Tag Archive for 'pro-choice'

Yesterday, Milena Thomas posted about the hypocrisy of a vegan choosing to abort a pregnancy.  One of the most difficult decisions women make is what to do when faced with an unintended pregnancy.  It’s not like women don’t realize that terminating a pregnancy prevents the gestation of what ultimately culminates in a new life.   Women know full well the weight of the decision they’re making and have to live with; having an abortion is not like getting your haircut on a whim.  There are lot of factors to weigh.  And however a woman chooses to come to terms with that decision is unique to her and should be without judgement.

Thomas would have you believe that a woman who chooses to terminate a pregnancy is broken in some way.

My understanding has always been that a woman who drives herself to such a decision has been befallen by tragedy. Either suffering from severe medical complications, detrimental effects of poor decision-making, or horribly, being violated. I’ve always felt that a woman who chooses abortion has hit a low in her life, led to her choice through complex social and personal beliefs. I don’t feel I could do anything but lament for her and hope she gets the help she needs.

I would argue that abortion is as old as pregnancy and serves as the most primitive means of population control.  It allowed/s a woman to choose to be (or not to be) a parent.

Much as we don’t want to admit to our lowly status as part of the Animal Kingdom (we share 93% of our DNA with monkeys), terminating an unauspicious pregnancy fits with the basic instincts of animals.  How often do we read of cubs taken away from their mother at a zoo because she killed previous cubs and litters? Infanticide is common across the animal kingdom when conditions are not favorable for the upbringing of young.

infanticide has been reported among mice and ground squirrels, bears and deer, prairie dogs and foxes, fish and dwarf mongooses and wasps and bumblebees and dung beetles. . . lion[s]. . . red howlers of Venezuela, the gorillas of Rwanda, and the blue monkeys of Uganda . . . lemurs. . .

In the early 1970s, Harvard grad student Sarah Hrdy spent the summer in India observing the behavior of indigenous monkeys, Hanuman langurs. Fed by humans, the langurs overpopulated their terrain, which led to crowding and acts of infanticide by both genders.  The males seemed to kill the young not genetically bound to them, as a means of trying to ensure the success of their own progeny.

Her “outsider male” infanticide, she realized, was clearly not the only kind of adaptive strategy practiced in the animal world. A mother might resort to infanticide if she didn’t have the resources to raise all her children. Adults might also kill the infants of strangers simply for food or to eliminate the competition for limited resources.

Historically, humans have participated in infanticide.  In Ancient Greece, unhealthy babies were left to die from exposure outside the boundaries of communities.   A woman wasn’t deemed pregnant until she announced her pregnancy, allowing women the freedom to plan the size of their families and the frequency of new births.  Family planning was so embraced in ancient North Africa, that a plant known for its contraceptive properties made its way onto the back of coins, sort of an early public service announcement to prevent unintended pregnancies.  (The plant was so heavily used; it was driven to extinction.)  Imagine condom pictures on the back of nickels!

While ancient societies moved away from infanticide, abortificients continued to allow women to terminate a pregnancy long before it became a viable life.  Thus, to this day, women can plan their families on their own time line, and not be held a slave to their reproductive organs, by using contraceptives (in the best case scenario) and abortion (in the worst).   Today, 98% of American women will use birth control for some part of their lives, and one in three will likely have an abortion.

Pregnancy termination is an incredibly difficult and complex decision for women.  International research on the reasons behind women’s decisions find the choice to be incredibly layered.   In the US, for instance, a 1988 study showed women averaged nearly 4 reasons for choosing to terminate, “with 63% reporting 3-5 and 13% reporting 6-9. Only 7% of women in that study gave just one reason for obtaining an abortion.”  A 1998 synthesis of 32 studies conducted in 27 countries found (emphasis mine):

Worldwide, the most commonly reported reason women cite for having an abortion is to postpone or stop childbearing. The second most common reason—socioeconomic concerns—includes disruption of education or employment; lack of support from the father; desire to provide schooling for existing children; and poverty, unemployment or inability to afford additional children. In addition, relationship problems with a husband or partner and a woman’s perception that she is too young constitute other important categories of reasons. Women’s characteristics are associated with their reasons for having an abortion: With few exceptions, older women and married women are the most likely to identify limiting childbearing as their main reason for abortion.

Women who don’t want children, probably aren’t going to make the best parents if forced to carry to term.

Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion. (Guttmacher)

Most women are either happy with the news of pregnancy, or eventually shift to acceptance.  Some simply aren’t ready or don’t want to be mothers.  What kind of childhood would a baby brought into the world by a distinterested and disengaged parent(s) have?

As for socioeconomic concerns, can you fault a woman for recognizing she can’t afford a baby? The staples of the first year of a baby’s life run average $10,000 (from diapers and formula to furniture and onesies), and the cost of raising a child through the age of 18 can run between $125,000-$250,000).  There’s a certain stigma to life on welfare, so it seems that allowing a woman to pursue and education and career that would provide her with the finances to fund the life of a child, in a way deemed acceptable to the holier-than-though in society, might prove to be a good stage prior to parenting.  Also,  60% of women who seek to terminate a pregnancy already have one or more children at home. Such a woman is making the hard choice to provide the highest quality of life for the children she already birthed.

Relationship problems and immaturity.  Carrying a fetus to term is not going to make  dealing with relationship issues simpler. In fact, it’s likely to complicate the relationship further.  And to recognize that one is not mature enough to be a parent. . . both are responsible assessments of one’s situation.  And having a child in those instances also don’t seem favorable to a positive long term outcome.

Women choose to terminate a pregnancy because conditions for childrearing are NOT OPTIMAL in their specific case.  That decision isn’t the sign a damaged woman, but one responding to her most basic instincts that gestating life in that time and space isn’t going to yield the best outcome possible for all parties involved.

While pro-lifers are quick to point out that plenty of couples who can’t have children of their own would adopt the children born in lieu of termination prior to viability, I ask why there are more than 500,000 children in US foster care, without permanent homes?  Would we forcibly add another million children to the system per year, knowing that just 1/10th of those 500,000 today will be adopted by the end of the year?

From its earliest days, the decision to terminate a pregnancy is made by women determined to bring life into this world, only when it’s most likely to thrive.