This weeks’ readings opened my eyes to the abuse women face regarding their own reproductive rights. Many women are aware of the battle with the government and conservative Christian groups to keep their right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. What we often are not aware of are the other ways in which women are denied basic reproductive rights.
In Reproductive Laws, Women of Color, and Low-Income Women, Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson discusses the impact of race as to the availability of abortions. She informs the readers of the reality that racism plays. Although many white women have dealt with obstacles in order to obtain abortions, the larger degree of difficulty faced by women of color and poor women exemplifies Peggy McIntosh’s argument of white privilege. Because these demographics of women are often unable to pay for first-trimester abortions or are unaware of the funds available to them, they must then jump the hurdles that is obtaining a post-first-trimester abortion. Nsiah-Jefferson reiterates how important it is for white feminists (especially pro-choicers) to know that any law that infringes upon reproductive rights hurts a vast group of women, even if it is not a group they belong to. Nsiah-Jefferson writes, “Poor women and women of color often live under circumstances that make it difficult for them to obtain early abortions… Thus, it is important to understand the laws restricting late abortions will continue to have a particular impact on poor women and women of color… The enactment and implementation of the Hyde Amendment terminating federal Medicaid funding for abortions has caused many poor women to delay having abortions while they raise the necessary funds” (364). Another issue Nsiah-Jefferson brings to our attention is the fact that Medicaid does not always fund abortions and, if they do, many welfare workers do not inform recipients of this right (364). The question we are forced to ask is: Why would a government entity that attempts to give poor citizens the opportunity to receive (minimal) health care and focus on becoming “more productive” to our society deny a woman the ability to terminate the vicious cycle of growing up in poverty and not being able to escape? Simply put, the fewer children a woman dependent on welfare has, the less money the government pays to support them.
Another issue I was, until recently, unaware of was the rampant abuse of sterilization of American people. Angela Davis delves into this controversial topic in her essay Reproductive Rights. She describes the blatant propaganda used to terminate almost an entire population of a dying race when she writes, “In one of the HEW pamphlets aimed at Indian people, there is a sketch of a family with ten children and one horse and another sketch of a family with one child and ten horses. The drawings are supposed to imply that more children mean more poverty and fewer children mean wealth. As if the ten horses owned by the one-child family had been magically conjured up by birth control and sterilization surgery” (111-112). Although there is something to be said for using such methods as birth control and sterilization to control family size and be successful, to attempt to terminate the reproduction of a certain race is nothing more than genocide. This oppression of minority races is also applied as the opposite extreme to the “ideal” race, causing discourse when activist attempt to remedy its abuse. Davis explains, “Within organizations representing the interests of middle-class white women, there has been a certain reluctance to support the demands of the campaign against sterilization abuse, for these women are often denied their individual rights to be sterilized when they desire to take this step” (112-113). The contradictive manner in which sterilization abuse is applied to both white and ethnic women is a “master’s tool” used to keep different groups from uniting a fixing the problem.
The most eye-opening essay this week was Abortion, Vacuum Cleaners, and the Power Within by Inga Musico. She writes about her own experience with clinical abortions and how, to her, it
is patriarchal. She writes “I didn’t do good, I fucked up. So I had the same choice as before, that glowing, outstanding choice we ladies fight tooth and nail for: the choice to get my insides ruthlessly sucked by some inhuman shit pile, invented not by my foremothers, but by someone who would never, ever in a million years have that tube jammed up his dickhole and turned on full blast, slurping everything in its path” (114). Although she is grateful for choices women do have today, she feels that the impersonal nature of clinical abortions and the trauma of the experience is cause for dissent. She feels that homeopathic alternatives are much more empowering and less painful. Instead of lying on a stiff, white bed waiting for some man to suck out your insides, she advocates using your friends and family as support and truly making a choice. This argument is reminiscent of the one Ricki Lake makes in her documentary The Business of Being Born. Although giving birth and having an abortion seem to make up a black and white dichotomy of choice, they both are procedures that have been taken away from or never fully given to women. A man and his medicine are more reliable than trusting our own bodies and the other women around us. Musico laments the placid attitude many women have, not only about their bodies, when she writes “We stare into the TV set instead of speaking of our own dreams, wait for a vacation instead of appreciating each day, watch the clock rather than listen to our hearts” (115). She summarizes how even something seemingly as feminist as an abortion can act as a “master’s tool” to divide and conquer, to separate and oppress us, when she writes, “The squabble between pro-lifers and pro-choicers serves only to keep our eyes off the target: patriarchal society” (117).
To further this discussion of giving birth also being a choice that is denied to women, we read And So I Chose by Allison Crews. She writes, “After much prayer and divination, many tears and several horrible poems, I made a choice to bear a child” (145). She explains the hardships she encountered as a pregnant teenager that chose to give birth and keep her baby. After living in a pro-life environment, she tried to find support from a different source and was bitterly disappointed. “I was told that girls like me were almost completely responsible for the ‘backsliding of the feminist movement… While many of these women professed to be ‘pro-choice,’ I quickly learned that for them the only choice that is acceptable is the choice they consider ‘right’” (146). The fact that she was young allowed the people around her to feel validated in making choices for her. “It seemed as if everyone I encountered felt that they had a right to force their opinion on me regarding the best choice for my child’s future—and this choice was almost exclusively to give him up for adoption. I was told that I did not deserve my child, that there was no way I could ever be an adequate mother, by both the anti- and pro-abortion communities” (146). Not only was she oppressed in the decision of whether to keep her child, but she was unable to explore her options for birthing. She describes the elitism of her doctor when she writes, “I needed to be monitored, strapped to a bed, cleaned from the inside, shaven smooth and knocked out cold. I was a little girl, and delivering babies is a man’s job” (147). Despite the opposition she faced, Crews chose to keep her child. She makes the point that “being pro-woman, being pro-choice, means being supportive of any reproductive choice a woman makes for herself” (148).
This battle that so many women face in gaining control of their own reproductive rights is part of a patriarchal agenda to control women’s sexual freedom. The right of a woman to have a safe abortion is also her right to be sexually active without the constant worry. It
’s the right to have sexual responsibility closer to that of a man. But is not just our often denied right of choice that oppresses women sexually. It is also the right to have children if and when we want to that is dictated by men. Although women are hypersexualized in media and pop culture, they are still idealized as pure and virginal. Our worth is often dependent upon our beauty and our “virtue.” We are all fighting for the ability to choose not to be held to this stigma, to no longer be held in comparison to super-sexy women who wait for marriage.
By Katie Frye.
In Reproductive Laws, Women of Color, and Low-Income Women, Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson discusses the impact of race as to the availability of abortions. She informs the readers of the reality that racism plays. Although many white women have dealt with obstacles in order to obtain abortions, the larger degree of difficulty faced by women of color and poor women exemplifies Peggy McIntosh’s argument of white privilege. Because these demographics of women are often unable to pay for first-trimester abortions or are unaware of the funds available to them, they must then jump the hurdles that is obtaining a post-first-trimester abortion. Nsiah-Jefferson reiterates how important it is for white feminists (especially pro-choicers) to know that any law that infringes upon reproductive rights hurts a vast group of women, even if it is not a group they belong to. Nsiah-Jefferson writes, “Poor women and women of color often live under circumstances that make it difficult for them to obtain early abortions… Thus, it is important to understand the laws restricting late abortions will continue to have a particular impact on poor women and women of color… The enactment and implementation of the Hyde Amendment terminating federal Medicaid funding for abortions has caused many poor women to delay having abortions while they raise the necessary funds” (364). Another issue Nsiah-Jefferson brings to our attention is the fact that Medicaid does not always fund abortions and, if they do, many welfare workers do not inform recipients of this right (364). The question we are forced to ask is: Why would a government entity that attempts to give poor citizens the opportunity to receive (minimal) health care and focus on becoming “more productive” to our society deny a woman the ability to terminate the vicious cycle of growing up in poverty and not being able to escape? Simply put, the fewer children a woman dependent on welfare has, the less money the government pays to support them.
Another issue I was, until recently, unaware of was the rampant abuse of sterilization of American people. Angela Davis delves into this controversial topic in her essay Reproductive Rights. She describes the blatant propaganda used to terminate almost an entire population of a dying race when she writes, “In one of the HEW pamphlets aimed at Indian people, there is a sketch of a family with ten children and one horse and another sketch of a family with one child and ten horses. The drawings are supposed to imply that more children mean more poverty and fewer children mean wealth. As if the ten horses owned by the one-child family had been magically conjured up by birth control and sterilization surgery” (111-112). Although there is something to be said for using such methods as birth control and sterilization to control family size and be successful, to attempt to terminate the reproduction of a certain race is nothing more than genocide. This oppression of minority races is also applied as the opposite extreme to the “ideal” race, causing discourse when activist attempt to remedy its abuse. Davis explains, “Within organizations representing the interests of middle-class white women, there has been a certain reluctance to support the demands of the campaign against sterilization abuse, for these women are often denied their individual rights to be sterilized when they desire to take this step” (112-113). The contradictive manner in which sterilization abuse is applied to both white and ethnic women is a “master’s tool” used to keep different groups from uniting a fixing the problem.
The most eye-opening essay this week was Abortion, Vacuum Cleaners, and the Power Within by Inga Musico. She writes about her own experience with clinical abortions and how, to her, it
is patriarchal. She writes “I didn’t do good, I fucked up. So I had the same choice as before, that glowing, outstanding choice we ladies fight tooth and nail for: the choice to get my insides ruthlessly sucked by some inhuman shit pile, invented not by my foremothers, but by someone who would never, ever in a million years have that tube jammed up his dickhole and turned on full blast, slurping everything in its path” (114). Although she is grateful for choices women do have today, she feels that the impersonal nature of clinical abortions and the trauma of the experience is cause for dissent. She feels that homeopathic alternatives are much more empowering and less painful. Instead of lying on a stiff, white bed waiting for some man to suck out your insides, she advocates using your friends and family as support and truly making a choice. This argument is reminiscent of the one Ricki Lake makes in her documentary The Business of Being Born. Although giving birth and having an abortion seem to make up a black and white dichotomy of choice, they both are procedures that have been taken away from or never fully given to women. A man and his medicine are more reliable than trusting our own bodies and the other women around us. Musico laments the placid attitude many women have, not only about their bodies, when she writes “We stare into the TV set instead of speaking of our own dreams, wait for a vacation instead of appreciating each day, watch the clock rather than listen to our hearts” (115). She summarizes how even something seemingly as feminist as an abortion can act as a “master’s tool” to divide and conquer, to separate and oppress us, when she writes, “The squabble between pro-lifers and pro-choicers serves only to keep our eyes off the target: patriarchal society” (117).To further this discussion of giving birth also being a choice that is denied to women, we read And So I Chose by Allison Crews. She writes, “After much prayer and divination, many tears and several horrible poems, I made a choice to bear a child” (145). She explains the hardships she encountered as a pregnant teenager that chose to give birth and keep her baby. After living in a pro-life environment, she tried to find support from a different source and was bitterly disappointed. “I was told that girls like me were almost completely responsible for the ‘backsliding of the feminist movement… While many of these women professed to be ‘pro-choice,’ I quickly learned that for them the only choice that is acceptable is the choice they consider ‘right’” (146). The fact that she was young allowed the people around her to feel validated in making choices for her. “It seemed as if everyone I encountered felt that they had a right to force their opinion on me regarding the best choice for my child’s future—and this choice was almost exclusively to give him up for adoption. I was told that I did not deserve my child, that there was no way I could ever be an adequate mother, by both the anti- and pro-abortion communities” (146). Not only was she oppressed in the decision of whether to keep her child, but she was unable to explore her options for birthing. She describes the elitism of her doctor when she writes, “I needed to be monitored, strapped to a bed, cleaned from the inside, shaven smooth and knocked out cold. I was a little girl, and delivering babies is a man’s job” (147). Despite the opposition she faced, Crews chose to keep her child. She makes the point that “being pro-woman, being pro-choice, means being supportive of any reproductive choice a woman makes for herself” (148).
This battle that so many women face in gaining control of their own reproductive rights is part of a patriarchal agenda to control women’s sexual freedom. The right of a woman to have a safe abortion is also her right to be sexually active without the constant worry. It
’s the right to have sexual responsibility closer to that of a man. But is not just our often denied right of choice that oppresses women sexually. It is also the right to have children if and when we want to that is dictated by men. Although women are hypersexualized in media and pop culture, they are still idealized as pure and virginal. Our worth is often dependent upon our beauty and our “virtue.” We are all fighting for the ability to choose not to be held to this stigma, to no longer be held in comparison to super-sexy women who wait for marriage.By Katie Frye.
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