Misogyny Defined: the Myth of Choice
I was surprised and disappointed by Barry Henderson's [Sept. 28 Insights] article ("Choice on Abortion is Private and Protected"). Let me start out with my credentials, which Mr. Henderson seems to demand. I am not a man. Nor am I Catholic, Southern Baptist, nor even vaguely fundamentalist. I own a pair of Birkenstocks, support the anti-gun lobby, and occasionally even go bra-less. More to the point are my years spent as a crisis pregnancy counselor in both the United States and Canada—as one of many whose work is largely ignored by both sides of the abortion debate.
"Freedom of Choice" is such an attractive term. Nonetheless, I believe the term sadly misused when applied to a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy. It's easy for most of us to imagine such a woman. It's also easy for us to posit a quick and simple solution for her. Poof! Problem solved, just like "Dear Abby."
Now let me tell you about some real women. Most I saw were in their early 20s. The majority had absent or abusive fathers. Often they felt compelled to have sex with an affectionate older man or a domineering/powerful boyfriend. A few of the women had been pregnant again and again for compensatory reasons, losing each new baby to abortion or social services. Pregnancy was clearly a symptom, not the real problem.
It might be tempting to convince these women to abort "for their own good." We neuter cats and dogs for the same reason, but do we call it "freedom of choice?" I'd argue, further, that such manipulations of an already suggestible female constitutes a most heinous kind of misogyny.
Few of the women felt free not to abort. A number of girls, though raised on anti-abortion rhetoric, felt irresistibly pressured by parents whose horror of the public sin of their daughters' demonstrable sexual activity overshadowed the very private sin of their abortions; several illegal immigrants from the West Indies, working as nannies, faced threats of exportation; many women's boyfriends threatened to abandon them—and almost always left anyway after an abortion.
Nor is it much of a problem for North Americans to get an abortion. Parallel services are offered by hospitals and abortion clinics. Any U.S. restrictions are, in practice, fairly easily gotten around, and, in Canada, they're non-existent. Universal health care in Canada covers the abortion expenses, as do many U.S. insurance companies
In short, while any number of things may impede a woman's freedom to carry her child to term, the freedom to abort the child is usually amply provided for.
So long as our society is promising to give women freedom of choice, we are obligated to provide it. We need to give women freedom of choice not to engage in behaviors that get them pregnant in the first place, and we need to provide freedom of choice for any woman who becomes pregnant, assuring her of all the help and support she needs to carry her baby to term.
Among other things, we need to put much more of our attention and resources into enforcing the responsibilities of absent fathers. We need to encourage men in general to love and respect women, thereby allowing women to be free in every sense of the word.
I'm suspicious of men who are breezily supportive of abortion when they clearly have so much to gain by it, gaining easy political points by declaring their solidarity with and respect for women, while also ensuring that pregnancy remains strictly a "woman's problem."
For abortion providers to provide pregnancy counseling involves a very basic conflict of interest. No matter how kind-hearted, they simply cannot afford to present the alternatives in any substantive way. An abortion is a quick and billable procedure; helping a woman who chooses not to abort her child often involves weeks or even months of pro-bono work finding housing, employment, legal assistance, etc.
Expanding a woman's access to abortion eases a lot of people's burdens. Certainly it benefits abortion providers. It also makes life easier for men who prey on women and/or seek to avoid child support payments. It comforts a society (led by a government, yes, Mr. Henderson, consisting mostly of men) who resent the burden of supporting single mothers. Unfortunately, while the new Supreme Court ruling may bring many benefits to many people, "freedom of choice" for the actual women involved still is not one of them.
Elizabeth Raney Burman
Knoxville
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