Dr. Charles L. Rulon

The Battle for Women's Reproductive Freedom

Tens of millions of Americans still want to force women with unwanted pregnancies to stay pregnant—to be unwilling breeding machines.

In the last several decades, our pro-choice politicians have stated their support for elective abortions (e.g. "safe, legal and rare") and then hurried on, as though they were uncomfortable with their position, or that there were much more important issues to debate. But is abortion really a less important issue?

For centuries young unwed, unskilled mothers with no family support had to do whatever it took to find food and shelter for their children. This often meant becoming sexual and domestic slaves to men. Also, for centuries unwanted pregnancies were often followed by dangerous self-inflicted abortions, wrenchingly painful infanticides and child abandonment.

But with the advancement of scientific knowledge, birth control became increasingly effective and early abortions became much safer than giving birth. Also, powerful religious patriarchies began to weaken in advanced nations. The reproductive emancipation of women was taking giant steps forward.

Since the United States Supreme Court decision (7-2) which legalized abortion (Roe v Wade - 1973) over 40 million American women have opted for a safe, legal abortion. That's more abortions that there are people in the entire state of California. That's over 40 million women who got a major second chance to control their own destiny. The availability of excellent contraceptives, backed up by the "morning-after pill" and by early, affordable, safe abortions is absolutely critical in any culture that truly values women.

Yet, decades after Roe there still remains in the US a powerful backlash by America's religious-political patriarchy and their followers. Today, abortion facilities remain in only 13% of our nation's counties, while efforts to further weaken Roe continue unabated. "Choice" continues to lose ground to phrases like "culture of life" and "life-affirming". The "right to privacy" is increasingly being trumped by the "sanctity of life". If pro-choice supporters don't start to aggressively "shout" the truth, Roe v Wade could become history. Fifty individual state legislatures dominated by males might then get to decided whether or not to pass laws forcing women with unwanted pregnancies to stay pregnant against their will.

Shouting the Truth—Valuing Women's Lives

Globally, what consigns so many women to death or physical impairment is not a deficiency in technology, but a deficiency in the value placed on women's lives. The suffering to women and girls due to ancient religious dogmas, entrenched patriarchal laws and customs, the desire to punish "loose" women, coupled with abysmal ignorance and grinding poverty is simply staggering.

Anti-abortion laws try to force women with unwanted pregnancies to stay pregnant against their will—to be unwilling embryo incubators. Such laws, in effect, treat women as obligatory breeding machines. They place women in a permanently and irrevocably subordinate position to men, and smell very much like those medieval laws designed to keep religious patriarchies in power and to punish so-called "loose" women for having sex. The right to early safe abortions is about the right of women to decide for themselves their own futures, a right that is fundamental to female equality and human liberty.

Throughout history the large majority of women with unwanted pregnancies have been willing to risk almost anything to escape from such reproductive enslavement. As a result, globally, anti-abortion laws have been major public health and social disasters. In just the last 30 years over 150 million girls and women have filled hospitals with life-threatening infections, massive hemorrhaging, perforated intestines and uteruses, and kidney failure as a result of illegal abortions. This not counting all the women who have died. In the US before Roe, hundreds of thousands of women a year with botched abortions died or filled hospitals. Medical costs soared, families were torn apart, and disrespect for the law intensified.

The world's lowest rates of abortion by far are found in Western Europe where few legal restrictions are placed on abortions, but contraceptive use and comprehensive sex education are widespread. Today it is increasingly rare to find anti-abortion laws outside of totalitarian, militaristic, and /or religiously fundamentalist societies. Do we really want the United States to have the same laws as countries like Afghanistan and El Salvador?

Throughout history women's reproductive rights have been legislated, adjudicated and religiously controlled by men. The overwhelming majority of anti-abortion voices in power today—in our pulpits and political machines—are voices that will never have to experience an unwanted pregnancy—male voices—white, conservative, Christian male voices—the same male voices that earlier opposed suffrage and now oppose family planning for women.

A World of Wanted Children

The world is already up to its ears in unwanted, hungry and abandoned children. In the last 30 years restrictive abortion laws and coercive pressures have resulted in over one billion unplanned and mostly unwanted embryos carried to term. Tens of millions of abandoned children now wander the streets. Poverty soars. Crime escalates. Massive ecological destruction, social unrest and militarization continue.

In the US over 500,000 children have already been taken from their parents and placed in foster homes, and over 15 million children now live in poverty, with hundreds of thousands abandoned. Yet many countries continue to force women into having more children than they really want—countries that cannot (or will not) take care of the children they already have.

Mostly because of religious/moralistic obstacles, a depressing half of all pregnancies in the US are still unintended; for African-American women, it is 70%. Half of all such unintended pregnancies are aborted. The abortion rate among Black women is five times higher than among White women; for Latinos it's three times higher. Poverty is a major factor. Thus, anti-abortion laws in the US heavily discriminate against poor, minority women.

In this 21st century of science and human enlightenment, to claim that human fertilized eggs and tiny, mindless, senseless embryos are somehow equivalent to children already born and thus have the same rights is rationally and ethically absurd. Most Americans know this at some level. That's why very few Americans want to send to prison women who abort, not even for a day!

Furthermore, to claim that human embryos have a sacred right to life is not even a biblical teaching according to most Christian theologians and millions of pro-choice Christian supporters. Instead, such pronouncements are basically incendiary propaganda generated by America's powerful religious patriarchy with the ultimate purpose of controlling the religious/political thinking of tens of millions of conservative Christians.

The Religious Right is attempting to turn the US into a ultraconservative theocracy and the abortion issue is one key battle in its struggle to do so. Their real objective is to repeal women's rights—period.

Closing Thoughts

The politician who gets my vote is the one who makes female equality a major part of his or her platform. After all, an investment in global reproductive health care, including sex education, contraception, emergency contraceptive pills and early abortions, would provide on of the greatest benefits to humanity in the history of civilization. Few other measures could make such a contribution to the health and well-being of women and children, reduce poverty and the threat of war worldwide and improve our chances of achieving a sustainable future, yet cost each of us in the affluent world only a few dollars a year in foreign aid.

Those in Congress and the White House who advance religious arguments for public policy foreclose both debate and compromise, the basic ingredients of democracy. The uncompromising position of the Christian Right puts an ugly face on democracy and on the religious spirit of love and compassion. It's a position that demeans the intelligence and moral character of women and returns them to the Dark Ages of dangerous illegal abortions.

How can civilization continue to afford to tolerate undemocratic, authoritarian pronouncements from popes, ministers, televangelists, born-again politicians and others who demand religious obedience and who are concerned primarily with the maintenance of ancient institutions and belief systems in a modern scientific world they do not want to understand and where the need to preserve their power and antiquated religious dogmas has priority over all else?

How can any society ever expect its citizens to live in a way that is higher, nobler and more spiritual when it attempts to force those women with unwanted pregnancies (a persistent and major reality throughout the entire history of humankind) to stay pregnant against their will—to be unwilling embryo incubators?

We could have a world of wanted children right now—today—if we encouraged girls to realize their full potential, and allowed women to choose their own future.

Dr. Charles L. Rulon is an emeritus professor of Life and Health Sciences at Long Beach City College, California.