Why abortion and pregnancy matter
Glosswitch on abortion and pregnancy and women:
Whenever I try to write about abortion, I feel one thing is holding me back: the absence of the perfect analogy. It’s similar to the way I used to think that if only I tried hard enough and spent enough time on social media, I’d conjure up The Tweet That Stops Brexit.
As always with Victoria I had to pause to savor that before I could read on.
The trouble is, pregnancy is not like anything else. If it was, the whole edifice of patriarchy wouldn’t exist. There would be no singling out and controlling of one half of the human race by the other, because we wouldn’t have something that couldn’t be replicated in any way. Attempts to make pregnancy into something else – the equivalent of paid work, or unpaid work, or blood donation, or being a violinist who can’t play due to being hooked up to another human being – never quite succeed. What you demand of someone when you insist that they continue a pregnancy against their will cannot be demanded of another person in any other context, in any other way.
Which is why it’s demanded so ferociously, which explains a lot.
The uniqueness of pregnancy, the fact that it can’t be categorised, makes people uncomfortable around it. Not just your stereotypical anti-abortion right-wingers, but pro-choice left-wingers, too. They will make the abortion debate about anything but pregnancy itself, and what it means for the status of women as a sex class in relation to men…
For several years now, it’s slightly horrified me that liberal feminists in the US have taken to dressing as handmaids in order to protest abortion restrictions, while simultaneously cheering on the rise of commercial surrogacy, ignoring the class exploitation and replication of racialised reproductive injustice, and viewing states which remove the right of surrogates who change their minds after giving birth as more, not less, progressive.
…
I don’t think it’s possible to understand why abortion is so important without understanding, equally, why pregnancy is. How can you make the case that the alternative to abortion is life-changing if you are also invested in draining it of meaning?
I’m seeing red right now. Jerry Coyne on WEIT just posted the following concerning an
The law professors are comparing the attack on women’s sex-based rights in Texas with women DEFENDING their sex-based rights elsewhere. A pregnant woman getting an abortion is in the same category as a boy who identifies as a girl using the girl’s showers. Vigilante mobs going after them.
I am so fucking sick of this.
I should add that Prof Coyne doesn’t agree with the comparison.
So fucking sick of this too.
On a semi-related note, I recently read Julie Bindel’s Feminism for Women. She touches on the subject of surrogacy, as well as prostitution, pornography, stripping etc. as inherently exploitative practices that are now promoted under the guise of choice, female “empowerment”, and even “feminism”.
Bindel directly challenges the kind of “fun” feminism that consistently re-frames giving men what they want as empowering to women. She also touches upon many of the same topics that are recurring themes on B&W, such as the TRA takeover of feminism (and what used to be the LGB movement), cancel culture, the appropriation of “intersectionality” as well as “non-white” feminism (usually by privileged straight white males) to portray any focus on women’s issues as hostility or indifference towards the issues of some other group (cf. “Dear Muslima”), the normalization of sexual violence and exploitation under the guise of “kink”, “sex positiivity” etc.
As the Title suggests, the book makes a case for a feminism that centers women’s issues, understands women as a sex class rather than as an identity, and works to end the subordination of women by men. I highly recommend it. I might write a longer review at some later time.
Please do!
I’ve noticed there are a lot of people on the left who are very uncomfortable with abortion. They will say vehemently that they are not pro-abortion, they are pro-choice. They would rather abortion never happened, but recognize it must in some cases. In short, they will not give a full throated support of women’s right to make a choice.
The argument that most of the abortions are women who already have children, or that they are medically necessary, or that…fill in some other noble quality making it okay…burns me. It doesn’t matter. If the woman has no other children, is in her late-20s or early 30s, with a college degree, an established career, who can afford to support a baby, or babies, who is not married, who has had a one night stand that ended up with an oopsie? Still valid to make her own choices. A prostitute who wants to avoid problems with her career? Her choice. A woman who just doesn’t like babies? Her choice. A woman I do not like or approve of? HER CHOICE. I would support Ann Coulter’s right to an abortion of convenience as strongly as I support the right of a friend of mine who has a situation putting her health at risk.
iknklast, I would prefer abortion never happened, but am enough of a realist to accept it will always be necessary.
There are ways to reduce the demand for abortion, such as better sex education, teaching boys/men to respect girl’s / women’s boundaries, ready access to contraceptives, rapid access to “morning after” medications, etc. Of course, those most opposed to abortion are also strongly opposed to all those measures as well.
I know that most forms of contraception have failures ( my next door neighbour’s wife became pregnant several years AFTER his vasectomy), and that not all contraceptives suit all people (my wife was unable to use “the pill” due to side effects). So I would never dare to impose myself between a woman and her health care choices. Nor would I insist that she puts the needs of those seeking adoption ahead of her own health care.
So yes, this Leftie is pro-choice and pro-abortion. Reproductive care in women is a woman’s choice, and if she chooses abortion there is no need for anyone to try to deny her choice.
I’ve noticed that, too, even to the point of seeing people claim that NOBODY is pro-abortion. It’s quite a sweeping claim, and is incorrect.
I’m pro-abortion; I’m pro-knee-surgery; I’m pro-dialysis; I’m pro medical interventions that help people. I don’t hope for anyone to need these things, but I’m glad these interventions exist, and I hope all people who need them can take advantage.
Roj, Sackbut, well put. Abortion is a necessary thing for some women; other women will never need one. Just like knee surgery. Just like dialysis. Some people will need those, others won’t.
And the thing is, women will have abortions. They will go to quack doctors who will hack them up, and then they might bleed to death, or end up in an emergency room, where they will probably be immediately sued. Everyone worries about the poor trans woman contemplating suicide; what about the poor pregnant woman who might find that the only way out of a bad situation? A desperate woman may decide not to live anymore. How many babies will she be able to make then?