There is a diary currently sitting on the rec list -- and rightfully so -- about an abomination of a law the state of Oklahoma is going to implement next month that will require women who have abortions to have specific, intimate details of their lives posted on a public website. The author, Dirk McQuigley, cites Amanda Terkel at ThinkProgress, who writes:
Here are the first eight questions that women will have to reveal:
- Date of abortion
- County in which abortion performed
- Age of mother
- Marital status of mother
(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
- Race of mother
- Years of education of mother
(specify highest year completed)
- State or foreign country of residence of mother
- Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother
Live Births
Miscarriages
Induced Abortions
In response to this diary, someone posted a comment that really set me off. Never mind who -- the comment was deservedly hidden -- but it called us pro-choice types "hysterical" for complaining about the injustice of the law. The commenter's justification for that claim can essentially be summarized in four points:
- No one will be personally identifiable from that data.
- Most women who have abortions are "old enough to know better."
- It is appropriate to "shame" a woman who has an abortion.
- Abortion is "equivalent to bankruptcy" -- sometimes you don't have a choice, but it shouldn't be an easy way out and so should be stigmatized.
To be completely fair to the commenter, s/he also said abortion should remain legal and recognized that some women have abortions "due to fetal or maternal health issues." But s/he clearly doesn't have the first clue about what really happens when a woman has an abortion.
But I have a very good idea. So let me use this as a teachable moment. Let me tell you what actually happens when women seek abortions. Let me tell you why we pro-choice folks react so strongly to bullshit laws like the one Oklahoma is planning to implement. And let me explain what we're going to do every time someone slanders us as "hysterical" for reacting the way we do.
Some of you may recall that I've posted before about my mother's abortion. I was about three years old at the time, and my sisters were five, two, and one. Mom was pregnant again, and it was very hard on her. My sisters like to joke that I'm her favorite because I'm the only boy and because I was the only of us for whom Mom had an easy pregnancy. Delivery was even worse; mine was easy, but two of my sisters were breech and the other didn't come out for almost 40 hours and probably should have been a C-section. But Mom and Dad love us all very much and never gave it a second thought when it turned out that Mom was pregnant for the fifth time in six years. Sure, they worried about how they'd afford another baby, but they figured they would manage.
But then they found out late in the second trimester or early in the third that the baby was sick. It was flip-a-coin territory whether it would survive to term. Worse, it was a near certainty that Mom wouldn't survive. To you and me, there's no decision to be made in a situation like that -- the actuality of Mom's life supercedes the potential for the baby's life. And so as painful as it was -- more emotionally than physically, though there was plenty of that as well -- Mom had a late-term abortion that saved her life. And while my sisters are my best friends and none of us doubts that our little brother or sister who might have been would have fit right in to our dynamic, it is an indisputable fact that our lives would have been far poorer without Mom around to share and guide them.
What would the effects of this new Oklahoma law have been on my mother? Well, we lived in a very small community in rural Wisconsin. It would have been very easy to identify Mom from the kinds of information this abomination demands. And while the offending commenter in the diary to which I referred earlier had the grace to admit that sometimes abortion is necessary -- and I'm sure s/he would concede my mother's case as such a situation -- even women who have abortions because there is no other option if they are to save their own lives are not spared the efforts of terrorist organizations like Operation Rescue who seek to "shame" them. My mother and thousands of women like her have lived through hell, and they are still told by the shrillest, most ignorant, least compassionate, most self-righteous idiots in our society that they ought to be ashamed for it. This new Oklahoma law not only facilitates the harassment of these women, it effectively encourages it in the name of "shaming" them. And that nonsense bankruptcy comparison, about how abortion shouldn't be an easy way out? Try telling my mother that and see if you have any teeth left after she slaps you.
But Mom isn't my only source for knowing what abortion is really like. I spent six years of my life as a volunteer escort at various clinics that provide abortions. My wife still volunteers, and I would too if I had the time. At various times, we've been spit on, had garbage thrown at us, been threatened with death, had our pictures taken by Operation Rescue terrorists, had our license plates copied down, been followed by anti-choice nutcases, received threatening phone calls, and had property vandalized. Yet we kept volunteering because the women who seek abortions are subjected to much worse.
Let me be very clear: I never asked any woman why she was having an abortion. It's intimidating enough for these women to seek out a clinic without being interrogated by a man who looks like a linebacker. But seeking an abortion is an uncomfortable situation for the vast majority of women, and many of them did what comes natural to a lot of people in uncomfortable situations -- they talked about anything that came to mind. Given that my job was to help them, I listened with a sympathetic, nonjudgmental ear. And yes, it's true that many women who have abortions do so as a means of birth control. And yes, I have some moral qualms about that. But it's not my place to judge, and it's not yours either. Here are just a few reasons why you should stay the hell out of it, as recounted by some of the many women I helped to protect in my years as a volunteer:
1) You don't know if she is having an abortion as a means of birth control.
For all you know, there is something wrong with the baby or something about the pregnancy that threatens her life or health. You don't know why she is having an abortion, but it doesn't matter. It's none of your damn business anyway.
2) You don't know the circumstances behind her pregnancy.
You might like to think that she's married to a loving husband and that together they can provide a stable, happy, and financially secure household for any child they might have. But she might be pregnant because of rape. She might be pregnant because of incest. She might be pregnant because of an asshole she thought she loved who abandoned her the second he found out she was pregnant. She might have parents who would kick her out of the house or even harm her if they found out she was pregnant. She may have a boyfriend or husband who may harm or even kill her if he found out she was pregnant.
You don't know the circumstances behind her pregnancy, but it doesn't matter. It's none of your damn business anyway.
3) You don't know if she can take care of herself or a baby.
She might not be able to afford the medical care necessary to carry a baby to term and recover from delivery. She might not be able to afford to support a baby, or she might already have a family that is struggling to make ends meet and can't afford to feed, clothe, shelter, and provide for any other basic necessities for anyone else. And while you might like to think that social services can help her, either to put the baby up for adoption to a loving home or keep it herself, they often don't -- lots of kids never get adopted, welfare programs aren't anywhere near sufficient in a lot of places, they don't help everyone, and you have to have a certain amount of human and cultural capital to be able to navigate the red tape to get benefits in the first place. Lots of women don't have such capital, and we're not doing very much to help them get it. You might want to try doing something about that before imposing your morality on their bodies. Either way, you don't know if she can take care of herself or a baby, but it doesn't matter. It's none of your damn business anyway.
4) You don't know what's going through her head.
You don't know what she thinks, what she believes. You don't know if she is Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, or something else. You don't know what her faith or philosophy has to say about abortion. And even if you do, so what? Your belief may not match up with hers, and it's unconstitutional to establish public policy based on parochial religious belief anyway.
You don't know whether she made the decision to have an abortion alone or if she consulted a loved one, a friend, a medical professional, a member of the clergy, a teacher, or a trusted confidante. You don't know if she is handling the process as just another routine procedure or if she's terrified.
You don't know if she is pro- or anti-choice, and the fact that she is having an abortion actually doesn't tell you that, no matter what you might think, because plenty of anti-choice women have abortions. I've served as a clinic escort for at least seven women who had abortions and turned up later as protesters; five of them I had seen protesting the clinic before they had their abortions. And my wife has served as a clinic escort for three teen girls brought in by their mothers -- mothers who happened to be regular anti-choice protesters, each of whom told her without a trace of irony that she would burn in Hell for murdering babies.
So you don't know what's going through her head, but it doesn't matter. It's none of your damn business anyway.
5) You don't have to live in her body.
You may not find this satisfactory, but just who the hell do you think you are to impose your decisions about what a woman may or may not do with her own body? Never mind any of the other potential effects of pregnancy for the moment -- it may have escaped your notice, but childbirth is dangerous. Even with proper medical attention, many women die in the process. Thank goodness that happens far less often than it used to, but it still happens and there aren't always warning signs. So what on earth makes you think it's ok for you to have any say in whether some woman you don't know and -- let's be honest here -- don't really care about at all continues with a process that has the potential to kill her?
What about common health effects of giving birth? Carrying a fetus for nine months causes a lot of changes to a woman's body, and those effects aren't always reversible. If there were some sort of process that could cause permanent changes to men's bodies that the men don't want, would anyone in the US dare to suggest for any reason that the decision whether or not to endure that process all the way to the end belongs to anyone but those men? I doubt it. But as a hypothetical, that doesn't really matter. Either way, you don't have to live in that woman's body. So it's not any of your damn business anyway.
6) You don't have all the details.
I wrote a few paragraphs back that I have some moral qualms about using abortion as a means of routine birth control, but many women who have abortions are doing just that. But it's still not my place to judge, and it's not yours either. Because even if a woman seeking an abortion confided in you, you don't know that she told you everything. And if you're honest, would you blame her? You are a stranger to her, and she's in a very vulnerable position. Maybe she told you everything, maybe she didn't. Either way, it doesn't matter. It's none of your damn business anyway.
This is why we pro-choice folks get so "hysterical" when laws like the one Oklahoma is implementing next month show up on our radar. We're not "hysterical" at all. We know what the consequences of these laws are.
They encourage the agenda of terrorist organizations that would rather see good people like my mother die than permit anyone to have an abortion.
They promote the agenda of self-righteous, judgmental, fundamentalist twits who cannot bear to allow others to live their lives without imposing their own parochial ideology upon them.
They grant power over women's bodies to people who ought not to have any say at all.
They subject to ridicule women who have suffered horribly.
They threaten women's lives.
That's not "hysteria." It's reality. And it's why I spent so many hours serving as a clinic escort -- because no matter the reason why a woman seeks an abortion, she deserves a hell of a lot better than that.
Nobody here is going to ask you to like abortion. Most of us pro-choice folks see it as a necessary evil under many circumstances -- we don't like it any more than you do, but until such time as we have that perfect society in which abortion is never the least bad choice, it remains necessary. If you want to work with us to reduce the necessity, you'll find great allies among us.
But if you want to call us "hysterical" and promote a policy that you think will subject to ridicule only those women whom you have judged unworthy, you're a fool who is going to cause an awful lot of pain to a lot of women who have suffered far too much already. And if that's the route you want to take, we're going to expose you for the ignorant, moralistic twit you are. We're going to ridicule you. We're going to attach a stigma to you. We're going to hold you up as an example of the moral bankruptcy of those who would so attack women exercising their right to choose.
And in the long run, we'll win. Because unlike you, we're not relying on empty, uninformed rhetoric. We're relying on fact, on what actually happens when a woman chooses to have an abortion, not on what you would like to think happens.