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What Underlies the Debate about Abortion?
Guli Fager
I was deeply disturbed by last year's revealing back and forth between the ads from Friends Witness for a Pro-Life Peace Testimony and the many readers who wrote censorious letters to the editor outraged that the ads had been printed. I welcomed Rachel MacNair's recent article about being pro-life and the Quaker Peace Testimony, but I have some thoughts and queries for Friends on both sides of the debate.
This January I was in Washington, D.C., just after the March for Life, which annually mourns the Roe v. Wade decision. While near the Capitol I came upon a leaflet on the ground that reminded me perfectly why, as a sex educator, a Christian, a feminist, and a Quaker, I still vehemently support, advocate, and fight for the right to abortion for women who need it.
The leaflet, "An Appeal for Insistence," is a tri-fold from the organization The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property that goes by the acronym TFP:
Thus, pro-abortion radicals understand all too well what is at stake. Take abortion away and the whole edifice of the sexual revolution comes crashing to the ground. Loose permissive relationships will no longer be possible. People will be forced to deal with their sexuality in the manner which nature prescribes—namely traditional marriage.
It is my belief that the people like MacNair who earnestly believe that abortion is an unacceptable violence are being used by groups whose real goal—as frankly stated in the above quote and echoed by other, far more mainstream organizations such as Focus on the Family—is to undo the sexual revolution and return women in the U.S., who have enjoyed greater social gains in the last 50 years than ever in history, to a system in which unintended pregnancy is a dire consequence of nonmarital sex and the only acceptable place for women is as wives of men.
For some women unintended pregnancy continues to be such a punishment. Women in the United States, particularly those who are poor, still do not have universal access to contraceptive and other health services that could prevent pregnancy and thereby render abortion mostly unnecessary. As a sex educator, 95 percent of the work I do is focused around preventing unwanted outcomes from sex—pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, assault, etc.—but abortion is always there, a specter on the horizon, the nuclear option for when all else fails.
In Texas, where I work as a sex educator at the state's flagship university, I daily encounter the sinister effects of abstinence-only "education" programs, which, by the way, are also produced by organizations whose explicit goals are to reverse the sexual revolution and the gains women have made as a result, hiding behind such language as "changing the culture" around sex. Friends, what they mean when they say "change the culture" is to return us to a time when unwed women who became pregnant had three choices: shotgun marriage, social banishment, or dangerous, illegal abortion. I have read too many stories of back-alley procedures and young women sent away to "maternity homes" where, at the end of their pregnancies, they would be sedated, restrained, and their newborn babies taken from them before they ever had a chance to see him or her, to cede an inch to that kind of talk. If that is the "culture change" that pro-life organizations want, then, to paraphrase the famously pro-life Sarah Palin, "Thanks but no thanks."
The student body at the university where I work is more than 50-percent female. Increasing numbers of professional schools, including law and medical schools, are more than half women. The opportunities now available to women exist precisely because women can control their fertility. Access to contraceptives—and, for some, abortion—is essential to women's equality and a basic human right.
As a Christian, feminist Quaker I cannot abide any national policy that has the effect of controlling women's lives. That is not my Peace Testimony. MacNair may not realize this, but the men behind the curtain on this issue want to control women and their sexuality. Since Roe v. Wade, use of contraception has increased, and abortion, unplanned pregnancy, and rape have all decreased. Allowing women to control their own bodies gives them agency, and the changing indicators above prove that things for women are better when we are in charge.
Susan B. Anthony, a Quaker feminist routinely valorized by Feminists for Life, with which MacNair is also associated, said the following in her speech "Social Purity," in 1875: "The work of woman is not to lessen the severity or the certainty of the penalty for violation of the moral law [referring to abortion and infanticide], but to prevent this violation by the removal of the causes which lead to it" (quoted in The American Feminist, Spring 1998).
My query to MacNair—and to the well-meaning Quakers who objected to the ads she placed in FJ last year—is: What are we, as Friends, doing to remove the social and systemic violence women face that denies them vital options and as a result forces them to turn to abortion? Efforts to re-criminalize abortion will not "protect innocent life" and that is not their goal; they trap and punish women who dare to set and achieve goals outside of the framework of "traditional marriage."
Anthony, as well as Lucretia Mott and many of our Quaker foremothers before them, fought long and hard for women to have the opportunities we have today. Contraception and abortion are a part of the picture. We cannot stop abortion but we, as Friends, can work to reduce women's need for it by advocating for comprehensive sex education, universal access to healthcare that includes contraceptives, and teaching our own youth. I agree with Anthony and Stanton about our work, and we have it cut out for us—but it is not only the work of women; it is the work of all Friends.
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This is a feature article from the
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Comments
Prayerfully Pro-Choice
It’s good that Friends Journal is opening up a dialogue on religion and reproductive freedom.
I'm glad that Guli Fager “a sex educator, a Christian, a feminist, and a Quaker” is pro-choice and I agree with her about what truly underlies the debate about abortion. I’m a prayerfully pro-choice Friend. I'm pro-choice because of my faith. My faith isn’t something that I have to hold separately from my view on this issue. It’s not a position that I came to easily or hold lightly.
I wish Quakers had more representation in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (www.rcrc.org ) so far, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is represented but that’s all.
“That is not my Peace Testimony.” Friend Guli Fager, speaks my mind.
Abortion as Last Choice
I was heartened to read that "....Since Roe v. Wade, use of contraception has increased, and abortion, unplanned pregnancy, and rape have all decreased...."
As I have always considered myself to be pro-life and pro-choice, I do not consider these labels a contradiction in terms.
Feminist Friends of the 19th century witness for women is work that we as contemporary Friends should continue and query ourselves as to what " ...we as Friends are doing to eliminate the social and systemic violence that women face...."
As for me, i am going now to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights, and organization which was unfamiliar to me until now.
What Ms. Fager has perhaps not considered...
... is that most pro-life feminists and Quakers are indeed aware that there are those in the pro-life movement who wish to return women to an earlier, uglier time. However, that is not what pro-life feminists and Quakers themselves hope for. We indeed want very much what Susan B. Anthony wanted: to eliminate the root causes that drive women to abortion, whether those be lack of emotional, financial, familial or spiritual support, lack of appropriate healthcare, lack of appropriate parenting resources, etc. We realize that it will likely be a long time before all women have adequate access to all these things, which is why many in the movement are not in favor of making abortion completely illegal just yet... though most believe that is something to strive for in the long run. Pro-life feminists, Quakers and liberals want something very different from some others in the pro-life movement, which has so long been dominated (especially in the media) by ultra-conservatives and chauvinists: we want true peace and non-violence for both women and children, and we are willing to work hard and wait a long time to see the results we are looking for. Namely, to form a society which supports womanhood, motherhood, childhood, and equality all to such a degree that abortion itself will not be deemed necessary. We are trying very hard to separate ourselves from pro-lifers who in reality are anti-women. We are not them. They are not us.
editorial respone
Alicia's response is very well worded especially the part about peace and non-violence for women and children. I would add men too. Very thoughtful.
You cannot really believe
You cannot really believe that Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony would be pro-abortion? The early quakers were a totally different breed than you want to make them out to be. They gave women their freedom in the church, but did not and would not suport abortion or infanticide. A true Christian cannot think that killing an unborn child is not violence and is okay with God. He knew us before we were formed in our mother's womb and he gave us a law: Thou shalt not kill. It doesn't say: thou shalt not kill unless it is inconvenient for a mother to have a baby or unless she gets pregnant by rape (not the baby's fault), etc. We are the adults and God expects more of us. A life is not an inconvenience, it is a gift from God, period.
relpy
Look according to me abortion is so foolish thing people do because if they don't want child then they would have take precaution before itself.
Rachel MacNair responds
I'm delighted that the dialog is continuing. As someone who is direclty named, I do feel a need to respond directly.
If someone favors keeping women in traditional family roles and opposes artificial contraception, then it would rather be expected that they would also oppose abortion. Conversely, if someone favors infanticide of disabled newborns or wants to cut down on the numbers of people of other races, they wouldn't be expected to object to abortion. Therefore, it's to be expected that there will be people of those kinds in each of those movements, respectively. It doesn't follow that because I could so easily document that there are people who take the pro-choice label who favor eugenic infanticide or being racist that I would therefore accuse all people who take that designation as being tools of those that are bigoted.
Many's the time I've been accused of being a tool of communists because of my peace activism; the invective is updated to being a tool of terrorists now. And while I'm unaware of any terrorists in peace movement ranks, there really were communists. If a movement becomes unworkable because not all the people in it are pure in their stated motivation, then all social movements are dead.
And the point on women's equality works both ways. Abortion itself can be used as a tool of sexually domineering men. I remember the man who came by the Feminists for Life table and declared, "If my girlfriend is stupid enough to get pregnant, she's going down to the abortion clinic that afternoon, whether she wants to or not." A woman's "right to choose" comes to serve a man's perceived right to use, and men who want women as re-usable sex objects come to understand this quickly. I'm in email circles to hear when it makes news that a man has outright killed a woman because she refused to get an abortion, and it's depressingly frequent. But for every outright killing -- which is, after all, quite illegal -- there have to be many that only beat her, and for every case of beating, there have to be many that simply use verbal threats or pressure. This ideal that women are the ones making the choices about their own bodies, and those that wish to dominate their bodies are being gentlemenly about leaving the decision to them, doesn't fit the reality of post-abortion women I am frequently in contact with.
As for this idea that abortion numbers have gone down since Roe v. Wade, I have no idea where that came from. The research arm of Planned Parenthood, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, documents that known abortions shot up after the decision and all througout the 1970s, plateaued in the 1980s, and started a slow downward trend in the 1990s (see http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2008/09/18/Report_Trends_Women_Obtaining_...). There are arguments about how many there were before Roe, of course, since efforts at concealment were mainly successful.
Still, the final point is one of great importance: we need to get to root causes. Legal bans on racial discrimination only go so far, and get nowhere if whites have riots as they did at first; it took a nonviolent movement to cause changes there, not merely changes in law. Dueling, for heaven's sake, was a form of socially-approved killing that continued to happen even after early U.S. states banned it with draconian punishments of hanging the survivor and confiscating the entire estates of both parties. But fortunately, social disapproval finally caught up with it and it's an exceedingly rare practice now. I don't think there's ever a time when legal status alone can solve a problem. We do live in a society in which violence as a problem-solver is rampant in our politics and our literature, with its deceptive promise of the quick fix. Even the idea of a legal ban can be a deceptive promise of a quick fix if it's not accompanied by much more tender work. Nonviolent solutions take more time and care, but we all know they are worth the extra time and care they take.
And among the important things we need to do is make clear that women with an unexpected pregnancy are entitled to unexpected joy. Babies are not punishment, and we women are entitled to be accomodated with our children in the workplace, schools, and everywhere else, without being expected to have surgery instead.
reply to Rachel MacNair
I didn't even finish your excellent and thoughtful commentary before I felt compelled to mention that one of the largest supports of the pro-choice movement is Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Enterprise.
I just wanted anyone’s
I just wanted anyone’s opinion on if I was in the wrong here, and what any of you guys would have done in this situation. So my wife is quite liberal and I’m more on the conservative side, and she’s about 3 months pregnant. She can’t work right now, so I’ve been forced to support her as of late. The thing is that about a week ago she started asking me if she could borrow $400, and being pretty secretive about the reason why. I soon found out that $400 was the average cost of a back alley abortion, which is ridiculous considering that she knows how vehemently pro-life I am. After refusing to give her the money and the countless hours of arguing that ensued, I ended up making a comment about how if she wanted to do something liberal with $400, she should take advantage of Obummer’s “Broadband Stimulus,” so that “instead of murdering our kid, he can have satellite internet at a smashing price!” (I linked it so you can actually see it’s about $400 in taxpayer money that our President chose to waste on this crap, aren’t I so funny hah). The messed up part is that she went and told her dad, who happens to be just as liberal as her, and who also happens to own the house that we’re renting. To make a long story short, my tenancy has been “suspended” from his house (I’m now staying at my buddy’s place until this thing blows over) and he gave her the money to get the abortion. I haven’t talked to her in almost a week, so it’s pretty safe to say that she has already gone through with it. So my question is, do you think I was being inappropriate for mocking my wife and father in law’s political ideologies, or do you think I’m being unfairly persecuted because of my relative conservatism, and the Obummer joke I made has little to nothing to do with this? I’m thinking the latter.
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