I was a bit put off by the first item on the list, but I was curious enough to click on the link and see what else was there. I'm glad I did, because I ended up agreeing with a lot of it, and the parts I didn't agree with gave me some worthwhile things to thing about.
There was one item in particular that really hit home for me.
5. Assuming that the decision to have an abortion is always difficult.
It may be a hard choice to make for some women, but for others, deciding to have an abortion may not be difficult at all.
“For some people it is very clear and they don’t have to think about it. Such language may make someone feel like they are a bad person if it was an easy decision for them,” Upadhyay said, citing the Landmark Turnaway Study she co-authored that found that five years after an abortion, more than 95% of patients said it was the right choice for them.
Plus, assuming that having an abortion was a “hard choice” suggests that terminating a pregnancy is a “moral issue requiring an ethical debate,” news analyst Janet Harris 0wrote for the Washington Post.
“To say that deciding to have an abortion is a ‘hard choice’ implies a debate about whether the fetus should live, thereby endowing it with a status of being,” which puts focus on the fetus rather than the pregnant person, she said.
“As a result, the question ‘What kind of future would the woman have as a result of an unwanted pregnancy?’ gets sacrificed,” Harris wrote.
As Harris pointed out, the situation may be difficult — navigating state laws, finding a clinic and paying for the abortion — but the decision itself is often straightforward.
This REALLY jumped out at me, because I am one of those women for whom it was not a difficult choice at all. As soon as I thought I might be pregnant, I knew
exactly what I was going to do about it, if so.
I didn't have any qualms about whether it was a a moral or ethical choice, because it literally never occurred to me that it might not be. I was never taught to believe anything in particular about it, one way or another. I was in my teens before I ever even heard the word "abortion," and when I first encountered it in a magazine article, I had to ask my mother what it meant. (Her reply was completely straightforward and factual, bececause she had never received any indoctrination, either.)
When second wave feminism came along and made legalizing abortion one of the linchpins of what was then popularly known as "women's liberation," I embraced the movement, including that aspect of it, with no qualms whatsoever.
I was a college student and had been a self-identified feminist for several years when I was faced with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy, and the decision to seek an abortion was automatic for me. And here I am, 50 years later, uneasy about admitting that, even in a place like DU, where I know that accepting and supporting a woman's right to choose is the norm.
The situation itself was a major pita, and someday, I am going to write the full story and put it someplace where people can read it. For now, suffice it to say that it was 1972, so abortion was still illegal in most of the U.S., and even THAT was only the tip of the iceberg. NOTHING about the situation was simple, even confirming that I was pregnant. (There was no such thing as a home pregnancy test, and there was still a significant enough stigma attached to being an "unwed mother" that going to a doctor to get tested was a very unappealing prospect.)
So yeah, the
situation was complicated and fraught, but the decision, for me, was anything but. And yet, I am always hesitant to admit the latter, because of the generally accepted assumption that abortion is ALWAYS an agonizing decision. (The implication of which is that anyone who does not find it to be so must be some kind of amoral freak.)
I know that it IS a difficult decision for some, and I respect that. I just wish people would realize that every pregnant person is an individual, and every individual is just that: a unique individual with their own individual set of circumstances, challenges, beliefs, etc., all of which influence their approach to every decision in life, including the choice to terminate a pregnancy.
Sorry this is so darned long. I swear, I really did try to whittle it down!
= new reply since forum marked as read
