An abortion perspective

Let me state, from the outstart, that people are entitled to their beliefs, their wishes, and their emotional responses to what are serious issues. I do have a slight problem with some religious interpretations on scripture which are imposed on others. While I accept that all religions are based on faith and the interpretation of faith in scriptures (in one form or another), and that followers of those faiths are entitled, perhaps directed, to actually think and evaluate scriptures’ meanings as humanity evolves, I do feel sometimes the zealot’s approach to absolutism of such interpretation leads to wrong thinking.

The abortion issue is a serious one, never least for the unfortunate woman finding herself in such a dilemma. Leaving aside the science, medical fact, of what pregnancy is as opposed to the extension of a candlelight dinner, there are times when conception is unwarranted, undesired, and even forced – accidental or not. At that moment, the decision and responsibility of being pregnant is the woman’s and the woman’s alone.

Gisèle Halimi’s plea in defense of Marie-Claire Chevalier, 16, who had an illegal abortion, 1972: “Women appear before men... And to talk about what? Probes, uteruses, bellies, pregnancies and abortions! Would you not agree that this is already where the fundamental and intolerable injustice lies? That these women have to appear before men?”

If the woman wishes to discuss her pregnancy with her family, her religious guide, her doctor, or even her partner, the fact is any opinion on her pregnancy remains hers – physically and physiologically. Reality check: only the woman is pregnant. Men who go around saying, “We’re pregnant,” really should reevaluate their self-importance and ego. Similarly, men should have nothing whatsoever to say about a woman’s body, her right to choose, nor her motherhood. The abortion issue comes down to fundamental tenets: Women are born capable of pregnancy, women are raised to believe they should become mothers, and so women are, in fact, indentured to become mothers.

At that abortion trial in France, Simone de Beauvoir testified: “The law is set up to oppress women…. They must be conditioned. Maternity is exalted because… instead of telling a little two-, three-, or four-year-old girl, “You will be destined to wash dishes,” she is told, “You will be destined to be a mommy.” She is given dolls, and maternity is exalted so that when she becomes a young woman, she thinks of only one thing: to get married and have children. She has been convinced that she will not be a complete woman if she does not have children…. Therefore, women must be enslaved to maternity. If they at least had the freedom to be mothers when they wanted to, how they wanted to, planning the births of children, it would leave them a lot of freedom on all levels… such a feeling of guilt has been put into the hearts of women that abortion becomes something traumatizing for them, as would not be the case at all if it took place under legal conditions. It is not at all a question of a procedure that automatically traumatizes women. It is a procedure that is traumatizing only insofar as [women] have been conditioned to make maternity into a veritable calling…. I am actively fighting for their freedom: freedom to choose motherhood, contraception, or abortion. The fanatics are those mothers who refuse to accept that someone might follow a path other than their own.”

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.