Mermaid Musings

Well, it’s been 2 weeks since the Roe v. Wade anniversary so it’s high time I got some thoughts down.

First, I went to an anniversary celebration. I was invited to speak at the last minute because no other women speakers could be present. I was the ‘token woman’ at a celebration of the legalization of abortion. That in and of itself was unnerving.

In any case, I was glad to speak. I talked about the grassroots activism of women around the US in the pre-Roe days that led to the decision to legalize abortion. My point being that it was the agitation of committed women that changed the political climate to such an extent that it became possible (if not inevitable) that the Supreme Court could make the decision that it did.

Following my presentation, two older gentlemen (both over 60) proceeded to talk about how they (and the work they did in the pre-Roe days) ‘helped’ women and all that they ‘did FOR women.’ Essentially, I felt, negating the message that it was women doing this for themselves that made change possible. It was beyond irritating. Talk about dis-empowerment.

Here we are in the 21st century. Abortion is still considered shameful or at least embarrassing if you need one. Women are afraid to talk about their experiences, their decisions, despite the fact that the vast, vast majority of women are content with their decision to terminate a pregnancy. The anti-abortion forces have really done a fabulous job of creating cultural conditions under which it may be possible to reverse Roe. Merely by making abortion seem like such a shameful experience that everyone keeps silent about it.

If we want to protect abortion rights (and maybe even expand them to include access), the work we need to do is to reclaim the dialog on this issue. We need to stop being apologetic about abortion (Hilary Clinton style: legal, safe and rare), and start claiming access to abortion as the fundamental human right that it is. Our goals should be better access to all reproductive health care (including contraception, STI screening AND abortion). Reducing unintended pregnancies through better sex education and available contraception is a laudable goal (and will probably have the side effect of reducing the number of abortions performed, since most abortions are performed on women who didn’t intend to get pregnant. But no contraception is 100% and many, many women get pregnant even using the pill, the patch, condoms, etc.

Finally, I think we need to expose the anti-abortion movement for what it really is: an anti-woman, anti-female sexuality movement. A real pro-life movement would never push to restrict access to abortion and would certainly not push for making abortion illegal. More than 60,000 women die every year in countries where abortion is illegal from unsafe procedures. There’s nothing pro-life about that.

Women need to start telling their stories, break the silence and end the shame around abortion.