The War on Women Evolves
This article is the web version of The Lexington Line A/W ‘19 print edition article.
Wearing the traditional Catholic school uniform, a plaid skirt with a pale blue long-sleeve button down tucked into it, I thought about abortion for the first time. At the ripe old age of 12, I had never thought of the fact that tens of thousands of women worldwide were terminating their pregnancies every day. After all, we learn in Catholic school that the gift of life is one that you can’t exactly return, reserved only for the one you are married to.
At the age of 16, I wore a new uniform. A red polo and black slacks that never fit me quite right repped my religious upbringing once again. For years, I waited to take the “Human, Sex, and Love” class that was only available to upperclassmen. I don’t know why, but it didn’t cross my mind that I’d be learning about abortion, mostly about how it was a rejection of a gift from God, in a class that was categorized under Religion.
At the time, I never quite understood why women would want to “kill their children.” In my mind, there was always the option of giving the child up to another family. For a while, this strict pro-life view satisfied me. I was able to go on thinking this way, but I never dared to judge the women who got abortions because although I was almost certain about adoption, I still had my doubts about what I’d do if I was put in a worst case scenario situation.
Maybe that thought was the beginning of my evolution on this issue, which is arguably one of the most divisive today and which always deserves an honest take. In the words of actress and activist Alyssa Milano, “I don’t think there’s a human on the planet that is not pro life…we are all pro-life, but there are circumstances that we cannot avoid.” Those who get an abortion, for whatever reason, make the choice to terminate a pregnancy and will have to live with that choice. I started to consider whether we should be attempting to understand them and their choices instead of tearing them down.
Just this year, an 11 year old girl from Ohio was raped multiple times by a 26 year old, leaving her impregnated. This was around the same time that Ohio passed its version of the Heartbeat Bill, prohibiting abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected. Because she was barely pubescent, she didn’t even think of the possibility of pregnancy and therefore passed the 5-6 week mark in which a fetal heartbeat is usually detected. While she was exempt from this law because it was still pending at the time, other rape victims following her will not be.
The bill, passed in multiple states throughout the past six years, is a ban on abortions starting as soon as a heartbeat is detected with no exception for rape or incest. Yes, you read that right. The only exception is a medical emergency, and I guess rape and incest don’t qualify. But some state legislators aren’t ready to talk about that since seven states passed the bill just this year, and half a dozen more are considering passing this or similar laws.
At the 5-6 week mark, the developing fetus is just an embryo. Therefore, having a law in place that bans abortions following that short time span does not allow women ample time to make an appropriate decision, since many women may not even be aware that they are pregnant at this point. It’s a facáde that makes it look as if there is support for women’s choices when there is not. Therefore, the Heartbeat Bill violates Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court case that ruled that the Constitution protects a pregnant woman’s choice to have an abortion without excessive government restrictions.
I feel like there is this big misconception that women who support choice are these vile human beings that hate children, when in fact, there are many reasons women have abortions, and no woman makes this decision lightly. But each woman’s specific reason is her business and her business alone; it’s incredibly personal, and she should not have to explain herself. It’s her right to make that choice. It may be another person’s choice to have an opinion on the topic, but it’s not their choice to force their beliefs.
These beliefs also tend to be justified on religious grounds, but the separation of church and state was created for a reason. And I’m always appalled at the hypocrisy that sometimes grows out of this. Take for example the incident in 2017 when Republican and devout Christian Tim Murphy, who co-sponsored a 20-week abortion ban, “allegedly asked his lover to terminate her pregnancy, according to text message records acquired by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,” according to ABCNews.
When someone is raped, there are medical procedures that follow. When someone is consensually pregnant, medical procedures follow. This is because pregnancy is a medical condition. It’s something that affects a woman’s life permanently. Supporting reproductive rights doesn’t mean that you are pro-abortion or anti-life. It means that you are pro-choice, supporting women in making their own choices about what’s happening to their bodies. To choose to have an abortion is a personal choice. It is a hard choice. For this reason, I can say that I am pro-choice because I am pro-life. I support women’s lives by supporting their right to govern their own bodies as they see fit.
It is also worth noting that before abortion was legal, abortions were still happening. They were just taboo and kept a secret. They were performed sloppily. Some women died and others were sexually assaulted by the one giving them an illegal abortion. Regardless, the abortions still happened. Banning abortion does not stop women from having abortions. It stops them from having safe abortions.
I’ve debated this issue for a long time. Eventually, I had to ask myself: Was I really respecting life if I wasn’t respecting a woman’s right to govern her own? When someone claims to value life, shouldn’t those values extend all over—to the foster care system, to mass shootings, to mass incarceration, to poverty? Why are some pro-life legislators quicker to regulate a woman’s ability to choose what she wants to do with her body than they are about any of these issues? Maybe abortion was never the issue. Maybe it was the desire to appeal to constituents. Maybe it was the desire to control—to force a woman to have less agency.
Catholic school prepared me for love. It prepared me for forgiveness. But its view on “life” became decidedly uncomplicated to me . I never thought that my right to a choice about my own body would be compromised in the way it is today. I never thought that it would take an attack on my rights to jumpstart the conversation to end the stigma surrounding abortion. It’s just not something that Catholic school prepared me for.