When people say “choice” the first thing we tend to think of is abortions. Me, I’m never going to get an abortion — unless the universe really hates me, that is. You see, when I was 23 I got my tubes tied so, unless I’m one of those less than 1% of women whose body naturally reverses the tubal, I’m not going to get pregnant which means I’ll never have to think about getting an abortion.
I grew up in a world where my right to bodily sovereignty was considered a basic right (though that way of thinking is slowly being eroded). Roe v. Wade pioneered the way for that kind of thinking, and so it’s in part responsible for my ability to get my tubes tied without kids, without a husband, and without being nearly post-menopausal. Roe v. Wade made it possible for me to never have to be faced with the decision to have an abortion.
So, yes, that decision gave countless women access to safe medical abortions, but that’s not all it did. It also was a major step in the direction of giving women control over their sexual lives and their bodies; it helped to give women access to birth control methods and family planning that otherwise would not have been available to them. It said that, yes, women do have the ability and right to make their own decisions regarding whether or not they want children.
When I think about “choice” I don’t just think about the abortion debate; I think about how thankful I am that I was allowed to make a choice that enriched my life. We need to create a society that allows more women to make such choices, not less.
I bet if women had more control over their lives and destinies, abortion would be greatly reduced.
If there could be a new Pro-Life/Anti-Abortion movement (Maximum Female Freedom, Minimum Abortion)?
It might take another 10 to 50 years before society is built on Female Privilege (equal laws and rights, but women naturally succeeding more often in life). Male Privilege is still here, but it seems to be on a decline.
For example, in the Government of Canada, there are 65 female MPs out of 308. Maybe if we had 225 female MPs, in this example, would it work out better? I know the mathematical equality would be 154, but you need to aim above the mark to hit the mark. We may need female domination and female privilege in order to achieve equality, as weird as that sounds.
That’s the key, aiming above the mark to hit the mark. I don’t think feminists will achieve their goal(s) unless we have female domination/female privilege in our society, where we’re all considered equals, but women would have more predisposition towards success.
I hope this all seems kind of sensible.
Some Guy said:
I disagree. Even if that were feasible (which, given the world’s history I don’t think it is) it doesn’t address the problem, which is privilege itself. Changing who holds the reins isn’t going to do anything except prolong the reliance on constructed hierarchies that split people into “haves” and “have nots”.
Equality can only be achieved through questioning the necessity of hierarchy and challenging privilege — both our own privilege and that of others. Only until we understand the dynamics that those two things play in our lives can we ever hope to begin to understand how to achieve real equality.
Some Guy seems to have stopped short of imagining how dramatically attitudes to hierarchy change when a non-privileged group become dominant, and how hard the attitude change is while privilege is intact.
I think, to understand the power of ‘Anti-abortion’ jingoism, we need to unpack the stories of _women_ who continue to support the slogans in ‘Religious-Right’ families, churches and communities.