Feminists have called for freedom of women from all that oppresses them; for equality in society. Sadly, pro-choice feminists fail to realise they’re oppressing women by denying them the right to question abortion, and to speak of their suffering and frustrations.
What is it that so many pro-life feminists are questioning?
• Societal attitudes: A 2004 Monash University study found most women felt motherhood was viewed ambivalently in society; “mothers were not accorded a high status position…their social contribution was not always valued”. Why is this? Surely being a mother should be highly esteemed and high on a feminist agenda seeking equality? Women deserve better than social attitudes that de-valuing motherhood. They deserve better than abortion.
• Career and Education: How many young women think an abortion is the only way they’ll get through VCE or University with a child, because there’s no childcare? How many women feel no choice but abortion
because of anti-motherhood workplaces, inflexible work hours, or fear their careers will be limited with a child? If women must ‘choose’ abortion to preserve their education, career, or social status, they are surrendering
to a social system devised and run by men tor male convenience. These structures need to be questioned – women deserve better than perpetuation of these barriers, sexism and abortion.
• Dollars and cents: How many women have abortions because they simply can’t afford staying at home looking after children? What is happening with paid maternity leave? How many women have abortions because of this
lack of financial support? Are pregnant women informed about services available to them and their babies – which provide food, clothing, housing? The lack of these services and benefits need to be questioned –
women deserve better than abortion.
• Paternal responsibility: Studies show that the most significant factor in a woman ‘choosing’ an abortion is lack of support from the man to keep the child. How many feel pressured into abortion because their partner thinks
a child will ruin their relationship and his life? How many women who feel emotionally abandoned? Failure of men to take responsibility for the outcome of love-making- babies -needs questioning. Women deserve better.
• Counselling: How many women are never told about post abortion grief – so think this ‘simple procedure’ is comparable with having an ingrown toenail removed? Why are women who have spoken out about their grief
silenced or trivialised by pro-choice women? So much for ‘herstory’ – for giving women voice. This silencing needs questioning – women deserve better than post-abortion grief.
• Health risks: Why are women not being informed of the health risks of abortion, namely breast cancer? And again, why have those who have spoken out been silenced? The silence surrounding this major health
issue needs questioning – women deserve better than losing breasts and abortion.
Pro-life women and those speaking from their experience of having no real choices are problematic to the pro-choice feminist agenda that sees motherhood and pregnancy as evils to be avoided at all costs. They want these women to remain invisible so that their own pro-choice arguments don’t have to be rethought.
This brings me to an emotive pro-choice argument flying around: if abortion laws change, women will die at the hands of ‘backyard abortionists’. It’s a ‘stink bomb’: an outburst that ensures an audience, but doesn’t necessarily put emphasis on patient, reasoned argument. Such an outburst perpetuates oppression of women:
abortion is not a woman’s best friend!
Even ‘Vera Drake’, the backyard abortionist was oppressed -she didn’t receive any money for her 20years of work whilst Lily the broker profited handsomely. This highlights something pro-choicer’s ignore – someone’s making a hell of a lot of money out of abortion! It’s a lucrative business that needs to keep women oppressed without real choices. A former US abortion centre director said: “It’s a lie when they tell you they’re doing it to help women, because they’re not. They’re doing it for the money”. An article in LaWeekly reports, “the real tragedy of criminalizing abortion was not that it created inadvertent, improbably pubic- health hazards like Vera, but that it allowed the Lily’s of the world to crawl out of the woodwork” (Taylor, 2004).
If Vera really was a true feminist she might have done something tangible and lasting for women: fought for single mothers respect, against economic hardship, and responsibility of men who impregnate– afterall, the suffragettes didn’t go unnoticed. It seems that pro-choicer’s doesn’t realise they’re working to fit women into a society structured for men. ‘Feminists for Life America’ argue: “Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women?” Do you agree women deserve better? If you want to question abortion, please contact
me about the Pro-Life and Women’s Forum meetings in Melbourne.
Dr. Kerrie Allen
Research Officer, Australian Family Association
dr_ke20@yahoo.com.au