through the hoops presented and that is exactly why the obsticles are placed.
If a female does not want to be a mother; How can she be expected to mother?
Great blog. Thank you.
It appears obvious that many opposing abortion rights, seem to be wearing blinders to other important issues when they wear their PRO LIFE badge. Looking deeper reveals, in many; an anti-science (or fear of science) bias; a intellectual and/or physical laziness shown by their ignoring a multitude of major afflictions which strike down, either physically or spiritually, our children; and a propensity, as an individual or as part of a crowd-congregation, to follow the moral directions cast before them by other mortals, instead of looking inside their own mind and soul for God’s moral compass.
All of these, of course, reflect a desire to take the easy path. Science can be mentally taxing, other afflictions, such as protecting all of God’s children, young and old, from diseases, starvation, crime, war, suicide, physical and mental abuse, neglect, lack of education and poverty, take much more thought and a greater financial and time commitment to alleviate. How much easier to just stand up in front of everyone and shout out, I’m for saving the unborn babies, I’m against abortions, I’m prolife. Especially so when your crowd then proclaims, “You’re a Good Person Charlie Brown” or Rita Robertson or whoever.
I recently completed A West Virginia Prayer which sort of weaves these matters into the fabric of other pressing problems, needs and tendencies facing our society today in These Times of Great Decisions. I will submit that prayer separately for this blog topic, and hope it is approved for posting.
An "anti-science" bias, except for when it comes to IVF or other types of fertility treatments. And I'm qualifying this, as did you, with "in many cases."
The decision to abort a fetus should be that of the woman, with the help of her doctor, partner, minister, God and confidants. Period.
The role of the state is to make sure that there are no barriers to the procedure and that it is handled as any other medical procedure. Period.
The role of the church is to offer private counseling when sought and it should stay out of the political sphere on this issue to ensure that it will not be used by the hypocites. Period.
The abortion issue brings up many questions: Does the fetus have a soul? When does the fetus get a soul? What happens to the fetus' soul if the fetus is aborted? Does the soul go to heaven or hell, or does it get a chance to be born in another baby? If it goes to heaven what's the problem? What if it DOES get a chance to be born in baby who is wanted? That could mean that forcing women to bear unwanted children might prevent a soul from being born to a mother who wants it.
Of course, most of you will answer these questions based on your religious beliefs. I believe that anti-abortion laws violate the separation of church and state. No one should be forced to make such a life-altering decision based on someone else's religious beliefs. It's un-American.
The existence of a "soul" is not a valid rationale for making laws. Questions about the soul are the province of religions, and I agree wholeheartedly with you that the separation of church and state should automatically preclude this argument from forming any part of a discussion about what laws are necessary for the common weal of a people.
I would tend to agree. Perhaps the more prudent question is "At what point does the developing fetus gain full legal autonomy?" The issue is not nearly as clean and simple as both sides would have the public believe.
Ms. Mollman - great post! Even after all the debate on this topic, it needs to be stated over and over again. It is very easy to stand on a high horse, in a mid- to - high-income household and judge people. The truth is that those who feel forced to choose abortion as an option in their lives, do so under great strain and very difficult circumstances (to put it very mildly).
And, it's worth noting too that we should just allow each and every unexpected pregnancy to be followed through. After all, we are currently doing such a great job in providing for ALL of God's children! One small example would be all the lucky kids without families and hope in Africa due to the AIDS epidemic. You know, the ones who are now 11 or 12 years old and raising their siblings!
I never get that - ABSOLUTELY no abortion b/c it's a sin. BUT, allow everyone to be born then ignore them because they're less than we are! These would be the ones who we want born and then allow them no health care.
And BTW - pro-choice does NOT mean pro-abortion! Instead, it means what women decide upon learning of a pregnancy is their OWN DAMN BUSINESS!
Thanks for letting me vent!
Friends and family up in Montana recently got inventive and came up with a way to send a strong message to Sarah Palin and John McCain in regard to an individual's right to make her own reproductive choices. Reports indicate that thousands of men and women have participated in the past several days in support of this message. Here's the plan : Make a donation to Planned Parenthood in either Sarah Palin or John McCain's name ( we made separate donations for each ). The donation is tax deductable, and PP will send a notice to Sarah or John that a donation has been made to PP in their honor. You can easily do this online in just a minute or two. The " in - honor - of " address info is: C/O John McCain 2008, PO Box 16118, Arlington Virginia, 22215.
Definitely! I just read that to date, PP has received over $1 million in Palin's name, with over 30,000 donors, many of whom are first-time. It is a great thing to do. Not only does PP provide services for American women, it also provides much needed health care, contraception, and medication to impoverished women worldwide.
Tragically, many will vote single-issue instead of truly examining all the other pro-life positions to be considered ---against war, against starvation, against genocide, for children's medical services, for early intervention for special needs children, for freeing of youth from foster care, group homes and residential treatment into real families, for education and opportunities, and the list goes on.
Meanwhile, we can assure you --or anyone you know---that there ARE MANY OF US ---ready, willing and able to help a mother-to-be who freely chooses life for her child (to parent themselves or place for adoption) in the same spirit as Mother Theresa who simply pleaded that you bring them all to her. With waiting lists of up to 200 qualified families for babies with even Down Syndrome born in the US, there are no shortage of families with the means, hope and love to provide for another child, who would be honored and ecstatic to so so if given the chance.
First, for the record we are Democrats, liberals, strong Obama-Biden supporters and totally reject the "right to lifers" as represented by the far right, rabidly Republican hate-mongers!
That said, you might be surprised to know there are some of us who are "pro-life" in the sense that we would encourage others to choose life for their unborn child even if they do not believe they personally can or should be the parents to raise the child.
Yes, that option is adoption (BUT PLEASE KEEP LISTENING AND LET ME FINISH), and we and many others of our persuasion are Adoptive Parents ---in our case Adoptive Parents of significantly special needs children (whether the needs have arisen before, at or after birth) both internationally and through the US foster care system.
Please realize that there are many of us who are pro-life, and would happily help you sort through an overwhelming number of homestudies of outstanding waiting parents-to-be if you asked for help with adoption, but reject the "right to life" agenda of control, coercion and hate. We strongly believe that the issue of abortion rights has been co-opted by the far-right extremists for the sole purposes of political gain and fundraising, not because those in power particularly care about the welfare of children in general. And we have reaped death threats from the right-wingers just for daring to say so.
The abortion debate is controversial. There are some who feel that there is no justification for the taking of an innocent life. But instead of looking at abortion as a method of murder, one should look at abortion as an issue of reproductive freedom for women. Women in society have come a long way and have attained educational and economic opportunities and should not have their reproductive rights taken away from them because of the government and society's personal morals.
A man can withdraw from a relationship as soon as he finds out about a pregnancy. There is no question of his involvement after that; he has made his choice. He might be legally obligated to pay child support but he is not legally obligated to bond with the child. It is only fair to that women should be given the same choice. If a woman does not want the responsibility of a child, then she should be able to have the choice of abortion as one of her options. She has to deal with the ramifications of her choice. As stated earlier, although it might be morally wrong to take a life, it is also morally wrong to bring a child into the world where is not wanted. It might be cruel, but in light of some of the horrific child abuse that goes on, it probably would have been better for those children if their mothers had aborted them.
Thanks for a well written article. I would not feel so strongly about those who want to force children to be born where they are not wanted, or cannot be cared for, if these same people were as willing to support them AFTER they are born. But it seems like once that baby is born ,it's on its own and the pro life people aren't the least bit interested in what happens to that child...do
Please see our other posts ---there are many, many of us who do work on behalf of children of all ages who are unwanted, uncared for, or unfortunate in other ways. Most of these unsung families are pro-life BUT NOT "right to lifers" as defined by the GOP.
They are pro-fetus, not pro-life.T
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