| As
a woman and a mother, I keep bumping up against the “culture
war” playing out around abortion rights. Let’s
take the language surrounding it for instance; even the phrase “abortion
rights” – coupling the word abortion with the
word rights just causes a whirlwind of dissonance in my brain.
On a typical day during the past election, I’d be called by
any number of candidates or polls. One day I was called and asked
to push either “1” for “yes” or “2”
for “no” if I supported the “right to life.”
At that point I screamed into the phone: your language sucks! When at last a real person phoned me with the same type of question,
I respectfully said: “your question poses a false dichotomy.
I am right to life. I adore life and cultivate it in all
respects – but I absolutely support a woman’s right to
control her reproductive life and her own body.” (How I love
to throw a cog into the wheels of cultural warfare, the drive to divide
us rather than unite us.) At the start of the school year, I was waiting to meet a friend
before an evening meeting at my son’s school (we were making
a babysitting exchange, sticking together while our husbands were
traveling for work). The first thing I noticed when I pulled into
the parking lot was the bumper sticker on a Ford Lincoln SUV that
read “Another Woman Against Abortion.” I then watched
as the car’s owner corralled her three kids— it took
her over ten minutes of patient effort to get everyone buckled into
the cavernous vehicle, which had nearly as much interior space as
a studio-sized apartment in some parts of the world.
I was struck hard by what played out in front of me. It stands
to reason that the other mother I observed through the windshield
of my more modest SUV believed in her bumper sticker— why
else would she plant it there? What, I found myself wondering, gave
her the authority to take for granted the capacity of another woman
to nurture a child? Clearly, what she was doing in rounding everyone
up was a skillful act, an effort guided by patience and concern—
and providence. There she was, with ready transportation, a home,
I assumed, and food soon to be on the table. Her mothering was much
less constrained by her circumstances than might be the case for
mothers with fewer resources at their disposal. Why would a woman,
any woman, set herself against another? Why not just declare: “I
think that women were meant to suffer and sacrifice for the well
being of others. Women have to bring forth life; that’s
what they were designed— by God, of course— to do.”
Another pithy phrase might read something like “Another Mother
Against Legal, Safe Abortion,” or the obverse— “One
Woman For Criminalizing Abortion And Risking The Lives Of Mothers
Through Back-Alley Or Self-Inflicted Abortions.” I once saw
a book with photos of abortion-gone-wrong crime scenes. Not a pretty
sight; these do-it-yourself jobs with coat hangers or vacuum cleaners
are not reasonable alternatives to legal, safe abortion. How can
you erase the desperation that drives such a thing?
I sat there and thought:
well, when you see a suffering mother, there is usually a suffering
child not too far behind. One may not be “for abortion,”
but what about the other things initiated in the wake of childbirth?
Is one “for” that, too? As mothers, we need to look
not just at the reality and potential of “life, for the fetus”
or when we believe “life” begins, we also need to examine
the concept of motherhood our culture hands us, and the ultimate
consequences for mothers of being the conveyor belt of “life”
on this planet. Why not have a bumper sticker that says “Another
Mother Against a Life of Inequity?”
I’ve
wrestled with the language of the abortion debate all
my female life. I grew up as birth control became available, and as
abortion became legal. This changing landscape required that I think
about my stand on the issue starting from the time I reached puberty.
I used to imagine, in covert dialogues with myself, what I would do
if I were to get “knocked up,” and would I go on the pill
for a guy— all of that. I secretly read my older sister’s
pulp novels about “girls in trouble” to inform my views.
Thinking about these fictional dilemmas no doubt helped me avoid the
real life ones. Stealing into my sister’s room to read her voluminous Our Bodies, Our Selves did as well. I understood how it all
worked, what sex might mean, how it might feel, and how to act responsibly
many years before I needed and used that knowledge— all because
the cultural debate was hot. Ralph Reed was on TV talking about abortion
as birth control, the Catholic Church was echoing its eternal opposition
to contraception. My mother explained why some Catholic families were
large ones, how other religions viewed conception, birth, and the
life of the mother. Never, ever have a baby at a Catholic hospital,
she warned me. If they had to choose between your life and the baby’s,
they would choose the baby’s life. The new baby was more vital
to the world than the ailing mother; a motherless child was hope and
a failing woman was damned, anyway.
Issues of sex and a woman’s right to control her body were
all around me growing up, sometimes in painful relief – tragedy
set against a completely serene suburban sky. My sister was raped
during her first year away at college. Big news, but it was kept
quiet. Subsequent history led me to know that my sister never forgot
her attack, and thereafter entered a world of confused promiscuity—
one fueled, in part, by sexual abuse during childhood. And although
I don’t know when or the exact circumstances, I do know that
she had at least two abortions. Though she loved children and probably
agonized over what she had to do, she knew she would be violated
by a pregnancy she didn’t want. In this context, I learned
that consenting to childbirth, to becoming a mother, was much like
consenting to sex — it had to be something a body affirmed.
My sister knew she had to care for herself, her aching self, become
well and have a life of her own before she could mother any child.
Then there was my best friend. She was younger than I was, but
she was speeding ahead of me in so many ways. She was smart, and
quick, easily mastering any subject matter in school and out in
the adult world. She met an older guy, like way older— like
today he would be considered a child molester older. I never liked
him. They dated for a long time and then one day I figured out that
they’d done it. Maybe it was that day at the park up on the
jungle gym— where we talked about the wonders of our bodies,
how guys made us feel, what guys liked, what was right for us—
and blow jobs.
I loved my friend. Our devotion to one another strained at the
introduction of boyfriends, but we tried to stay close. One day,
in the restroom she told me she’d had an abortion. She was
fourteen. I was furious with her boyfriend and said so to her face,
but I told her how happy I was that she’d had it. Her life
was worth more to me than an imaginary baby’s.
I never asked myself then if she knew what she was stopping…
was it a Life with a capital “L” or just a little bit
of life, dependant solely on the unformed life of the mother? Roe
v. Wade told us that life begins not at conception, but at the age
a fetus can live independently. Years later, I noted well when my
own perinatalogist, called my baby a child from the beginning
of my routine sonograms. That is what my children were to me then,
growing into life-beings, soon to be babies, soon to be children.
Always a child— a word that when my daughter was
growing in my womb gave her a heaviness that came to rest on the
total unimaginability of her loss. At some risk to lose the pregnancy,
I wasn’t ready to lose her, and Thank God I didn’t.
But that was when I was as far away from 14 as I had ever been.
I could not have felt that way, had not the capacity or the ability
to feel that way at 14. You could ask why the urge toward sex comes
so long before the capacity to truly nurture and provide. You could
make another bumper sticker, “Another Mother Against The Adolescent
Sex Drive,” “Another Mother Who Waited.”
Knowing about Roe, and
about options for birth control, allowed me to think critically
about myself and my life; it afforded me control. I was not a pushover
for any wink and a promise, any itch that I had to scratch. My time
was my own and I was in control. I made choices about who, where,
when and what I would use to protect myself when the time came.
I felt empowered by society to care for myself. The right to
an abortion never meant that I would rush to terminate an unwanted
pregnancy. It just meant that I could, that I could consent to what
would grow inside me based on my beliefs, values, the status of
my own capacity to mother— no one else could make that call.
Abstinence
is an interesting topic, too: virgins unto the day. Somewhere along the way it became very
important to me to know myself, my body, my future. Having the ability
to express my sexuality at a certain point became something essential
to me, the way water is essential for our survival— it was the
currency of an adult. The idea of waiting to confine this desire to
marriage began to feel inconsistent with honoring who I was becoming.
This is not to say that I didn’t value sex or feel it to be
a sacred thing, but I realized that the sacrament for me had to stem
from consent, from knowing myself, from knowing my lover, that I was
not a vessel waiting to be filled and laid claim to by the male body
or an institution. I could choose if, how and when. “It”
was part of my being – and, man, back then I was sexy. In retrospect,
marriage itself seems to cause a lot of sexual relationships to fail.
Ideally, a sexual relationship is something one should feel free to
enter into; marriage somehow cuts off the idea that the self consents
to merge with the injunction that it must. Choice seems much more
sacred and honorable than obligation. I can think of another bumper
sticker, “Another Mother For Ownership,” of one’s
life, one’s choices, one’s being.
So again, one can ponder the idea of choice. As women, we have
the ability to freely enter into what we value, what we create.
As I got older and my hypothetical thinking extended into early
adulthood, I realized that once I had some form of economic viability
of my own, I could never have an abortion. At some point, we become
responsible— we begin to feel the weight of what could be
as deeply as what should not be. Yet, our lives can change, either
for good fortune or ill. Mothers are vulnerable economically and
remain so while they raise children and thereafter.
Biological fathers are able to turn away without a backward glance—
perhaps their blind member chooses for them. Maybe it’s obvious,
but they don’t have to consent to the flesh within. Nothing
stays within them to grow, so they have an option to walk away.
I would argue that to be on a level playing field, women need this
same choice— women need to be able to separate the womb, isolating
their reproductive function from their economically, emotionally,
and humanly capable selves, just as men now have the right to do.
Equality demands nothing less. The alternative would of course be
a social system and culture that demanded equal time and contribution
from fathers in all aspects of child rearing, from conception to
adulthood— or a system where women are simply constrained,
confined by their biology to destinies not of their own making.
I can see the flip side: that life is so sacred, that even a small
cluster of cells has human potential— a process not driven
by the mother, but by divine providence. I can see it. The Roman
Catholic Bishop of Washington, D.C. was on the radio today saying
that the “right to life” is the most important issue
because you cannot have human rights unless you first have the chance
to be alive. The Church opposes birth control, still, he said. In
other words, the gates of life must always be open— damn the
life of the mother.
Hey, I wanted to yell at the top of my lungs: have
you ever not slept for two days? Giving your life to god is
not the same as giving your life to a child (I’d like to think
a deity would be much more developed physically and emotionally).
Who are you to tell me that I have to serve the creator and Life
no matter what? Poverty, injustice, the ill health of women enduring
multiple childbirths without cease, none of that matters in the
Bishop’s view— none of it. But it matters to women.
Owning their bodies, owning their time here on earth, matters as
much to women as to men. This type of individual freedom, or ownership,
demands that women are able to control their reproductive lives.
Meanwhile, President Bush wants to create an ownership society
for everyone except women.
As
mothers in the United States, we should take note of other societies.
We might be looking backward, or forward, to our own. In Ethiopia,
a woman just gained the right to have an abortion under certain circumstances,
in a land where she is considered little more than the dust. We can
also look back about 2,000 years to Biblical times.
The Gospel of Luke begins with two women, Elizabeth and Mary. Each
miraculously conceives: Elizabeth, John and Mary, Jesus. A most
profound image from the Christian scriptures is when Luke describes
how Mary stored up the images of Jesus in her heart, how she loves
to watch her child grow, how despite the travail, she owns her motherhood
and her love. You also read in Luke’s Gospel how Mary questioned
her visitor and she agreed to carry the child. She assented.
My point is not the religious aspect here, but the fact that Mary
questions the angel, and eventually grants permission. No spirit
falls upon her with force or intimidation. No one compels her to
carry a child and establish a relationship against her will. She
consents both inwardly and outwardly.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph is told that Mary is carrying
a child, and that it is to become a Holy child. He is remonstrated
not to believe Mary taboo. The Scripture goes on to describe how
the social supports Mary needed were provided for— she wasn’t
on her own, a single mother gifted with a miraculous child. Instead
of being stoned or ostracized, she found safety. Concern is expressed
over the life the mother Mary will lead within her community because
it matters how well a mother does in the world— if she is
protected, supported, sustained. The outcome matters for her as
much as for the child.
Could it be that abortion is a necessary right in a world where
women are not in charge, not in control? We still live in a world
where mothers are raped, coerced, vilified, abused, left high and
dry and economically marginalized by motherhood. I can think of
another bumper sticker “Another Mother For Control,”
or “Mothers Should Rule The World.” The timing of childbirth
is so incredibly critical to women. It can mean the difference between
being able to succeed in life— to survive economically and
emotionally— and poverty. Timing and control are intertwined—
abortion is the ultimate control lever, the ultimate time keeper
or life preserver for the mother. You can argue that this kind of
intervention is holy and should be left to a higher being. Weight
the scale— suffering versus control. Shouldn’t women
have a weapon as powerful as walking out the door?
When considering the mother’s movement, an effort which seeks
to unite mothers, you have to consider the ability of mothers to
exercise choice and freedom over their reproductive destinies. Mothers
have to be respected for their decisions whether to have children,
or not to have children. You could argue that the movement only
comes to the fore once you have a child, then you are a mother,
right? Yet, mothers have to respect the journey of every mother
into her motherhood: this journey may include terminated pregnancies,
miscarriages, adoptions, or out of wedlock births. You cannot advertise
your moral judgments of other mothers on your bumper and hope to
help other mothers.
You cannot have a movement to secure economic and social equality
for mothers if mothers cannot choose when and with whom to have
children. That is a basic human right, to control one’s own
person. The question of life does matter, but it applies equally
to the lives of all, to the mother as well as to the child. A place,
the way, must be prepared for children. And mothers create that
place, that way. If a woman cannot see any viable way to carry a
child to term, to undergo pregnancy, to develop and to nurture a
child, then her life and wisdom simply takes precedence. It does—
because the control she maintains of her own personal integrity
makes equality of opportunity, equal justice and economic justice
possible — for herself, and, by extension, for her future
children. Simply put, reproductive freedom facilitates a mothers’
capacity to provide.
We are living in a world that is just beginning to support women,
to recognize the intellectual, professional and authoritative equality
of women. Whether or not we slide backward depends on the ability
we give women to grant permission, and to exercise discernment
and care over their own lives. Life is not just something that begins
in the womb: every mother knows that life is something you provide
each and every day, materially, emotionally, and spiritually. You
never stop birthing your child, and that child impacts your life—
motherhood limits your ability to get sleep, food, shelter, work.
As a mother, you are tied to your child and your child is tied to
you. A new baby limits your ability to care for your other children—
you only have two arms.
Once you have one child,
you question if another child can be sustained within the family:
will there be “enough” resources, enough money and parental
attention and energy. Life is a resource that we all share and spend—
and allocate according to our own formula or recipe. The recipe
for a good life, a life where there is enough, is different for
everyone. Children thrive where they are cared for, and where there
is enough of everything to go around. Getting by, struggling, these
can be an empowering saga in the human story of survival. There
is nothing wrong with bringing a child into adversity. But who determines
which life has eminence? Who measures the winds of fortune and decides
how best to cope? The one closest and best suited to decide between
competing demands— the mother. As women, we should be able
to realize that there will be different choices for different mothers.
I think of another bumper sticker, of course: “Another Mother
For All Mothers.” Mothers need to support one another for
the choices they make as women and mothers, even about when life
should grow into a child.
Tonight
I walk into the kitchen to clear and clean some dishes. My eye is caught and held by a picture
of myself and my two children. We’re in the little sanctuary
at my daughter’s preschool. In the picture, I’m holding
two unique individuals, small beings who are absolutely themselves.
I squint and try to discern who these babes really look like: over
the recent holidays, I watched old films of my husband— my
son doesn’t have his brown saucer like eyes from the same
age or the same straight hair, a legacy of American Indian genes.
My father in law is large, square, blonde, and blue eyed. My little
girl reflects some of him, blonde, with greenish eyes like mine
and her brother’s. In as much as my children do not have a
look that belongs to me, or even to us as a couple, they are their
own persons, entirely their own. I did not create them from myself
only. I feel deeply that they are links in a chain that stretches
further back and further away than I can see. I glance again at
their image and know they carry the past and the future within them.
They came through me, but are not entirely of me. I consented. I
let them pass. I gave them life.
So there must be some accord, some understanding— that as
mothers, we convey something that is not ours, that doesn’t
belong neatly to us, yet we bear responsibility to and for it. That
we consent at any time feels surprisingly like a miracle. What comes
through us absolutely needs care, and that care is absolutely valuable
and should be seen not as just some dreamy commitment but as an
agreement to do— well, a job, a contract of sorts.
Bearing children requires an affirmative “yes,” from
us— even more so because this being is not of us, is not entirely
ours. We have to consent to it or else be offended by it. Right
of way, of passage, of transit, must be granted for the relationship
between mother and child to be what it needs and should be: nurturing,
willing, healthy. Otherwise one life trespasses upon the other.
The relationship suffers. Everything on earth, to flourish, needs
a land that it can cling to for its life. Life itself wants to be
wanted, cared about— noticed. We need to be able to say that
what comes through mothers, though not entirely ours, is ultimately
of us, ours to have and to hold, to protect. To do this, we
need to be able to pave the way, both as a culture and a society,
for mothers.
This, I think, is the fertile common ground mothers on all sides
of the debate about abortion can embrace: a world that prepares
the way for mothers— that recognizes that what comes through
us requires work that is real, work that needs to be supported by
society. A world of respect for mothers, of equal pay, of good jobs,
of sufficient child care and economic security makes way for mother and child. Such a world would reduce the urge to see a
fetus as “other,” impossible to nurture. I think I could
be “for” this kind of world, one that elevates the possibility
of life into a real, sustainable life by vowing to care for the
true economic, social and emotional circumstances of the mother.
Envision this on your bumper– “Make Way For Mothers.”
Freeing mothers to live free lives, lives that have the underpinnings
of equality, I believe, would greatly reduce the need for abortion.
Women who are empowered to live full lives, who have access to their
own bodies, their own wealth, to social networks and economic well
being are far less likely to terminate a pregnancy. That is the
challenge— the mother I saw with the bumper sticker views
abortion as an either/or choice: you are either for life or against
it. Wouldn’t “I Support Mothers” be a better place
to begin?
Life is so much more
than a fertilized ovum, an embryo, a fetus, a baby; raising children
is so much more. Giving life is what happens as you raise the child,
as it gains breath and shapes itself to an environment largely dependent
upon the mother. I would argue in line with the Catholics. Without
the basic right to life, without the basic right of every woman
to construct a whole life of her own, there can be no end to the
war we have with each other. The other rights accorded to us as
human beings don’t matter and are blind theology. Without
a way prepared for the child in the life of the mother there is
no way to advance the goals conservative thinkers seek. You cannot
focus on the sex, or the termination itself. The ideology of sin
has overshadowed the mother. She is authentic in all the particulars
of her existence. She can exercise judgment over her life. She is
a full person with the basic right to control her body and her life
in a manner that is equal to men. The emotional appeals in bumper
stickers sing loudly, signals of a culture at war with itself. Justice
sets the world right for mother and child. It could rush down like
a stream to remove the things that divide us, one mother from another.
mmo : february 2005 |