Rochelle Robinson

3 shockers I learned from Rebecca todd peters

Last month, while perusing my local brick-and-mortar bookstore, a hot pink hardcover drew me to the New Release section. More specifically, a title latched onto my eyeballs while its subtitle squeezed at my heart. At the time I didn’t know that Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice, written by minister, professor, and ethicist Rebecca Todd Peters, was already stirring the proverbial pot; when I found out — two minutes after picking it up and searching Goodreads — I wasn’t terribly surprised.

As someone who has often heard and used the phrase, “I support a woman’s right to choose, but I cannot imagine having an abortion”, I immediately knew this book would challenge me, as well as countless others, in a much-needed way. What I didn’t know, however, was how little I knew* about American women’s reproductive history.

shocker #1. Abortion was first MORALLY criminalized by a group of ENTITLED male physicians

News flash to me! Based on my erstwhile indoctrination into the Pentecostal way, I assumed the church played a central role in regulating abortion. In actuality, the “first wave of abortion legislature” was enacted at the state level between 1821 and 1841, regulating poisonous medications and criminalizing abortion after quickening — the common-law determinate for pregnancy. During this period women were still considered the authority on child-bearing and were exercising fertility control, aided by local doctors.

Prior to 1847, and year the American Medical Association was founded, anyone could claim the title of doctor and set about offering treatments. Healers with little or “inferior” medical training sometimes averted paying patients — often women — from elite physicians bred by European Universities. Without the application of modern medical advancement — e.g., bacteriology — medical treatment outcomes of healers versus doctors were difficult to compare. Nevertheless, college-trained physicians wanted recognition as legitimate doctors. Abortion became a moral authority professional physicians, like Horatio Storer, championed based on a — then — unpopular determination that life begins at conception. Over time, social rhetoric began to adopt the idea that reproductive choices should no longer be controlled by “ignorant, irrational” women but instead be redirected to AMA certified physicians.

shocker #2. abortion rhetoric is mostly bullshit

Women have been responsibly managing their reproductive health for at least 4,000 years. Yeah, abortion isn’t new. Yet, the modern discussion surrounding abortion often tilts toward theory wars, shame, blame, and ostracization. Real women’s stories are rarely heard — to hear them a woman would have to open herself up to all levels of anger, hate, judgement, ridicule, etc — leaving human authenticity replaced by a wall of generalized misinformation.

What we aren’t told:

• In 1967:
  • The majority of women who had abortions were married with children.
  • 94% of abortions resulting in maternal death were women of color.
  • 93% of legal abortions performed in NYC hospitals were white women who could afford a private room.
• Between 1968 and 1982 approximately 42% of native women and 15% of white women were sterilized.
• In 2010 more than 19M US women who needed publicly funded contraceptive services were uninsured.
• Hundreds of thousands of fertilized eggs and embryos, harvested for infertility treatments, will be destroyed or kept frozen indefinitely.
• Over 10 years of typical contraceptive use the likelihood of becoming pregnant increases to as high as 72%.
• Women have abortions for numerous reasons, abortion-as-birth control is rare, and the majority of women who have had an abortion report that they made the correct moral choice for themselves and their preexisting family.

shocker #3. I am not alone in my belief that confronting systemic social problems is the answer to fewer abortions

After most forms of abortion were criminalized in America the procedure was forced underground. During the Depression a truce was struck between abortion providers and law enforcement and so women of all backgrounds continued to seek abortion services performed by physicians. Post-World War II the truce disappeared, law enforcement got involved, and abortion rates dropped from 30,000 to 8,000 by 1964. Consequently, while white, affluent women maintained access and resources to seek safe abortions, working-class women did not. NYC hospitals alone saw 10,000 women, unable to acquire safe abortion services, admitted for complications from illegal abortions in 1967.

I have heard many moral arguments against Roe v. Wade and I know many pro-choicers who agree with plenty of the points made. However, as Peters makes explicitly clear, the problem we are up against isn’t women’s access to abortion, it’s our inability as a society to care for those already born. Everyone has their own opinion about when life begins, but no one can argue that a woman standing in front of you — married or unmarried, poor or rich, healthy or abused, 18 or 40 — is anything less than completely alive. Let’s support her, offer aid to her existing children, manage lawmaking so her spouse isn’t unfairly jailed, provide basic access to healthcare, education, vocational training, and a devoted social network. Let’s stop blaming women for a system they didn’t build.

The 1965 Moynihan Report is a titular example of how blame can be publicly shifted from those responsible onto those caught in a malfunctioning system. Are black single mothers responsible for high rates of poverty in black communities? After a considerable amount of hindsight, it would seem that at least 50% of Americans agree that no, black people are not at fault for the failures of our nation. The same can be said for current healthcare, hunger, and homelessness rates. Our broken system is driving a lemon vehicle toward the same cliff that ran it off the road last time. I dearly hope that today, or tomorrow, or one day in the not too distant future we can begin to assign the blame where it is due and focus on fixing the core issue instead of obsessing over the symptoms.

…the issue of unplanned pregnancies is a public problem rooted in poverty and inequality.” p.40

*I do not claim to be any type of expert on this topic. For far more comprehensive information, read Trust Women and explore its extensive bibliography.