In Arcana's article "Abortion is a Motherhood Issue," she asserts that society's separated view of abortion and motherhood - that either a woman has one or is one, but cannot be both - is wrong because a woman forever becomes a mother as soon as a baby is conceived in her womb; she says "[a]bortion is a motherhood issue. Abortion is neither a separate subject, nor a subject in a different category (225)." The main reason for this alienation between abortion and mothering is a strategic maneuver by pro-life women who wish to paint women who have abortions as immoral, selfish, and murderers - essentially as nonmothers because they believe that no real mother would voluntarily kill her child. Arcana sees no difference between abortion and mothering because abortion is a decision made by a mother and a hard one at that - "[c]hoosing to abort a child is a profoundly made life choice for that child, a choice made by a woman or girl who is already a mother, however ignorant, angry, sad, hopeful, or frightened she may be (226)." Aborting a child does not demote that mother to a nonmother because she is making what she believe to be the best choice for her baby, which is what a mother is supposed to do. Arcana calls out for mothers to not feel guilty or ashamed for aborting their babies because they are responsible for their children and they did what they thought would be best for their children - sparing them a life of misery, sadness, and poverty that would await them given the circumstances they would have been born into, knowing that they could not do enough for them at this time.
In Crews' article "So I Chose," she talks about her experience as a teenage mother who chose to give birth to and raise her son. She grew in an extremely pro-life home, and feeling that she had turned into one of the girls that pro-lifers ridicule, she turned to pro-choice websites for support in her choice to keep her baby; instead of finding this solace, she was also ridiculed for being irresponsible and selfish because "[w]hile many of these women professed to be 'pro-choice,' [she] quickly learned that for them the only choice that is acceptable is the choice they consider 'right' (146)," namely abortion (146). With support from her mom, she tried to navigate through all these people telling her what she should do with her baby without listening to what she wanted to do - she was "tired of being pushed around (148)." When she was holding her baby, she realized what "pro-choice" is supposed to mean to support mothers' decisions, no matter what they may be, in regards to their reproductive rights and children, Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion, which is what she experienced with the websites - being pro-choice means accepting that women are the rulers of their bodies and futures and have the right to determine where or if children fit into their lives or the lives they wish to have.
In Muscio's article "Abortion, Vacuum Cleaners, and the Power Within," she comes out as anti-abortion though she has had abortions before. She likens the slogan "Abortion Sucks" to the vacuum-like machine that aborts a pregnancy because vacuum cleaners "are useful for cleaning up messes (112)" - she asserts that our society sees unwanted pregnancies as messes that must be covered and cleaned up. She relates how she had two abortions and how she remembers exactly what happened each time - the fear, the excruciating pain, the regret, the self-anger for forgetting her birth control, and the machine's vacuum-like sucking of her babies out of her. She continues her story - she would violently confront pro-life demonstrators in front of Planned Parenthoods, so she looked into studying other medicines and healing methods to control her anger. She found that "[h]ealing starts from within (115)." She says that we never look within ourselves to find those things we want most, like love, self-esteem, and fun - Western society has adopted belief in medicine that our health is controlled by others, not us. "In the U.S., we don't (and we're also not encouraged to) look inside ourselves for healing or for finding truths or answers (115)." We always look to other people, to the outside as she did for her first two abortions. After looking inward to herself and finding that she no longer had the self-doubt and fear that plagued her in her first two abortions, when she naturally aborted her third child she felt powerful. She asserts that fighting outward forces forgets the fact that "[t]he real fight for human rights is inside each and every individual on earth (117)" - she says we need to realize that the fight between pro-life and pro-choice distracts from the real problem of patriarchy, which insists that abortions be performed the way they are, taking power away from women in the guise of actually giving it to them. She asserts that if women were able to be more open about themselves and organic, naturally induced abortions were explored, this entire debate about abortion would simply disappear.
In Roe vs. Wade in Feminism in our Time, a brief background of the lawyers, plaintiff, and prosecutor was given before actual excerpts of the case from Justice Blackmun. He starts off by acknowledging the difficulty of this case, the sensitivity of the issue, and the myriad of factors that influence people's opinions on the issue; he pledges to resolve this issue based on the Constitution. Jane Roe, a pseudonym for the plaintiff, brought her complaint to the court that she could not obtain a safe abortion in Texas because of the Texan anti-abortion statutes because her pregnancy did not endanger her life; she claimed that these anti-abortion laws violated her right of personal privacy, which is protected by various Amendments. Background on the anti-abortion laws are given - Victorian taboo on sex to discourage casual sexual relations, the safety (or lack thereof) of the medical procedure, and prenatal life protection - whose reasons such as protecting the mother from a serious life-threatening procedures have largely vanished. The Justice goes on to say that the personal rights expounded upon by the 9th and 14th Amendments do cover a woman's right to choose whether or not to abort her child since bringing a child into the world can cause a slew of problems for the mother, the child itself, and its family. The Court, however, does not allow free rein on abortion at any time for any reasons - they will continue to regulate abortion in certain incidents. They conclude "that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation...(405)." The Court determines that the Constitution's use of the word "person" only applies to postnatal humans, meaning that the unborn are not protected by the Constitution or granted the rights found in the Constitution. However, the Court also decides that the pregnant woman's privacy cannot shield her for her entire pregnancy because another potential life is involved so "it is reasonable and appropriate for a State to decide that at some point in time another interest, that of health of the mother or that of potential human life, becomes significantly involved (406)." Therefore, the Court concludes that Texas does not the right to override pregnant women's rights, including the right to abort, but does stake an interest in protecting pregnant women's and their fetuses' lives. The Court determines that the "compelling" point at which the state does have an interest in protecting both these lives occurs at the end of the first trimester since the fetus can theoretically live outside its mother's womb (a.k.a. it becomes viable), so the state can regulate abortion after this point but not before. The Court also says that the clause about abortion only being legal when it is to save the mother's life is too vague because it does not talk when this abortion takes place.
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