So, 35 years later, where do we stand? Last week it was announced that the number of abortions performed in America dropped to their lowest levels since 1976, but the use of the "abortion pill" RU-486 has increased 22 per cent a year since it was introduced in the U.S. in 2000.
Yet almost 90% of U.S. counties don't have a single abortion prvider. There are pharmacists who refuse to fill perscriptions for birth control pills. Our Federal government won't give funding to international groups that use abortion as part of their overall family planning missions (I'm sure the HIV-positive woman in sub-Saharan Africa who'll die if her depressed immune system has to go through childbirth is most grateful). It took WAY too long for the FDA to okay the so-called "morning-after" pill. And I still boycott the Eckerd's on Reynolda Road because a clerk there wouldn't sell condoms to an unmarried woman. Can we say mixed messages?
There's an interview today on Salon.com with Dr. Susan Wicklund, who has performed abortions for 20 years. In her view, reproductive rights are more threatened now than at any time since the Roe decision. (Sorry, I'm still pissed at the Eckerd's clerk...)
In that vein, NARAL Pro-choice America is encouraging people to blog about why it's important for them to vote pro-choice. I havent put a tremendous amount of thought into this, mainly because my first response to the question "why do you vote pro-choice?" was something like, "Um, DUH." But here goes:
- I vote pro-choice because voting anti-choice doesn't work. Outlawing abortion won't keep unplanned pregnancies from happening; hell, it won't even keep abortions from happening. (Before 1973, as many as 1.2 million American women got illegal back-alley abortions every year. If you're keeping track, that's about as many abortions were performed in the U.S. last year. The only difference is that 5,000 women didn't bleed to death in the process.)
- Once again for the record - 88% of U.S. counties don't have a single doctor that will perform an abortion.
- What Kay Steiger said: Abortion will always be available for (white) upper class women who need or want it. They can fly to Europe, drive to Canada, or take a quick weekend to Mexico City. Other women -- poor mothers and women of color may not always be so lucky. If the pro-life movement succeeds in criminalizing abortion, it will be the worst off that will pay the price.
- Medical decisions aren't the business of anyone but the patient and his or her doctor. My congressman doesn't call me for advice on his medical decisions, so why I should I have to run mine past him?
- I vote pro-choice because none of the anti-choice politicians I see on TV every night will tell me how long they think a woman who gets an abortion should spend in jail. And neither can any of their supporters. This isn't an abstraction. There are real people affected by your rhetoric, so it's time you were forced to consider that. How long are you going to imprison a woman who terminates a pregnancy? Or her doctor?
- There's no one type of woman who gets an abortion, just like there's no one type of person who gets any variety of surgery done. Read the Salon.com interview again. This doctor knew a woman in her 50s who mistook her pregnancy for menopause, and a mother of two with breast cancer who needed to terminate her pregnancy so she could start chemotherapy. I vote pro-choice because it is patently impossible for our government to craft any abortion ban that would never at any time violate the personal autonomy - and therefore the civil rights - of any woman anywhere.
- I vote pro-choice because I'm troubled by the implication of so many antiabortion activists that a baby is a punishment for sin, and that if a woman terminates an unplanned pregnancy she's short-circuiting God's justice. WTF??? I say again, there's no one reason a woman gets an abortion. But painting everyone with the same brush makes them easier to marginalize.
- For that matter, none of the other tactics of the extreme antiabortion wing have really endeared themselves to me: setting up "crisis centers" that lie to women; stalking and harassing not just doctors at clinics, but the contractors who build the things; attempting to indict doctors whose only crime is providing a perfectly legal medical service, etc. I vote pro-choice because I don't trust these people to look out for my best interests should Roe ever be overturned.
- Above all, I vote pro-choice because I believe that I, and other women, have the capacity to determine what's best for our lives. I've never faced an unplanned pregnancy, and if I did I imagine I would lean heavily on the advice of my parents, my friends, my sisters and my faith. I would not, however, call President Bush for his two cents. It's none of his damn business. I don't believe this makes me "egotistical" or selfish.
And now I'll say a prayer that we'll still be blogging for choice another 35 years from now, because Roe will still be going strong.
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