Does Pro-Choice = Pro-Abortion – or – My Crisis of Faith

Aristotle, Socrates and Plato were all great men. Seriously, they were. They were all really smart and they had a lot of good ideas. (I think I heard somewhere that Socrates was Aristotle’s imaginary friend, but I’m not sure, and I don’t care enough to find out.) They were also the Fathers of Western Philosophy. And, for some deeply philosophical reason, I’m sure, they decided to create requirements for being a person. Apparently, having a person as a parent wasn’t enough. (Cause, you know, some lady could give birth to a turtle!) No, the requirements were thus:

1. A human must be able to reason and be self-controlling.

Okay, not a lot of requirements, but look at where this logic led them:

2. Since women can neither reason nor self-control, they are not human.

AWESOME.

Obviously, that’s not true. Obviously, women can reason with the best, and women can be just as self-controlling as any full-formed adult. And, obviously (again) Plato and Family were kind of douchey.

Since I learned that, though, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. A lot of thinking about feminism, and choices, and, specifically, the pro-choice movement. Now, just for the record, I am 100% pro-choice, and I fully believe that abortion should be legal on the federal level, forever. Also, for the record, I’ve never been pregnant and I’ve never had an abortion. Hell, I’ve never even had a pregnancy scare.

So back to Plato and Company: how should I respond to the statement that I’m not a human because I do not fit their requirements? Well, I could prove to them that I can reason and self-control just as well as any man, by going to college, being financially independent, and not sobbing hysterically in the middle of the grocery store. To be exact, I will prove them wrong by doing everything that men do, because what men do is the thing to do.

This is where abortion ties into all this. During the entire women’s movement, back when all we were trying to do was vote, because we couldn’t imagine much more, the way women have been fighting for equality is by becoming more like men. We started dressing like men, cutting our hair like men, living our lives like men…while shunning all things feminine. Don’t wear pink. Don’t like ponies. Don’t be a “wife.” Don’t have kids. Get pregnant during high school? Have an abortion. Get pregnant during college? Have an abortion. Get pregnant at any time when you are not ready and/or done with having kids? Have an abortion. (Or use birth control, of course, but if it does happen…)

What if we didn’t get an abortion? What if I was 16 years old, and I
got pregnant? What if abortion wasn’t even an option unless it was
medically necessary? And what if I lived in a society that would let me
have a baby while at the same time not erasing my entire identity and
replacing it with “Mommy”? You know, the whole “it takes a village…”
thing. What if I had a network of friends and family that would help me
and support me to have this beautiful child while at the same time
finishing high school, going to college and doing whatever I wanted with
my life? What if my socio-economic status did not decide whether my
pregnancy was a blessing or a burden?

I don’t like the pro-life movement. I don’t like it because of
websites like this, that is not
only against abortion but premarital sex (good luck with that one!) Or National Right to Life, who
never uses the word “fetus,” always “baby,” and when describing how the
RU 86 abortion pill works, uses the term “starving the baby.” (What
baby?) The terminology is problematic and a lot of the information is
just plain wrong. Many pro-life organizations are religious, opposed to
birth control and sex education in public schools. The pro-life movement
is all wrapped up in conservative and traditional Judeo-Christian
values, and don’t really allow for any value system other than the
traditional, “normal” one.

Outlawing abortion will do nothing but force women to either have
children they can’t support or perform abortions on themselves.
Outlawing abortion is a terrible idea because we still live in a culture
where sometimes, it is just not possible to have a baby. If I’m in high
school, or in college, or just young and don’t make a lot of money,
having a baby would be disastrous and possibly prohibit me from becoming
financially independent. If I’m lucky, I’ll have a supportive family.
On average, though, I’ll be blamed for not being responsible and will be
well on my way to living in and raising my child in poverty. If I’m
lucky, the dad won’t be an asshole. If I’m lucky.

I’m glad that the pro-choice movement exists. I’m glad that
abortion is protected on a federal level, regardless of the barriers
some states try to erect. But I’m not glad that the pro-choice movement has to exist.

Much of what the Western (specifically US) feminist movement has
accomplished is not changing society, but simply teaching women to adapt
to it. We don’t have a society where it’s okay to have a child without
the requisite stable “relationship” (i.e.: marriage), a stable,
preferably middle-class-like, income, and a colorful assortment of
cookie cutters and aprons. No, instead we have a society where a woman
can obtain a legal abortion until she’s “ready” to have a baby. And all
the requisites for “readiness”? They’re still all the same, right down
to the aprons. That’s not change, not really. That’s not equality. The
feminist movement didn’t change society, it just changed (some) women.

Now, I’m not knocking feminism for this, or trying to imply that
feminism isn’t doing any good. But I’m questioning whether we are
fighting for the right things. Should we fight for the right to an
abortion, or should we fight for the right to be viewed as more than
uteruses? Should we fight for the right to be politicians, or engineers,
or CEO’s, or should we fight for the right to have more than one
identity, not have to choose between career and parent? Should we fight
for the right to live and work in a “man’s world,” or should we fight
for the woman’s world to be recognized, validated and respected?

I guess you could say I’m having a crisis of faith right now. I’m
questioning how far we’ve actually come. I’m questioning whether we are
fighting for the right things. Since it’s impossible to have equality
in such a hierarchical cultural structure, shouldn’t that suggest
changing the structure? Changing capitalism? Instead of bitching about Mel
Gibson, shouldn’t we instead question the industry that elevates a
mere actor to a celebrity status rivaling our own President, making his
asshole-ness important? And maybe question the industry that allows a
man who consistently makes such misogynistic and racist statements such
elevation? Instead of debating the “curvy”
model phenomenon, why aren’t we asking ourselves why models even
exist, and why they get paid such a ridiculous amount of money for
(basically) standing around in another person’s clothes/art?

We question the symptoms, but we don’t question the problem. Why
aren’t we questioning the problem?

Cross-posted at Blueberry Shake.