This week I arrived at school and was met with colorful sidewalk chalk claims about abortion statistics. It was a nice variance on the grotesque signs people have paraded around, but I was still glad my 4-year-old daughter wasn’t with me – she just learned to read.
When I see these signs, I am confronted with the reminder there is a huge social stigma surrounding young mothers. We are statistically proven to be less successful in our professional or academic pursuits, stereotyped as irresponsible or “slutty,” and, if we choose to terminate a pregnancy, we are reduced to a protester’s sign, criticizing a very intimate and personal situation that said protester knows very little about.
Nobody ever asks these women why they make the choices they do. Those of us who choose abortion are condemned; our only hope for redemption is to repent. Repent from what, exactly? Unwanted sex? The complexities of the female reproductive system? Lack of support and insufficient education, as sexual discourse is considered taboo and might encourage immoral behavior?
Why isn’t there a campaign against unsupportive or uninvolved partners of these women? Why isn’t the argument against a society that pushes a double-standard? Sexual activity is a natural and expected male behavior, but when women choose sexuality, we must carry with us a briefcase of conditions.
Nobody can completely understand the complexity of a woman’s choice when she decides to terminate a pregnancy.
Nobody should be handing out critiques, pamphlets or judgment calls until he or she sits down, with open ears, and hears her story. We need to stop blaming women for not keeping their legs closed, when reproduction is clearly a two-party activity.
The abortion debate is getting old. Abortion is the consequence of a larger problem. These movements target and abhor women; particularly those already marginalized who struggle to find support. Why not spend your time, energy and clear artistic genius on education, a positive message and the reconstruction of a broken system.
Support life, if you will. You will find many of us who favor choice standing by your side. We are not pinned against each other on the matter of what women want. No woman wants to face the reality of pregnancy and its termination procedure as a normalized event.
What we do want is to know our children will be born into a safe and viable world, should we choose to have them.
We want to know, when we are met with unintended pregnancies, we will have the resources to respond without
ignorant methods of social control.
The issue of abortion is much bigger than an exam table, Plan B, an ultrasound machine or a protest sign. This is about recognizing the gaps that lead women to make these choices nobody should have to make.
