Esoterica: Abortion Saved My Life

karnythia:

So, there’s this lawmaker out of Kansas who has lots to say about abortion. He’s currently best known for saying that women should plan ahead in case of rape and not expect their regular insurance to cover an abortion if they want one after being assaulted. And we could spend a lot of time going…

First: Important post, please read it. As I said on Twitter, it made me cry and I am very grateful that Karnythia survived this experience.

Second: I am frustrated at some reactions that have come across my radar that seem to be waving this post around because it justifies the need for abortion access because someone (rather awesome) could have died without one, see, and there really is a need for abortion WHEN THINGS ARE SERIOUS (and, also, especially when the fetus is non-viable). I could just be super sensitive to any implication of the sort because I used to be in the “well, if it’s REALLY important and serious and if she’s sad about it” camp… once upon a time.

Anecdotes (even data) like this are NOT the final nail in the forced-birth coffin because their solution is TO LET THE MOTHER DIE. I feel it is so bad for us to go down that road, seeking for some acceptable circumstance in which abortion is okay, looking for outlier experiences, and pulling heart strings. Danger to mother/non-viable fetus is a situation that is no more or less valid a reason to get an abortion than “I can’t be pregnant right now”.

For me, this post is an example of one of the many ways in which forced birtherism produces ambient violence and hostility toward women. Forced birth politics are about women not being human and potential humans being more human than women. They are about the moral high ground of never having done a procedure that resulted in the removal of a fetus that did not become a live birth being more important than a sacred duty of care to a living, aware, developed human being.

I feel that the only answer to forced birth politics is choice. Our society needs to have in place a basic agreement that a woman’s body is her own and it is her choice to complete a pregnancy or not and that she is a valuable life that needs to be sustained and respected. Women’s right to choose is denied because, fundamentally, that agreement does not exist. Because that agreement does not exist, women like the one who wrote the original post are endangered by people whose entire framework for living is built on a stone that says that their politics are more important than her life.

So, for me, this post is not an “abortion DOES matter because ______!!” post. This is a “forced birtherism and misogyny kills women and choice—all choice—saves lives” post. This is says to me that an inherently valuable woman was almost lost because the system doesn’t have the groundwork of respect and equality that underlies choice—and until it does, to ensure it does, choice must be legislated and defended without exception, because this will happen again to women whose voices we will never hear because they will be gone.