Blog for Choice Day
posted by bitchphd
At the NAPW conference, most women who spoke began by summarizing their pregnancy history.
"I've never been pregnant."
"I've had ten pregnancies, two abortions, one miscarriage, six live births, one child who died."
"I've had three pregnancies, one abortion, one miscarriage, and one live birth."
"I've had six pregnancies, three live births, and three miscarriages."
"I've had two pregnancies, one live birth, one abortion, and then I used the Dalkon shield and am now sterile."
"I've had one pregnancy and one live birth."
That last one is me. And while I know, as a matter of fact, that my single pregnancy and single birth are both atypical of women in general and very much a function of social class, education, and (frankly) luck, hearing other women tell their stories transforms that knowledge from abstract to personal; it makes it feel real, brings it home.
In much the same way, that single pregnancy brought home to me why abortion rights--and all the associated rights of access, education, and options when it comes to birth control and reproductive health--matter so very much. Pregnancy, as I have argued before and will undoubtedly argue again, is NOT a choice. It is a fact of life, if you are a woman.
Now, thanks be to Margaret Sanger, we can choose to avoid pregnancy. I love the pill, and Norplant, and IUDs, and VCF. But none of those are guarantees. Not having sex with men isn't even a guarantee, since, dios mio, you can't guarantee that a man won't, someday, decide to have sex with you whether you will or no. And, as many women know to their sorrow, you also can't get pregnant if your body won't, for whatever reason, cooperate.
Pregnancy isn't a guarantee either, when it happens. Twenty-five percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage; this statistic, of course, doesn't include very early miscarriages (before a woman knows she's pregnant). Stillbirths happen about one in every two hundred pregnancies in relatively developed countries like Australia; the incidence is higher, of course, if you don't have access to modern medical care, although it's lower in places like the U.S. And then there's maternal death in childbirth--which, again without access to medical care, is naturally about 1-1.5%.
Men, and women like me--highly educated, entitled enough to seek out birth control even when young or unmarried, healthy and wealthy enough to be able to access and comply with birth control regimens, insured enough to get the best medical care in the world, and lucky enough to never have been sexually abused or assaulted--are inclined to think of pregnancy as something one chooses. And once chosen, we tend to think of it as a promise of a live birth.
If there's one thing we should, as feminists, recognize, it's that human beings are not brains on sticks. We cannot, and do not, have conscious deliberate control of what happens to our bodies. Thank modernity that we can consciously and deliberately control enough things about our environment to make it easy for some of us to forget that fact much of the time. As long as we are embodied--which is to say, as long as we are alive--our ability to control our quality of life, and in some cases, our ability to live, period, depend on our having access to the range of medical interventions that help us maintain that illusion.
And for women, those interventions include abortion and birth control.
"I've never been pregnant."
"I've had ten pregnancies, two abortions, one miscarriage, six live births, one child who died."
"I've had three pregnancies, one abortion, one miscarriage, and one live birth."
"I've had six pregnancies, three live births, and three miscarriages."
"I've had two pregnancies, one live birth, one abortion, and then I used the Dalkon shield and am now sterile."
"I've had one pregnancy and one live birth."
That last one is me. And while I know, as a matter of fact, that my single pregnancy and single birth are both atypical of women in general and very much a function of social class, education, and (frankly) luck, hearing other women tell their stories transforms that knowledge from abstract to personal; it makes it feel real, brings it home.
In much the same way, that single pregnancy brought home to me why abortion rights--and all the associated rights of access, education, and options when it comes to birth control and reproductive health--matter so very much. Pregnancy, as I have argued before and will undoubtedly argue again, is NOT a choice. It is a fact of life, if you are a woman.
Now, thanks be to Margaret Sanger, we can choose to avoid pregnancy. I love the pill, and Norplant, and IUDs, and VCF. But none of those are guarantees. Not having sex with men isn't even a guarantee, since, dios mio, you can't guarantee that a man won't, someday, decide to have sex with you whether you will or no. And, as many women know to their sorrow, you also can't get pregnant if your body won't, for whatever reason, cooperate.
Pregnancy isn't a guarantee either, when it happens. Twenty-five percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage; this statistic, of course, doesn't include very early miscarriages (before a woman knows she's pregnant). Stillbirths happen about one in every two hundred pregnancies in relatively developed countries like Australia; the incidence is higher, of course, if you don't have access to modern medical care, although it's lower in places like the U.S. And then there's maternal death in childbirth--which, again without access to medical care, is naturally about 1-1.5%.
Men, and women like me--highly educated, entitled enough to seek out birth control even when young or unmarried, healthy and wealthy enough to be able to access and comply with birth control regimens, insured enough to get the best medical care in the world, and lucky enough to never have been sexually abused or assaulted--are inclined to think of pregnancy as something one chooses. And once chosen, we tend to think of it as a promise of a live birth.
If there's one thing we should, as feminists, recognize, it's that human beings are not brains on sticks. We cannot, and do not, have conscious deliberate control of what happens to our bodies. Thank modernity that we can consciously and deliberately control enough things about our environment to make it easy for some of us to forget that fact much of the time. As long as we are embodied--which is to say, as long as we are alive--our ability to control our quality of life, and in some cases, our ability to live, period, depend on our having access to the range of medical interventions that help us maintain that illusion.
And for women, those interventions include abortion and birth control.
Posted at 10:42 AM
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