A Woman of Age for Reproductive Rights

 

Women's March in El Paso. January 2017. Credit: Mzuriana.

I am unabashedly, unreservedly, enthusiastically pro-choice. 

Being pro-choice means I support a woman's right to choose how she responds to an unwanted pregnancy:

• Not be pregnant → choose abortion
• Not parent → choose to make an adoption plan
• Parent

A woman does not need to justify, argue, defend or explain her decision to me. 

Why is this relevant to being a woman of age? 

Because people who vote skew older, it is incumbent upon voters who live in the Land of Age to protect the rights of women younger than we are. 

These recent assaults against abortion access are assaults on women's rights of self-determination, civil rights, and human rights. 

We need to protect the rights:

• We once had, when we were of child-bearing age. 
• Our daughters once had during their most vulnerable years of unwanted impregnation. 
• Of our granddaughters. 

Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence, which the Constitution incorporates, states that all humans have three intrinsic rights: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

About that right to life? That's my right to life. Your right to life. 

My right to life and your right to life subordinate that of a potential life in a uterus. The potential life in a uterus does not have more legitimacy than mine or yours. 

Adoption is not an alternative to abortion

Supreme Court Judge Amy Comey Barrent has allegedly stated that adoption is a viable alternative to abortion, therefore abortion is unnecessary. I get why she and many other folks think this way. 

But it is inaccurate reasoning. 

Adoption is an alternative to parenting. 

Abortion is an alternative to pregnancy. 

Furthermore, as someone who worked with a pro-choice private adoption agency, I can tell you that women who make adoption plans receive strong-arm pressure from family and friends to change their minds. This is what they hear:

• "How can you give away your flesh and blood?!" 
• "You will regret this!"
• "How can you give away my grandchild?!" 
• "Your child will hate you!"
• "I'll help you raise your baby!" Note: Although said with the best of intentions, the help has a shelf life of about three months post-delivery. 

Adoptive parents tend to both vilify and feel grateful to the birth parents who chose them to parent their infants. 

There are pro-choice Republicans, but the Republican Party has been hijacked by fundamentalists

From this wikipedia entry on the now-defunct Republican Majority for Choice organization: "In 2017, Gallup released polling information showing that 36% of Republicans identified as "pro-choice" and 70% agreed that abortion should be legal in some (56%) or all (14%) circumstances."

Pro-choice Republicans have gone underground, forfeiting the field completely to a minority, fundamentalist core. Our current situation is the culmination of decades of the Three Bs messaging espoused by effective fundamentalist strategists: Babies, Bullets, and the Bible. 

Venerable organizations that advocate for women's reproductive rights

Remember them? 

1. NARAL, founded circa 1970, by Bernard Nathanson, Betty Friedan (author of Fountain of Age), and Ernesta Drinker Ballard.
2. NOW, founded in 1966 by Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, Pauli Murray, and Muriel Fox.
3. Planned Parenthood, with roots going back to 1916, by Margaret Sanger, Ethel Byrne, and Fania Mindel.
4. Women's Political Caucus, founded in 1971, a multi-partisan organization with national, state, and local affiliations, by Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Fannie Lou Hamer, Mildred Jeffrey, Jill Ruckelshaus, and Gloria Steinem. Mission statement: NWPC is a national, pro-choice, multi-partisan, grassroots membership organization dedicated to identifying, recruiting, training and supporting women candidates for elected and appointed office.
5. ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)
6. Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, with the motto: Pro Faith, Pro Family, Pro Choice. 

For those of us in the Land of Age: We dropped the ball. We became complacent. 

We allowed the proverbial camel's nose to get under the tent. And the tent is about to blow away if we don't catch it.