October 17, 2002

• Women's Lives - No Easy Choices

  
  

  I've been flirting all week with the core issue that many associate with Feminism - the debate over abortion rights.  For the next few minutes, I'm going to ask you to do something very difficult.  Pretend that you have no opinion on the subject.  Those of us who are 40 and younger have no memory of a time when abortion was illegal or inherently unsafe, and I've read dozens of statements by older feminists who charge us with complacency on the issue.  Too often slogan-based emotional arguments mask the complexity of the issue.

  
  

  Feminism derives from the proposition that all people, regardless of their sex, age, race, religion, or status, should have equal rights and the ability to live a full and happy life.  The earliest feminists, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and others of the 19th Century, some childless and some mothers of many children, all opposed abortion as an act of violence against women and children which favored the preferences of irresponsible men and employers over the preferences of women.  How is it today that the same proposition which led these women to oppose abortion leads so many to demand it as an essential right?

  
  

  I'm in a unique position to discuss abortion.  I've not only carried children to live birth, I tried to carry children who didn't survive.  What I suffered in medical terms is called a "spontaneous abortion."  On three separate occasions within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy for reasons that aren't known to medical science, I "lost" a baby.  When I talk about this experiece, which is rare, I find two common responses.  One is to deny that my experience is anything which should have produced trauma, "look on the bright side, you do have two children" as though my sorrow for the children I lost is somehow negated by the value of the children I have.  The other response says, "well, at least you didn't do it on purpose" as though the trauma of the loss is lessened because it was out of my control. 

  
  

  I can describe what happens to a woman when a pregancy is interrupted from the enviable position of one who is neither blamed nor lauded for the experience.  From the moment you realize you are pregnant, there is an awareness that everything has changed.  I liken it to being at the top of that first big drop on a roller coaster.  You know that it will be a wild ride, but it's too late to get off.  An abortion, whether spontaneous or induced, derails the roller coaster.  Hormonal disruptions trigger medical problems which are often dismissed by doctors as psycho-somatic (meaning 'it's all in your head.')  Some women report that emotional trauma associated with abortion continues to affect them for years and decades following the actual event.  According to their reports, there is a period of numbness (corresponding to the denial stage of grief) which lasts on average 63 months from the time of the abortion.  Surveys from counselling associations indicate that women may then seek help for a variety of problems, emotional or physical which are not overtly related to the experience of abortion.  In the course of the treatment, abortion related trauma emerges, especially around Mother's Day, the calculated due date of the pregnancy, Christmas, the birth of a second child, and/or the birth of a child to a close friend.

  
  

  Many therapists seem unable to agree on whether abortion trauma exists as a category of disturbance to be addressed.  Research untainted by the bias of the sponsoring advocacy group is difficult to find.  Further plaguing the efforts of researchers to guage the long-term impact (or non-impact) of abortion, upwards of 50% of women who initially volunteer for follow-up studies, drop out.  (A rate far higher than standard attrition for volunteer studies.)

  
  

  Pro-choice groups deny that women suffer trauma related to induced abortion.  For instance, the Planned Parenthood website quotes a study done by Nancy Adler in 1989 saying that "women experience almost no negtive emotional response to induced abortion." If you have a negative emotional reaction, you are told that you are in the extreme minority and would probably have been emotionally unstable anyway. 

  
  

  However, Nancy E. Adler (Department of Health Psychology, University of California, San Francisco on behalf of the American Psychological Association, March 16, 1989), in her testimony to the United States House of Representatives, clarified the state of research, "We have no good studies of long-term follow up. Most of the studies have examined either immediate post-abortion responses or responses within a few weeks. The longest follow-up is a little over one year."  Canadian researchers found that 19% of women who participated in follow-up studies experienced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (compared to 3% of women in the general population.)  A 1986 study quoted in the White Paper, "Psycho-social Aspects of Stress Following Abortion" by A. Speckhard (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota) found that delayed psychological complications occurred for most of the women studied 5 to 10 years post-abortion. The intensity of their negative emotional reactions surprised 85% of the women and 81% felt victimized by their abortions.

  
  

  On the other side are the pro-life activists who are perceived as  judgmental and condemning.  Often pro-life rallys and protests feature disturbing images of aborted babies.  Terms like "murder" and "baby-killer" are used.  Moreover, pro-life supporters are charicatured as fundamentalist Bible-thumpers with whom the majority of women in America have little in common and to whom they are unlikely to turn for counsel.  The often unspoken though occasionally voiced message from pro-lifers is, "of course you're traumatized, and you deserve it." 

  
  

  There is an organization, found on the web at http://www.afterabortion.com/ which takes a neutral stance on the moral, political, or religious aspects of abortion.  Instead of focusing on the act of abortion it focuses on the needs of women who experience distress following an abortion. 

  
  

  A woman faced with an unplanned pregnancy must come to terms with more than inconvenience.  Many adversities, financial and social, at school at work, and at home confront her.  The debate over abortion rights evaluates the problems and concludes that the problem lies with the woman.  She should be the one to change.  The focus is on the swelling belly not the pressures that led to her desparation.  The pro-choice people say, "Climb on this table and you'll be back to fitting right in."  The right to life people say, "Morally you are obligated to carry this baby to term and then good luck with the process of raising it."

  
  

  A recent [Planned Parenthood] survey showed that in most cases a woman who chooses an abortion has at least three reasons. The most common reasons are:

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  	She finds it would be hard to keep her job, continue her education, and/or care for her older children.
  	She cannot afford a baby now.
  	She doesn't want to marry her partner, or he can't or won't marry her, or she isn't in a relationship.
  	She doesn’t feel ready for the responsibility of having a child at this time.
  	She doesn't want anyone to know she has had sex or is pregnant.
  	She is too young or too immature to have a child.
  	She has all the children she wants.
  	Her husband, partner, or parent wants her to have an abortion.
  	She or the fetus has a health problem.
  	She was a victim of rape or incest.

  
  

  What a cruel joke to call this a woman's choice.  When the choice is to either sacrifice your education, your career, your socialization, your opportunity for financial security, OR sacrifice your pregnancy what real choice is there?  As Muse pointed out, Gloria Steinem has said, "If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?" 

  
  

  I'd like to see a few less pickets and a few more options.  Flexible school situations, more flex-time, part-time, and home-commute jobs, attractive adoption opportunities, safe family planning choices, medical insurance, subsidized housing for women who want to keep their babies, support in handling sex responsibly: this is a partial list.  You want to know one of the reasons I'm so disgusted by conservative politicians?  Out of one side of their mouth they say that we should have fewer abortions, but with the other they denigrate and eviscerate the few programs we have that offer women alternatives. 

  
  

  *****

  
  

  After the options mentioned in the comments section of yesterday's post, I have another list of reading material for your consideration:

  
  

  Books

  
  

  Feminism, Media and The Law, by Martha A A Fineman and Martha McCluskey
  Reading the Romance, by Janice A Radway
  Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future
  To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism, by Rebecca Walker
  Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism by Leslie Haywood
  Ceasefire! by Cathy Young
  Spreading Misandry by Paul Nathanson and Katherine K Young
  The New thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds, by Tammy Bruce
  The Bust Guide to the New World Order, by Marcelle Karp and Debbie Stoller
  
  . . . and Magazines

  
  

  BUST  (www.bust.com)
  BITCH  (www.bitchmagazine.com)
  WORKING WOMAN
  WORKING MOTHER
  BRILLO (http://www.virago-net.com/brillo)
  FEMINISTA (http://www.feminista.com)
  Mothers Who Think SALON (http://www.salonmagazine.com/mwt)
  SIGNS (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/Signs/)
  SOJOURNER (http://www.sojourner.org)
  WENCH (http://www.wench.com)
  

  • 7:20 pm
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