Those who believe in a woman’s right to control her own reproduction are rightly afraid of those who believe that fetuses deserve the same legal protection as born children, but these are not the only enemies of choice. More insidious is the opposition from “pseudo-choicers” who believe abortion should be available – when they think it’s appropriate.
Just as Henry Ford reputedly offered his customers “any colour you want, as long as it’s black”, these “pseudo-choicers” support a woman’s right to choose, provided she makes a choice of which they approve. They agree that abortion is not murder, and they agree that the decision to end a pregnancy can be difficult – so difficult, in fact, that a foolish, hormonal woman cannot be trusted to make it alone.
My ex-boyfriend was a willing, even eager partner in the act that led to my baby’s conception, but afterwards began to have second thoughts, especially given that the burden of supporting me and the baby would fall mainly upon him. When the pregnancy was confirmed, after the first shock had worn off, he suggested that “now you know you can get pregnant, have an abortion and try again when it’s more convenient.”
I didn’t even consider abortion, because I very much wanted to be pregnant, but just in case this didn’t seem like sufficient reason, I marshalled others. He thought becoming pregnant was easy, but I’d tried and failed several times before I met him. And I didn’t know how an abortion might affect my chances of becoming pregnant in future. Most importantly, I had this chance to have a child, and I didn’t find convenience a compelling reason to throw it away.
I explained my reasons to him without making any impression. For him, there are two classes of women: those who can become pregnant easily and those who experience more difficulty. My pregnancy proved that I fitted into the first category: case closed. When I tried to argue, he became impatient. “I’m just trying to be rational,” he said.
The implication was that I was being irrational because my analysis led to a different result than his. Rationality doesn’t work that way: the conclusion depends on the premises. His disinclination to pay child support was no more rational than my disinclination to undergo surgery I didn’t feel I needed, but he couldn’t see that. His feelings were perfectly rational; mine were irrational, emotional and (dare I say it?) hysterical.
Luckily he had no power to compel me to accept his definition of rationality. If I’d been less certain of my own wishes, he might have been able to persuade or coerce me, but all he managed to do was convince me that for all his fine words about supporting my choice before we knew whether I was pregnant, he didn’t believe the choice was mine to make. That realisation marked the beginning of the end of our relationship.
If the right to choose means anything at all, it has to include the right to make a choice that is incomprehensible to others. A woman’s decision to end or continue a pregnancy doesn’t need to make sense to anyone other than her; she is often the only person with all the information – knowledge of her own personality and wishes – necessary to understand it.
Believing that affluent women in stable relationships should choose pregnancy and single women on benefits should choose abortion is not pro-choice. It is paternalism, with a hefty dose of classism and more than a nod in the direction of eugenics. Believing that a woman’s decision is not or should not be the final word in the debate is anti-choice, whether it’s expressed in terms of rationality or in terms of the rights of the fetus.
Rationality, to me, suggests that since the woman is the one who must live with the consequences of her decision, she should be the one to make that decision without having her competence called into question. The line between offering advice and passing judgement may be narrow at times, but no-one on the outside can tell which decision is the right one. Those who would tell a woman that her choice is wrong, selfish or irrational are not, whatever else they may be, pro-choice.
I want to put that WORDS poster on a t-shirt!