By Sarah Larson
In February 2011, as the U.S. House of Representatives was considering a bill to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) took to the House floor to speak about her personal experience with abortion. Speier was 17 weeks pregnant when she experienced complications resulting in fetal unviability. The speech by Rep. Speier was unique, as most women in the U.S. are uncomfortable publicly discussing their abortion experiences. Although the publicity surrounding her statements had a major impact, they avoided the real discussion that American women should be having about their reproductive rights.
Public debate on abortion has long focused on women who have – what I am controversially calling, for lack of a better term – “good” abortions; those that occur because of undesirable circumstances such as fetal or maternal health, rape, or incest. Indeed, even the controversial Ms. Magazine article on the topic emphasized these cases.
But the highlighting of “good” abortions does not reflect the data on women’s use of the service. In 2008, more than 825,000 abortions were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a rate of 16 abortions per 1,000 women age 15 to 44. Of these abortions, few women specified that rape, incest, or the health of the fetus or mother was their reason for obtaining an abortion.
The major reasons cited for abortion related to a woman’s future – 74 percent of women in a Guttmacher Institute study reported that continuing with the pregnancy would negatively impact their education, career, or other children. 73 percent said that they could not afford a baby at the time of the pregnancy. And indeed, there are major ramifications to pregnancy – half of women who have a child between the ages of 15 and 19 receive a high school diploma before the age of 22, compared to 90 percent of women who do not have a child.
This disparity between the discourse and the reality has palpable negative consequences. The issue of a woman’s right to an abortion has become a discussion about victims of circumstance. But in reality, women have abortions because it allows them to succeed. Women are the gender responsible for the carrying, birthing, and, more often than not, rearing of children. Access to abortion has not just allowed them to terminate pregnancies that are unviable or borne of sexual assault; it has allowed them to be students, doctors, lawyers, and political leaders. A poorly timed pregnancy has powerful ramifications – NASA would never have sent a pregnant Sally Ride into space.
Women in the U.S. should be discussing all abortions, even those they chose to have for personal or financial reasons. They should be talking about what a difficult, heart-wrenching, and deeply personal decision it is to terminate a pregnancy. They should be speaking out about the nearly half of pregnancies in the U.S. that are unintended, and how five percent of women age 15 to 44 have an unintended pregnancy every year. And when American women have that dialogue, we can consider the full ramifications of a pro-choice stance – to return to the astronaut example, it literally lets us reach for the stars.
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The “good” abortion phrase seems imprecise. There are no “good” abortions, but perhaps many better ones. In order to make such a tough decision, women must feel it is better than carrying to term. Its not a subject that I feel passionately about, but I’m happy people have the option.
To show just how dispassionate I am on the subject, let’s talk economics. I know you haven’t finished Public Finance yet, but fundamentally abortion disagreements hinge on poorly defined property rights (this is the key to understanding the Coase theorem). Does the mother have the right to use her body as she sees fit, or does the fetus have the right to life? It seems ambiguous to me, so I’m glad I don’t have to make that choice (but I’ll let other decide what they need to do).
I agree that the term “good” is an odd word choice. I used the term mostly in a comparative sense – women are more likely to discuss abortions they obtained for this reason than for other reasons (like financial) that have negative public connotations.
I also agree with you that in the absence of certainty, I err on the side of letting individual women make that choice. I think for a lot of people this applies in a medical as well as economic context – with the lack of consensus on the definition of life or personhood, they err on the side of letting individuals choose.