No comment
On this from the WaPo recently: (well, OK, I added some emphasis)
Posted at 06:30 AM ET, 06/13/2007
Pro-Choice or No-Choice?
Twenty years ago, I sat in a friend’s kitchen talking with her mom, a 50-something mother of three children. I’d known their family for years. My friend’s mom changed my life forever when we started discussing, rather hypothetically, abortion. “I had one,” she said. “After my three kids were born. I got pregnant by accident, we didn’t want a fourth child, and I had an abortion. It was the right thing to do — and it wasn’t a big deal.”That was one of the only times a mother talked to me about ending an unwanted pregnancy. Most women I knew who’d had abortions were closer to girlhood than motherhood. They’d been terrified about the responsibilities of raising a child — something they knew nothing about. Abortion had been an unpleasant but welcome solution to a problem they couldn’t face.
My friend’s mother was different. She knew exactly what having a child was all about. She wasn’t a frightened, inexperienced young woman. Nonetheless, she exercised her right to family “balance.” My own mother got pregnant by accident with a fourth child — my much-loved youngest sister. She made a different, also-right choice.
The New York Times recently ran a thought-provoking examination of abortion’s portrayal (or lack thereof) on the screen, On Abortion, Hollywood is No-Choice. In two summer blockbusters out now, The Waitress and Knocked Up, women face surprise pregnancies — and never discuss ending them as an option.
“Real life women struggling with unwanted pregnancies might consider an abortion, have intense discussions with partners and friends about it and, in most cases, go through with it,” according to the article. “But historically and to this day in television and film a character in such straits usually conveniently miscarries or decides to keep the baby.”
Accidental and unwanted pregnancies are part of the facts of life for women of child-bearing age. According to The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, unplanned pregnancies have increased among adult women, even as they’ve decreased among teenage girls. More than half of all unwanted pregnancies occur to women in their 20s. Nearly two-thirds of these pregnancies end in abortion, says the Times, citing federal surveys.
The message from the movies is clear: Here’s another real-life subject that women (and presumably, men) are not supposed to discuss publicly. An unwanted pregnancy is perhaps the most powerful factor in unbalancing a woman’s work and family life. Most working women (at least the sexually active ones) need birth control, including abortion, to plan their careers – sometimes, you need to say “no” to motherhood in order to build your reputation, get more training or an advanced degree, accept a promotion, or simply to work very hard for a certain period of time. Childless women often stay happily childless thanks specifically to birth control. Non-working moms also need the choices offered by all forms of birth control to space their children wisely, and sometimes to put off pregnancy in favor of a current family member’s special needs (including their own).
So why can’t we — or don’t we — talk openly about the tradeoffs of keeping or ending a pregnancy, whether our feelings are painful, matter-of-fact, or somewhere in between?
I haven’t had an abortion (not yet, at least). But the candor from my friend’s mother helped me as I faced my share of “scares” over the years. If I did get pregnant by accident, she’d be one of the first women I’d call. Because she is one of the only ones who was brave enough, and at peace enough, to be open about her decision.
OK so maybe I do have to comment, albeit briefly:
–Abortion as birth control?? Geez, what a solution. Murder to plan your career. Yes!
–”an equally right choice?” When B XVI talks about moral relativism, this woman could be the poster child.
–”An unpleasant but welcome solution.” Geez, that’s said with all the thought of hiring an exterminator to come to your house to get rid of roaches or something. I guess the humanity of the child never figures into this.
