Roe vs Wade at 34

This is the 34th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision which made abortion legal in the United States.I offer a personal reflection.

I remember when the Supreme Court decision was announced. Like many others, I had marched for and advocated for the legalization of abortion. I still stand by that right.

Even back then the issue was not abortion, it was a woman's right to control her own body. The rhetoric has not changed significantly, but the changes are reflective of power shifts within the society. Now we have "pro-life" vs "pro-choice." Then it was anti-abortion vs pro-abortion. Then, we talked endlessly about a woman's right to control her own body. Now, that is almost never mentioned. Now, we have women as murderers of their unborn children

We hear endlessly about women's responsibility for getting pregnant. However, women are not generally the ones with power in sexual situations, and the fathers are not held either socially or legally responsible.

Those who fight to remove a woman's right to control her own body in order to protect the "precious life" inside her, show virtually no concern for that child once it is born. Once born, you are on your own.

Overwhelmingly, those who are so concerned about these infants getting born have little concern about them being killed after that - in war or via the death penalty, or through lack of access to food or health care.

I was around before abortion was legal. That did not mean it wasn't happening. In fact, abortion has been happening for at least thousands of years. Part of the impetus in fighting for the legalization of abortion was to get it out of the alleys, and into reliable medical facilities. Women were dying and being permanently injured through botched abortions. I knew more than a few women who had faced this butchery.

Since day after Roe v Wade there has been an ongoing onslaught. Abortion has been, and continues to be, an outstanding money maker for certain groups. After 34 years, they still do not want to have the discussion about life - women's lives and the lives of children once they are born. They still refuse to discuss directly the issue of women's status and rights. Instead, pregnancy is a punishment that women should bear for their "bad choices" or "bad behavior."

How about men's "bad behavior?" Why don't they force the fathers of these unborn fetuses to step forward and support the mother of the child and then the fathers have sole responsibility for the fruits of their loins? Would this even be an issue if men were the ones who bore children?

There were celebrations when the Roe v Wade decision came down. I said then (and it was not well received) that that victory would be the decimation of the Women's Movement. It was. Overwhelmingly women came to the Women's Movement on the fight for a woman's right to make decisions about her own body - particularly the right to have access to clean and safe abortions. I predicted that with a victory, most of those women would say "We've won!" and go back to their lives. Most of them did just that. They did not get then, and certainly most do not now, understand that the right to choose is about more than abortion. They do not understand that it is about women's status and rights within this society.

Having access to abortion is about having a choice. It is not, and never has been, a promotion of abortion. Further, the anti-abortion (aka pro-life") argument is not about abortion, it is about putting (and keeping) women in their place. I totally support a woman's right to choose to bring a fetus to term. I also totally support a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy. I support a woman's right to decide.

Posted by rowan at January 22, 2007 5:50 PM | [eMail this article!] |