It is hard to find a political debate in which the abortion issue does not get raised. It is easily the most heatedly argued issue in the United States and one in which most people are very passionate about and it has been heralded as the quintessential women's rights issue of the modern age; however, is abortion really a women's rights issue or is it in fact one of the most sexist, anti-woman ideas in history? Typically, the abortion issue centers around the baby in question, and while there are certainly some very valid and important arguments to be made there, I want to challenge you to step away from those arguments, regardless of which side of the fence you are on, and to look at the role between women's rights, societal views of women and abortion.
The first and foremost argument made in support of abortion is that it is a woman's decision- her body, her choice. But what is this really saying? Instead of putting equal responsibility on the men for the sexual behavior and for their offspring, the abortion debate itself is saying to women that you, and you alone are solely responsible for getting knocked up and because it is your fault, it is your problem to deal with. There is nothing liberating or empowering about this argument, in fact it is more condescending and sexist than even the whole “know your place” idea. And then of course, there is the issue of informed consent, if it is really about choice, why are so few women ever informed about the realities and risks of abortion?
Further, it is used as a fail-safe to send the message that abortion is needed to clean up after the mess that irresponsible women create. Instead of saying that women are empowered to make their own decisions regarding sexuality and reproduction prior to conception, we as a society seem to act as if women do not have a choice (since after all they are portrayed as being merely sexual objects) and therefore abortion is necessary to take care of the unwanted consequences afterward. This is an extremely negative and dangerous argument that undermines women's rights and silences our voices. We should, instead, be empowering ourselves to take control of our own sexuality, to wait until we are ready to deal with it and to advocate more choice and accessibility in birth control options that truly put women in charge-- that would be the real choice, not taking it to an extreme after the fact, even if it risks our health and well being and future conception possibilities. But to do this, would be to threaten the current male driven society.
Our current society, particularly in the West, is driven by the idea that women are sexual objects to satisfy men on demand. It has long been held that men control all aspects of sexuality in this society and with the rate of pornography, so called "gentleman's clubs", and high rates of sexual assaults and other crimes against women, we can see that clearly—it is all geared to cater to the image of men being in control. To empower women to take charge, and to actually be the ones to control their own sexuality would threaten this and thus, it plays better into the hands of sexism to push abortion as a “clean up” alternative instead of giving us the power to control conception in the first place.
What about the so called “hard cases” of rape? This is often used at the forefront of the debate as the reason why abortion must be legal, but in reality it is merely trying to play upon the fears and concerns of the “weaker sex” and to almost make an excuse for rape by saying “well you can always have an abortion” as if the trauma of such a horrific violation is just going to go away and you are expected to just go on and forget about it because at least you can have an abortion if you get pregnant; how could you be more insulting? And they push this sexist attempt to placate women while hiding the fact that only 1-2% of all abortions are due to rape or incest, a little fact that they tend to leave out.
Perhaps the most diabolical part of it all is that those behind the great abortion scam use women to further their own sexist agenda and convince women that they need these misogynistic ideas, that they are even for their own good and they point to anyone in the pro-life camp as being a threat against women. While I certainly will agree that a good portion of the right is made up of those on the sexist bandwagon, that is not true of all those who are Pro-Life. Even the democrats and the liberal left are full of pro-life supporters as are many avid and vocal feminists.
But apart of the arguments from a feminist or anti-feminist stance as the case may be, what about the actual physical issues involved? Is abortion a safe, even important medical option for women as the pro-abortion activists claim or is it more harmful to women than they are willing to admit? To answer this question take a look at the issue of informed consent and the ways in which abortion presents a physical and psychological assault on women in the first part of this look at why pro-choice is anti-woman.
When we sift through all of the information and separate the facts from the propaganda and look at the real underlying issues and hidden agendas, we are left with one inescapable conclusion- Abortion is an all out assault on women. This may be why we are seeing many Pro-Life Feminist groups springing up around the world to take a stand against this war that has been raged against women, and to reclaim our own pride and control over our lives by saying no to abortion and realizing that Pro-Choice is really just Anti-Woman.
Printer-friendly version
