PBS303H: Focus on the Child or the Mother?

Abortion: A failure to communicate (1998)

• Another issue, semi-unrelated to Klusendorf's critiques: can these ads be deceptive, to a degree? Can they give a woman false reassurance about the control she will have following pregnancy?

[A woman is in front of a nice house, raking leaves. She says good-bye to her daughter, then turns to the viewer.] “I was sixteen when I found out that I was pregnant with Carrie. I wasn’t married and I was really scared. You know, some people today say that I should have had an abortion, but it never occurred to me that I had that choice, just because it wasn’t convenient for me. Hey, I’m no martyr, but I really can’t believe I had a choice after I was pregnant. Think about it.” While this ad is not always popular among pro-life activists, polls showed it is extremely effective with young women. This is because it presents a role model who is approachable and believable, and the subliminal message in the ad—the nice house, the good relationship with the daughter, the image of control as the woman stands holding the rake as she takes care of her own yard—all reinforce the message that this woman is, in fact, a kind of martyr, because she has made a difficult decision but “gotten on with her life.” The ad subtly offers the very kind of resolution a woman facing a crisis pregnancy desperately seeks and which she is too often deceived into thinking abortion will provide.

• Talia's comment about how this wouldn't be much comfort to the woman who is in poverty, and may still be after birth
• Counter-point: we do want to offer hope to women in crisis pregnancies, help them to see that their future life does not have to be a shambles. Ex. Choice42's videos from women who did choose life
  • Also, Talia's comments about how many women who have abortions already have other children. Does the same crisis of identity happen for these women?
    • Yes. (It may not be a crisis of identity with “motherhood” in general, but about the loss of freedom and one's life being overtaken by a newborn baby, again, I think.) — Blaise Alleyne 2019/03/08 13:32
• Pastoral approach and educational approach: currently, we need to combine education about humanity of the pre-born with responding to the unmet needs of the pregnant mother. The goal of the educational arm is crucial, though, because we want to get to a point as a society where women in need are not even abortion-minded. (And we need to respond to their needs, but just like we would for any person in difficult circumstances, not because we're trying to also prevent killing).
  • I.e. people in poverty or other difficult circumstances will always need support from those around them, but one day we want to get to the point as a society where killing a pre-born child is just as unthinkable a response as killing a born child. When parents of a 5-year-old lose their jobs, or the father walks out, etc. there's usually not even a question of whether the 5-year-old should be killed.

A New Understanding of the Trauma of Abortion (2013), with Charles Kenney

Women carry an unwanted pregnancy to term when guilt wins out over shame, when they feel that the pregnancy will not end their own current and future selves, and that the unborn will be better off alive than dead.

more recent article: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430152/abortion-roe-v-wade-unborn-children-women-feminism-march-life

should I add the book Real Choices?

http://frederica.com/writings/abortion-womens-rights-and-wrongs.html

For the question remains, do women want abortion? Not like she wants a Porsche or an ice cream cone. Like an animal caught in a trap, trying to gnaw off its own leg, a woman who seeks abortion is trying to escape a desperate situation by an act of violence and self‑loss. Abortion is not a sign that women are free, but a sign that they are desperate.

How did such desperation become so prevalent? Two trends in modern feminism, both adopted from the values of the masculine power structure that preceded it, combine to necessitate abortion. Re‑emerging feminism was concerned chiefly with opening doors for women to professional and public life, and later embraced advocacy of sexual freedom as well. Yet participation in public life is significantly complicated by responsibility for children, while uncommitted sexual activity is the most effective way of producing unwanted pregnancies. This dilemma—simultaneous pursuit of behaviors that cause children and that are hampered by children—inevitably finds its resolution on an abortion table.

If we were to imagine a society that instead supports and respects women, we would have to begin with preventing these unplanned pregnancies. Contraceptives fail, and half of all aborting women admit they weren’t using them anyway. Thus, preventing unplanned pregnancies will involve a return to sexual responsibility. This means either avoiding sex in situations where a child cannot be welcomed, or being willing to be responsible for lives unintentionally conceived, perhaps by making an adoption plan, entering a marriage, or faithful child support payments. Using contraceptives is no substitute for this responsibility, any more than wearing a seatbelt entitles one to speed. The child is conceived through no fault of her own; it is the height of cruelty to demand the right to shred her in order to continue having sex without commitment.

Secondly, we need to make continuing a pregnancy and raising a child less of a burden. Most agree that women should play a part in the public life of our society; their talents and abilities are as valuable as men’s, and there is no reason to restrict them from the employment sphere. But during the years that her children are young, mother and child usually prefer to be together. If women are to be free to take off these years in the middle of a career, they must have, as above, faithful, responsible men who will support them. Both parents can also benefit from more flexibility in the workplace: allowing parents of school‑age children to set their hours to coincide with the school day, for example, or enabling more workers to escape the expenses of office, commute, and child care by working from home. We also must welcome women back into the work force when they want to return, accounting their years at home as valuable training in management, education and negotiation skills.

Women’s rights are not in conflict with their own children’s rights; the appearance of such a conflict is a sign that something is wrong in society. When women have the sexual respect and employment flexibility they need, they will no longer seek as a substitute the bloody injustice of abortion.