I think now is an apt time to tell the story of how I came to be pro-choice. I wasn't always, you see. I come from a red state, and my childhood views reflected that. I think this is why I usually get in trouble in abortion discussions, because I understand being pro-life. I'm sympathetic to it. I've been there. I also am fiercely pro-choice. For two reasons. First of all, my elementary school bff's mother asked me when I informed her that I was pro-life in a pointed voice if I thought I had the right to speak for anyone else and make decisions for them. I thought about this, and decided that, no, in that respect, I really didn't. But I was still sorta pro-life in a passive way.
Until something happened that rocked my little pro-life world. I had a very good friend, still do, and she still, to this day, represents to me what this is all about. For the sake of anonymity, I'll call her Jenny.
This is her story:
Jenny lives in a good neighborhood. She attends excellent public schools and is in every way college bound. She is the white bred, middle class woman that pro-lifers assume to represent the majority of abortions. She is, at the time of the story, almost 15 years old.
Jenny's parents are divorced. Her father is distracted by a new wife and young kids, and does not have very much time for her. It is understood that Jenny cannot live there. So she lives with her mother and step-father. Her step-father is abusive, mostly phsyically but occaisionally sexually as well. Remember, her step-father is also well-to-do. He belongs to a country club. He goes to church. Jenny's mother's reaction to the tension between her daughter and her husband is to pretty much hold her hands up to her ears and not hear a word of it. She refuses to believe the sexual abuse. She does not understand why Jenny acts up so much. She thinks Jenny has not gotten over the divorce.
Jenny had a boyfriend a few years older than herself who very recently overdosed on drugs and died. Jenny never really had a drug problem, but seemed to identify with other people's drug issues. She felt they had something in common. Remember, Jenny is fourteen years old.
Around this time, Jenny becomes pregnant. She does not know who the father is, but neither option is very appealing. She is too young to drive, and her mother's reaction to this news is much like her reaction to the problem in the first place. Wax in the ears. How could Jenny get herself into this situation? Deny. Deny. Deny.
Jenny's school is one of those middle class schools where things like this don't happen. If girls get pregnant, they are removed to a special school without hesitation. The special school is not for the college bound.
However, Jenny does have one thing going for her. She lives near a city, and if she can get to a metroline, she can get to a Planned Parenthood. In this respect, Jenny is very lucky.
So in walks me, 15 at the time of this story, and passively pro-life. Jenny has asked a mutual friend to tell me her situation, as I had been worrying about her recently and didn't know why. I hear all the above, and little pro-life me's immediate, without hesitation response is as follows, verbatim:
"She's getting an abortion, right?"
And this is when I recognized what nobody in the pro-life movement likes to say, and even the pro-choice movement doesn't like to admit. For a certain age group and class of girls, the college bound and college inhabiting, there is no question of choice. There really is only one option.
And then I realized that most people are sympathetic to Jenny. Some of the most hard-line people I know think Jenny is an exception. How could you not? But there's no way to legally define the Jennys of the world. You can't write law so that Jenny becomes exempt. Parental notification and consent doesn't have a Jenny clause. Judicial override doesn't really apply to those that can't reach a courthouse because they are only fourteen years old. Rape and incest, well, that might be an option, but where's her proof? A mother who doesn't say anything? She is alone on this. She's in the murky grey areas where all those exceptions sorta apply but not really.
Her story is sympathetic, and obviously she should be an "exception". But she isn't. She isn't any different than any other circumstance that leads to the same conclusion. The legal process doesn't have a sympathy meter. And that's why the net must be cast large. That's why you can't tell other people what decisions they should make. Because when crafting a law, you don't get to hear Jenny's story.
And that's what Roe comes down to. That's what is so easy to forget. That's why people are shrill and view this choice in a direct and unwavering light.
In Alito's America, it is not an undue burden for Jenny to be reliant on her mother's decision to act and accept the situation. In Alito's America, it is not an undue burden to require the father to sign off on it. In Alito's America, Jenny is denying the father's right to have an interest in his child. In Alito's America, whether that father's response might be to HIT said mother upon hearing the news is not a matter of undue burden, because abortion is a big decision and should require a discussion among both parties. In Alito's America, a pregnant woman at a battered women's shelter would be required to face her abuser in order to have an abortion.
And that is why we fight.