Abortion and the pill: The reason women have made any ground at all

[Der Blaue Engel]

toward equality.

That's what it comes down to. Reproductive freedom is the greatest contributing factor in our current level of participation in society.

I was watching "The Prize-Winner of Defiance, Ohio," yesterday, in which a mother of 10 (TEN!) had to find ingenious ways to feed and clothe her children because her husband, while not a bad man, simply was not up to the challenge. He was just one more dependent. Just a few short decades ago, this was reality for many women.

Evelyn Ryan is an example of the extraordinary odds against a woman when she is not free to make her own reproductive choices. Few women can do what Evelyn did just to survive. Can you imagine what else she might have done in a world where she had the choice of whether and when to have a child? This is what the anti-women voices of America would have for all of us: women who are slaves to biology and the whims of others.

I'm having difficulty being coherent about this, because it affected me so much to see the reality right there and to suddenly make that connection so starkly, even though I had known it on a gut level before:

Abortion and the pill have saved our lives. To those who would compromise our right to either of them, I will fight you to the death if that's what it takes. I am throwing down the gauntlet. NO QUARTER ASKED AND NONE GIVEN.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. Also, C-sections and surgery for ectopic pregnancies.

I've had a C-section, and there is NO QUESTION I would have died back in the bad old days, because I am a small person with a narrow wheelbase.

[Der Blaue Engel]

2. Certainly reproductive medicine has played a role

But think of all the C-sections that never had to happen because a woman had access to preventive measures?

Childbirth is never without risk, and no one should be able to induce anyone into undergoing it against her will.

[athena]

11. I sometimes think

that all we need to do to ensure the legality of abortion is to have the legislature pass a law saying that no one can be forced to undergo a medical procedure against their will. For example, the state should not be allowed to force a person to donate a kidney to save the life of another person. Child birth, like organ donation, is a medical procedure with serious risks. No one can guarantee that a given pregnancy will not kill the woman or require a caesarean at the last minute; a caesarean itself carries a risk of death, since it requires general anasthesia. A law like this would shift the focus from the foetus to the woman being forced to give birth, which is where it should be.

I can't believe there are people on this earth who think that there is nothing wrong with forcing a person to carry a foetus for nine months and then undergo an excruciatingly painful and risky procedure to deliver that foetus, all against her will. Anyone who thinks that clearly does not see women as human beings with the right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness.

[Der Blaue Engel]

13. It seems so obvious, doesn't it?

My body: I make the decisions.

[EFerrari]

18. My last pregnancy went tubular and I would have been toast, too. n/t

[uppityperson]

3. I grew up when women could barely get OCs if not married.

Thank you college health department, so serving so many of us in such good ways.

Of course, then I had to deal with the jerks that expected me to f* them and would say "what's the matter, you not liberated? You not on the pill?" tell them go away, you are an asshole and this is why.

[Der Blaue Engel]

4. And we're headed there again with the "faith-based" pharmacist

cop-out.

I am absolutely appalled that anyone even debates the legality of such a thing. :(

[uppityperson]

19. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. People don't understand how it was.

They just can't comprehend. I am old.

[femrap]

23. I just recently was reminded that

back in the old days, a pharmacist wanted to see a marriage license before dispensing BC pills!!!

Plus...how many women were fired when it was discovered they were pregnant.

No...we're NOT going back!

[uppityperson]

24. My mother had to quit nursing school when she got pregnant.

1951

[femrap]

29. I remember my mom telling me

that she would have to quit her job at State Farm if she got pregnant....mid '60's.

[Der Blaue Engel]

5. Kicking because I thought this was important even if I wasn't very eloquent

:shrug:

[smokey nj]

6. Another kick. It IS extremely important.....

and you were quite eloquent.

[Der Blaue Engel]

8. Thanks

:)

[EFerrari]

20. You did exactly right. Thank you.

:kick:

[Lisa]

7. and think of those women in Africa who are being infected with HIV by their husbands

The Bush administration doesn't want to fund reproductive health programs unless they make abstinence the cornerstone ... though even in America, there are women who try to say "no" but their husbands force them to have sex anyway.

So women are betrayed, and the disease continues to spread. And not only are women more susceptible than men, they have fewer options -- and they usually end up looking after ailing husbands and children, and (as grandmothers) their orphaned grandkids.

[Der Blaue Engel]

10. Reproductive choice liberates women

Imagine if the whole world had it?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only reason fundies and RW conservatives want abstinence-only programs is because they want to be punitive. They are in no way concerned about unborn children. Anyone who is under the mistaken assumption that these issues are simply questions of faith is sorely misguided.

[Crowdance]

9. K and R because you're spot on. n/t

[Withywindle]

12. Glad to give you your 5th rec.

This post is spot-on.

[Der Blaue Engel]

14. Thanks, Withywindle!

I'm about to be off the computer for a couple of hours, so I won't be able to respond for a bit.

[ThomCat]

15. Reproductive heathcare, birthcontrol and abortion

have advanced our entire society. Planned families have been a major influence on all aspects of society.

It's amazing that some people are so buried in their theocratic dogma that they can't see the good this has done.

[Madspirit]

16. Great Post!...k&r...n/t

[Triana]

17. Bingo! Thank You - and K & R!! (n/t)

[uppityperson]

21. If you can be tied down with the child stuff, slave to reproduction, your choices are limited.

Having had the choice to plan (more or less but still some) your childbearing, a whole world of stuff was opened up to women. Losing that would be catastrophic.

[FloridaJudy]

22. It infuriates me

When certain religious groups take a stance against birth control because it is "unnatural". So what? Penicillin, polio vaccine, refrigeration and indoor plumbing are "unnatural", but I see very few men volunteering to go live in caves and wear animal skins. I would pay to see the Pope try it!

And for a pharmacist of all people to protest that oral contraceptives and post-coital contraception violate nature is truly laughable. 99% of what they sell is "unnatural". Maybe we can convince them to go back to selling willow bark, foxglove leaves and valerian root. I also wonder how many of these self-righteous pharmacists ask for a note from a man's wife and pastor before dispensing Viagra.

I'm old enough to remember when doctors and clinics wouldn't prescribe birth control unless a woman brought a note from her pastor. I even remember an underground movement of liberal clergy who would write such letters for non-parishioners in violation of the law. In some states birth control was illegal period. I have no desire to go back there.

[Morgana LaFey]

25. So true. When women don't have control over their own biology,

then society can -- and will -- exercise social control over its women, and especially patriarchal societies will do that.

I had wanted to write about what it was like in the "bad old days," but I can't. FOr one thing, happily "The Pill" became widely available within 3 - 4 years of me becoming sexually active, so the only experience I had personally, and it was BAD, was the worry over whether I was or would be pregnant.

That ruined lives back then in the pre-Women's Lib Movement, pre-Pill era, in more ways than one. Young women in h.s. during "my era" who got pregnant -- and there were 29 of them during the summer between my junior and senior years (in a class of about 1600) -- had to drop out of school, get married (or worse: not), and were almost never heard from again, except perhaps to their closest friends (if they stayed friends). Abortion wasn't even heard of, let alone talked about or done. Most of these young women, the ones I knew anything about, were bright, talented, college bound and had real futures ahead of them. God knows what their lives ended up being. The few I knew about whose families had money, did okay -- they eventually went to college too, some of them after putthing hubby through. These events were tragic, there's no two ways about it. And the STIGMA. OMG, the stigma.

For women a bit older than I and certainly my mother's generation and those before her, biology was MOST DEFINITELY destiny. You were constantly at the mercy of your fertility. Of course, there were folk remedies for avoiding pregnancy, and horrific and dangerous folk remedies for ridding oneself of an unwanted pregnancy, but not everyone used them and they didn't always work (or worked tragically). As a result, too many women had more children than they wanted, as a matter of course, and that alone is pretty tragic. Many a woman had doctors who told them to "Tell Joe you just can't have any more children, or you might not be around to raise them all." Well, maybe that worked for her, and maybe it didn't. If Joe wanted to make an issue of it, it was still okay to rape his wife, and it was plenty okay to beat her. OR, maybe it was just too hard to either or both of them to say "no."

And for those of you who've never done it, it takes a lot of work, love, patience and ENERGY to chase after children. It takes a lot of money to clothe and feed them. There is a limit to all of those, except love (altho that too can get frayed when one's personal physical and emotional reserves are running on empty).

NO ONE wins when women can't have the most basic control of their own bodies, their own bodily processes. No one. Societies prosper when women have access to education (and concomitant economic opportunities). Inability to control our fertility robs us of those basic life-enhancing factors and much more, including our basic humanity.

[Der Blaue Engel]

26. Chasing after children

Watching Julianne Moore in Prizewinner manage that household was totally dumbfounding. I have one child, and some days it was all I could do to keep up with the diapering and make sure he had something to eat...everything else went to hell. He's almost 16, and it's still all to hell, really (that may be more due to my depression or possible chronic fatigue, but still, it's physically and emotionally draining being responsible for another human being).

[Morgana LaFey]

31. I know! I had just one myself --

and it was EXHAUSTING.

Fortunately, he's now 35. But he can STILL be exhausting. :D

but still, it's physically and emotionally draining being responsible for another human being

Very well said. Good luck with your CFS/depression.

[Karenina]

27. Great post!!!

:applause:

[Jim Warren]

28. kick

Kicking to keep this on the page but I need more time to think about it to reply.
In some ways I think this to be one of the most important post I've seen on DU for quite some time.

[Cabcere]

30. Excellent post. A big K&R for you, Der Blaue Engel.

:thumbsup: You've expressed a very valid point much better than I could have, even though I too feel strongly about it. Thank you for saying what needed to be said. :yourock:

On edit: Apparently the window for thread recommendation is over, but I did try - this thread certainly deserves many recommendations!