Abortion as Liberation?

While reading the first three chapters of Sandra Morgan’s book Into Our Own Hands: The Women’s Health Movement in the United States, I was struck by a statemnent about the Jane Collective:

“That’s how they thought abortions ought to be done: by women, for women, as acts of liberation and empowerment. [Emphasis mine]” 

Even I, an ardent believer in a woman’s right to choose, found this statement appallingly out of place in contemporary society. I  thought of abortion as an example of failure – not necessarily a failure of the woman who was pregnant, but perhaps a failure of society to educate her and her partner in the use of birth control, or a failure of society to provide her with birth control. While this is indeed a problem (the prevalence of abstinence-only sexual education and it’s failure are well documented, read a good summary here) I have thought more and more about this statement over the past week, especially in light of our class on medicalization. Though I am still skeptical of calling abortions acts of liberation, I also realize I cannot frame abortion as a failure either – such sweeping generalizations don’t adequately convey the multitude of reasons women seek abortions.

So where did the idea that abortion is a failure come from? I believe it came out of the dominate discourse about abortion in America today, which frames abortion as something that is ethically wrong and often an emotionally traumatizing and regrettable decision for the woman who chooses to have one. Realizing that this had influenced my personal morality, I set out to investigate where this discourse came from, and the morality of abortion.

I was surprised to discover that this history of the abortion debate is a relatively short one, and that it was outlawed as a result of the same movement to banish midwives from practicing: 19th century medicalization. Suzanne Staggenborg wrote in the opening of her book The Pro-Choice Movement: Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict:

“The states were originally guided on the matter of abortion by British common law, which permitted abortion until “quickening,” the point about midway through pregnancy when the woman first perceives fetal movement. Although abortion before quickening was socially acceptable and there was no grass-roots anti-abortion movement before the twentieth century, there was a successful campaign to outlaw abortion in the nineteenth century that was initiated not by religious leaders – as might be expected – but by physicians [emphasis mine].”

Without an organized resistance, by 1900 abortion was outlawed in every state in America.

The fact that abortion had previously been socially acceptable indicates that the ethical judgement of abortion was a result of the criminalization of abortion. Despite being legal today, abortion remains a scorned act, even by sectors of society we might view as liberal or progressive: Hollywood, for example. As the author of this article says, “almost half of American women have had an abortion, and for most of us this choice was grounds for profound relief, not angst. [emphasis mine]”

Convinced as I was that a particular misinformed discourse had been influencing my thoughts on abortion, and continues to influence the larger ethical condemnation of abortion by society, I struggled with the more personal morality of abortion. Yes, I believe in a woman’s right to choose, but would I be able to choose abortion in the case of an unwanted pregnancy without feeling moral guilt?

I found Carter Heywood’s article, “Abortion: A Moral Choice” enormously comforting and enlightening. I encourage anyone who has grappled with this question themselves to read it (it’s short).

I look forward to the day where unwanted pregnancies are never the result of a lack of education or access to birth control, and when abortion is no longer a liberating political statement or failing to be judged by society – but simply a woman’s personal decision based in her own morality.