Book Review: Pro Makes the Case That Abortion Can Be an Act of Love

[question everything]

(Apologies if already posted, did not find it when searching the site)

(snip)

Now Katha Pollitt’s brilliant new book, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, arrives like an urgent letter as rights are fast eroding. A poet and prominent feminist, Pollitt is not preaching here to a choir of pro-choicers nor expecting to change the minds of abortion foes–she’s addressing the “muddled middle.” It’s past time, she writes, to explore a thicket of questions that pollsters–not to mention conversations at the dinner table–don’t get at with any nuance. Chief among them: Who is the abortion debate really about?

The answer here is that it should be about women, not embryos. With Pollitt’s characteristic wit and logic, Pro marshals science, history, medicine, religion, statistics and stories of real women’s lives–with all the “tangled secret misfortunes” of families–to make a myth-busting argument that abortion is a social good. It’s good for women. It’s good for children. It’s good for men. It’s a normal fact of life and has been since ancient times. All of which might sound shocking, so rarely do we hear about abortion’s benefits.

(snip)

But as Pollitt asks, have we really reached a point where a woman’s child must be fatally compromised or she must be near death or suicidal or have been raped in order for her to have an abortion? Is abortion always tragic, always agonizing? Contrary to abortion opponents’ claims that abortion restrictions protect women’s health, a new study from Ibis Reproductive Health and the Center for Reproductive Rights shows that states with the most such restrictions performed worse on health indicators for women and children. It’s those women and children who should be at the center of our concerns.

Women have always had abortions. Pollitt’s analysis of the Bible leads her to conclude that the book makes no mention of, let alone judgment on, the procedure–“Not one word,” she writes, deconstructing scriptural interpretations that have been used to frame the debate. Yet abortions were happening: the Ebers Papyrus, an Egyptian text dating from circa 1500 B.C., describes an abortifacient plant-fiber tampon coated with honey. Over the centuries, women have ingested poisons, syringed themselves with lye and turpentine or used dangerous probes–without anesthesia–risking death and injury to end unwanted pregnancies. While abortion is now one of the safest procedures available, new restrictions put it out of reach for women in 87% of U.S. counties.

More..

http://time.com/3512674/book-review-pro-reclaiming-abortion-rights/

[cilla4progress]

1. I know a woman...

who aborted because she didn't believe that at that time she could provide a child with everything a child needs and deserves, which is a very personal, subjective, individual decision. She was married, recently graduated with a professional degree, would have had to work full-time and place the child in full-time daycare, which she couldn't tolerate (no family living close by). There wasn't social or systemic support - the cost of daycare was and still is outrageous and obscene, and many employers are not understanding or supportive, or have poor employee policies around sick leave, flexible time, or parenting needs. Her profession wouldn't wait for her. Her heart would break to leave her child every day with someone else, to rush the child out the door in the mornings to daycare, to have to work even though the child was sick.

She later had a child - one child - when things were more stable and felt she could give a child everything she believed due her. She only took jobs that were part-time and supported her parenting. If the job wouldn't accommodate her parenting, she was able to and did quit. She took the "mommy-track," did not advance in her career, in order to put her parenting and her child first - again, a personal assessment and in no way intended to be a decision for other parents, mothers. She was fortunate to be able to rely on her husband's job, stability and income, as many women are not.

She put children, and parenting, on a pedestal. She wanted to be fully committed, when she became a parent. She knew her tolerance for chaos and distraction, and wanted - needed - to be unwavering in prioritizing her parenting over career and personal needs. This is an individualized decision for every parent, every mother. But it was true for her, and she knew herself well.

She was always grateful to have had the maximum of time with her yound child, growing up, especially having waited and held out for so long. She never regretted the decision to put her child first. She sometimes regretted never having provided her child with another sibling - later, and with all the media around abortion, she often felt guilty about the abortion. But she shouldn't have. Because it was done for love. And no one really gets that. Until maybe now.

I should read this book.

[JEFF9K]

2. I posted something about Pollitt and her book several weeks ago.

The response was underwhelming.

This, despite the fact that I provocatively titled the thread "FOUNDING FATHERS WERE PRO-CHOICE."