Every few years (lately, at least), a new nominee comes up for a position on the Supreme Court. For a week or so, the entire country is abuzz with constitutional chatter. Old news becomes news again, simply because we are reminded of it during Senate Judiciary committee hearings like those Justice Sonia Sotomayor is undergoing (or enduring?) now. Of course the perennial Supreme Court case for massive controversy is that of Roe v. Wade. Once again, abortion talks have been the most contentious and interesting in an otherwise boring hearing, thus far, and Roe has been the focus of some of the surrounding drama even outside the committee ("Jane Roe," who has become something of an anti-choice fanatic, was arrested outside the hearings).
Anti-choicers come out of the woodwork to remind us abortion is murder, while feminists and pro-choicers prepare to defend Roe until their dying breaths. As a pro-abortion rights feminist myself, such vociferous defense of Roe is tempting to me, but as one who sees the other dimensions to "rights," that go far beyond the government act of not actively stopping you from doing something, I have to remind myself to resist this game.
It's true that Roe v. Wade was monumental in assuring some American women could have some abortions. It was a vast improvement from the conditions of the pre-Roe days. But part of Roe's failure is in the very basis for the decision, the "right to privacy," as the court at the time and since, has seen in the constitution. Legalizing abortion on the grounds of a right to privacy narrows abortion rights to a neoliberal playing field. The factors of economics, geography, and everything else neoliberalism ignores, are ignored by the Roe v. Wade decision.
The fact that abortion has been framed by pro-choicers as a private issue, plays a role in nurturing public opinion into supporting things like the Hyde Amendment, which stop public dollars from being used for abortions. It prevents people from finding the language to demand a certain number of abortion clinics in every county, rural or not. Few women are helped by a law that guarantees her right to abortion, if the nearest clinic offering abortion services is 400 miles away. If this is an issue of individual privacy, however, how can we demand that the public assist us when we need the assistance? Abortion access isn't a matter or privacy but a matter of justice.
In other words, Roe v. Wade leaves us with a landscape in which women are told, sure, you're free to get an abortion, if you can find a place to get one, leap the access hurdles we've put in place, are of an age we deem appropriate, and have the money to pay whatever subjective price anyone decides to charge you, regardless of your financial position.
Yes. Of course abortion should be legal. But legalized abortion in the privacy viewpoint of Roe alone does not mean women have reproductive freedom or a just reproductive landscape.
Does this mean we should actively campaign against Roe? Not necessarily. I mean, say you get it overturned and abortion is left to the states. You might get a few outlier states that protect abortion rights and provide some sort of guarantee for their access, but for the most part, you'd have a lot of women in states that serverely limit their access to abortion services, even more so than they are now. That doesn't sound ideal to me.
I think the key is really about the discourse we use when we defend abortion rights. Let's not defend the Roe v. Wade ruling or try to explain where the right to privacy is guaranteed in the constitution until we're all red in the face. Let's talk about why abortion must be legal, for the safety and freedom of all women. But let's talk about reproductive justice in a much wider frame. Let's talk about money. Let's talk about access. Let's talk about rights for young people and minorities. Maybe someday Roe will be replaced, not by states' rights that further limit women's rights, but by federal legislation that recognizes the actual needs women have when it comes to reproductive freedom. Changing the discourse is the first step toward that.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Why the Privacy Justification for Abortion Rights is Bad
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The Hypersexual Evangelical Movement
At Red Pepper, Don Monkerud gives a pretty general overview and analysis of the "culture war" on sex. It's an interesting step back and assessment of where we stand now and what the last decade has done to damage comprehensive sexual health (that includes freedom and pleasure in addition to resisting disease) in this country. It's helpful, even if not filled with entirely new information. I did think this observation was extremely poignant and sort of a key detail in making sense of the evangelical position on sex:
Far from being anti-sexual, today’s evangelicals push a hyper-sexualised message, complete with Christian pornography and bragging about having better sex than non-believers. Evangelical sex advice books emphasise the dangers of sex outside marriage, but revel in titillating sexual details. Even if they aren’t interested, Christian wives are told to be ‘available’ to their husbands at all times, especially for ‘quickies’, to make them feel like ‘real men’.‘Although the evangelical movement is contradictory and hypocritical, it’s important to understand that it’s pro-sex, a kind of illegitimate child of the sexual revolution,’ says Herzog. ‘The evangelicals promise physiological orgasms, called ‘soulgasms’, which combine psychological orgasms, a close emotional connection with the spouse and the blessing presence of god in the bedroom. At the same time, they’re homophobic and hostile to all sex outside marriage. They take up aspects of the old sexual revolution but twist them.’
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
I finally decided how I feel about "Her Body, My Baby."
(That's the title of a jaw-dropping, must-read article in the New York Times Magazine.)
The article is written by Alex Kuczynski, an infertile socialite/writer married to a billionaire, who hires a middle-class woman to bear her biological child. Her story, and the way she tells it, is heartbreaking and excruciatingly honest. Her inner monologue ain't pretty. It contains moments of unvarnished classism, elitism, and rich white privilege. The author is, as my mother put it, "not someone I'd like to get to know better."
But the comments page is a sociological bloodbath, and it's what I'd like to focus on.
The sexist, misogynist demands that some commenters make on Ms. Kuczynski's reproductive choices are just as bad as the author's mind-boggling privilege. Some readers are only capable of responding to her story with proscriptive statements: Jeez, she should have just adopted already! Jeez, she should have just accepted that she was meant to be childless! Can't she help us control the population problem and just adopt a kid that's already been born?
It's particularly ridiculous to demand that infertile women help us solve our "population problem" and just adopt a child who already exists. If this is ethically sound, then rich Americans must immediately stop reproducing, and adopt until every third-world baby has been placed in a home. Does any reasonable person propose this "solution" for fertile couples? No.
The claim that Kuczynski "wasted" countless thousands of dollars in her selfish pursuit of a biological child is questionable. Adoptions, whether domestic or international, are no cheaper than hiring a surrogate (around $25,000). In fact, if you want to talk about costs, how about the fact that an acquaintance of mine paid $15,000 in 2003 to give birth to her own, naturally conceived daughter in a hospital? Kuczynski's identity as the wife of a billionaire has certainly raised some hackles, but it is unfair to claim that her use of resources was somehow morally unsound. She spent $100,000 on a baby. Most of her peers have spent that much on a car. Yet her decision to use that money to become a mother outrages us. Why?
Because our culture largely teaches us that we have the right to judge, even to control, women's reproductive decisions. Because women do crazy, world-destroying things like
- have abortions, thus killing babies and making God cry
- go through expensive fertility treatments, thus wasting money they should have given to charity
- hire proletarian wombs, thus exploiting each other
- adopt a brown baby from abroad, thus becoming arrogant colonialist bastards
- remain childless, thus destroying femininity and The Family
- give birth to 12 children, thus destroying the environment, straining the welfare system, and disrupting restaurant dinners across the country.
See? Women just can't get it right.
As Jezebel put it in a different context, we need to GIVE OTHER LADIES A DAMN BREAK.
It took me a long time to decide how I felt about this piece. I can't believe I'm defending a millionaire socialite Times reporter who is personally responsible for a substantial percentage of the fluff in the Style section. I don't care. She's a self-absorbed, spoiled brat. She's also a woman who wants a child, like millions of women before her. So give her a damn break.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Daschle as Secretary of HHS
The New York Times reports that Tom Daschle will be Secretary of Health and Human Services under Obama.
My usual reaction, upon reading the words "health and human services," is to panic and wonder what document they'll produce next in order to chip away at women's reproductive rights. My reaction to learning that HHS will be run a white male, who receives very mixed ratings from NARAL Pro-Choice America on support of abortion rights, isn't much better.
This news has just broken and is being obscured by the speculation over Hilary Clinton's potential cabinet post. I'll be interested to see what the repro-rights blogosphere will have to say about Daschle. I sense that this will be a disappointment to people who were hoping to see a staunchly pro-choice figure in the HHS role.
This also means Daschle will be a key figure in reforming (hopefully ...) our useless health care system. I'm unsure of Daschle's record here - more on that later.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Things that aren't cheap:
- Popping out babies
- Avoiding popping out babies
- Maintaining the girlie parts, so you can pop out babies later
In other words, women's health insurance isn't cheap. The New York times has a maddening and informative article revealing that women pay more for health insurance than men do. But with good reason! We babymakers are so expensive:
Insurers say they have a sound reason for charging different premiums: Women ages 19 to 55 tend to cost more than men because they typically use more health care, especially in the childbearing years.
Which is mostly bullshit, since:
Crystal D. Kilpatrick, a healthy 33-year-old real estate agent in Austin, Tex., said: “I’ve delayed having a baby because my insurance policy does not cover maternity care. If I have a baby, I’ll have to pay at least $8,000 out of pocket.”
And the quote below mostly just makes me feel like a baby machine, but at least one that shouldn't be economically disadvantaged:
Mila Kofman, the insurance superintendent in Maine, said: “There’s a strong public policy reason to prohibit gender-based rates. Only women can bear children. There’s an expense to that. But having babies benefits communities and society as a whole. Women should not have to bear the entire expense."
I'd just like to summarize The Man's apparent position on babies:
1. Comprehensive sex education is bad because it encourages young people to have sex.
2. If you get pregnant, you better have the baby, because abortions are evil and all life is precious.
3. Once you are pregnant, The Market is under no obligation to offer you affordable health insurance, since as a babymaker you are a burden on the health care system.
4. Should your pregnancy go wrong, or become life-threatening, you aren't permitted to abort, since all life is precious.
5. Good luck with child care, maternity leave, breast-feeding access, and afforable health care for your newborn.
6. Welfare mothers are a drain on society. Entitlement programs breed dependence.
7. Bye
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Worst Debate Ever: Lowlights
1. Arvilla beat me to it. McCain's wrinkled old-man fingers making scare quotes around the idea of a mother's "health" was the rock-bottom moment of the debate for me, too. He shows a complete disdain for the very idea of an expectant mother's health and physical autonomy. McCain thinks this idea is ridiculous enough to mock in front of millions of Americans. Apparently McCain is unaware that there are pregnancies which, in the third trimester, unexpectedly threaten the life of the woman. McCain makes no concession for such cases, but instead mocks us all as stupid pansies, whining about health. I am serious when I say he might as well tell us all to go bleed to death. (But make sure you send doctors to save the fetus afterwards.) Video here.
2. Speaking of scare quotes, I'd put some fucking scare quotes around his concept of what "health care" is. When asked to lay out his health care plan, this is what McCain offered us:
... I am convinced we need to do a lot of things. We need to put health care records online. The VA does that. That will -- that will reduce costs. We need more community health centers. We need walk-in clinics. The rise of obesity among young Americans is one of the most alarming statistics that there is. We should have physical fitness programs and nutrition programs in schools. ... We need -- we need to have -- we need to have employers reward employees who join health clubs and practice wellness and fitness. But I want to give every American a $5,000 refundable tax credit. Take it and get anywhere in America the health care that you wish.
I can have any healthcare that I wish? Oh, thank you, Mr. McCain! Thank you! I'll have BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois. Do you have a $200 premium with a low copays and a low deductible?
No? Well, that's not what I wished for.
Unfortunately, John, health insurance isn't a matter of wishing. I really wish the annual premiums for one family weren't $12k. If really wish my friend hadn't been denied three times by private insurers because of her weight and her acid reflux. I really wish I wasn't worried that I myself will be denied because of an abnormal test result two years ago. I really wish women didn't have to secure massively more expensive insurance just to pop out those babies you love so much. I wish you weren't making that face. But alas, all my wishing is in vain. Thanks for the walk-in clinic, though.
