Pro-Choice IS Pro-Life

As women's reproductive autonomy is again under legal and ideological attack, I feel the need to speak up. 

I am pro-choice because I don't believe anyone but the woman who is contemplating whether to continue with a pregnancy can make that choice for her. It is none of my business whether someone who isn't me opts to carry her pregnancy to term or not. Would I be there to help this unknown woman through the difficult and sometimes dangerous 9-month pregnancy? No. Would I be there to help her raise that child for 18+ years? No. So therefore, I simply cannot justify supporting the pro-life agenda of making abortion illegal. To make a woman choose between bearing and/or raising a child she doesn't have the physical, financial, psychological, or emotional resources for, and committing a crime to merely try to live her one life the way she feels she must is cruel and inhumane. Women already bear the brunt of the world's suffering brought on through and on account of their uterus. Far be it from me, as someone who had the freedom to choose a childless life, to deny that choice to others.

I am pro-choice because I believe in the sanctity of womanhood. I believe womanhood is a beautiful thing that has value in and of itself. It is not defined by its utility for men nor through its role in propagating the species. As is also true for men's reproductive capacity, just because women are biologically ordained with the equipment to conceive and bear children doesn't mean that is the only, or even the ultimate, means through which we can find purpose and meaning in our lives. It most certainly doesn't mean that by having a uterus we are obligated to subjugate ourselves to it. The most precious thing about being human - whether one is male or female - is the process of discernment each person is by birthright entitled to undergo as they journey to the center of their soul to understand their true path to fulfillment. Men have no more right to dictate to women what their life's purpose should be than women have to dictate this to men. Women are complex beings who masterfully balance vulnerability and strength to navigate this world with creativity, compassion and power. Women are capable of fully inhabiting, yet simultaneously transcending, this earthly sphere. The intuitive wisdom of women fertilizes the soul of humanity and the spirit of women gives life to the heart of the world. Trying to commandeer the profound opportunity of a woman's life for one's own purposes is tantamount to murder.

I am pro-choice because I believe in the sanctity of motherhood. You can force a woman to bear a child - which is what pro-life advocates are aiming for - but you can't force a woman to become a mother. Motherhood requires the expending of untold physical, financial, psychological, and emotional resources to a greater or lesser extent over a period of decades. Under what legal or moral authority - not to mention the dictates of practicality - can we obligate a woman to such an undertaking without her full consent? What I understand the highest form of motherhood to be is impossible without it. It would be like forcing someone to become a priest, which requires dedicating your life to God. If by definition, something requires the full exercise of the will, how can it possibly be compelled? If this inherent contradiction can be acknowledged, perhaps it's better to characterize the pro-life position as pro-birthing - or pro-gestation - over pro-mothering.

I am pro-choice because I believe in the sanctity of life. As much as pro-life advocates, I want to eradicate the barbarity of abortion from the face of the earth. But unlike pro-life advocates, I believe you can't extinguish something simply by making it illegal without first removing the conditions from which it unavoidably arises. Abortion is not the true problem but rather is a symptom of the true problem: unwanted pregnancies. Empowering women in their reproductive choices from the beginning is the only way to ensure the choice of abortion never has to be made. Women wouldn't feel compelled to turn to abortion if unwanted pregnancies weren't so difficult to prevent. And unwanted pregnancies wouldn't be so difficult to prevent if women had a bit more help from men - both the ones in their beds and the ones in their legislatures - in this department. As it is, women alone bear 90% of the emotional, psychological, physical and financial burden of preventing pregnancies, yet play only 50% of the role in their creation. And this is with consensual sexual partners. It doesn't even include all the non-consensual sex that women endure (a topic for another article). It is pro-choice governments that have been most effective in actually reducing abortions in the past because they implement policies that empower women to make their own reproductive choices beginning prior to conception. Until women are truly sexually empowered, the staggering rate of unwanted pregnancies - over 40% of all pregnancies worldwide - will continue, and abortion will continue to be seen as a last resort in about half of those cases. 

I am pro-choice because I believe the pro-life ideology is not only ineffective in - and is even destructive to - the quest to reduce abortions, but it is vindictive towards women. The pro-life approach does not pursue practical solutions but instead has set itself on a path to strip away what little reproductive power women have left under the guise of protecting the unborn child. Yet no more unborn children are saved as a result of their efforts because overall, removing women's reproductive power without limiting men's only results in more unwanted pregnancies, which results in more abortions. And so the cycle continues. The pro-life faction is in truth motivated not by compassion for the fetus whose life has been cut short, but by a dedication to honoring the sacred sperm. The pro-life mantra disguises its inherently medieval philosophy: that women are nothing more than vessels which allow men's sperm to fulfill its purpose, and that once that sperm chooses to take root in her, she is rendered powerless in its path. The pro-life agenda is to bring the national legal framework back into line with their archaic philosophies. This is not only counter-productive to actually ensuring abortion is eliminated, it is offensive to the principles of human rights upon which our nation was founded. 

The truth is that if women aren't empowered from the word go to avoid unwanted pregnancies, the solution is most certainly not to reduce their power even further by refusing them the last word in avoiding unwanted births. The fact that women even find themselves faced with such a horrifying choice as to abort their own fetus is because they were denied their voice from the beginning of their reproductive journey in a world where men have no restrictions on theirs. This reveals a severe sexual imbalance between men and women in our society. Taking away the only chance women have to rectify this imbalance - the ability to make the painful but necessary choice to undo a pregnancy they can't continue with - is tantamount to denying a woman her humanity. The only possible solution to the problem of abortion is to empower women even before conception occurs to enable them to choose motherhood only if and when they can commit their whole body, heart and soul to the undertaking. This is no less than any new life deserves. 

Chivalry Me Not

“Chivalry is dead,” you may hear someone lament at a man’s neglecting to attend gallantly to a woman’s presence. But there are two problems with this statement. 1. Chivalry was never really "alive" and 2. Good. 

If you are a steadfast believer in both women’s empowerment and the importance of good old-fashioned courtesy, you may find yourself torn on your feelings toward chivalry, as we understand it today. Is a man’s failure to swoop in and rescue a woman from the indignity of having to open a door for herself proof that men finally no longer see women as helpless damsels in distress and respect them as capable equals? Or is this merely evidence of a depressing trend in our society away from general courteousness? You may reconcile this by saying, why can’t we have both? “I don’t need him to open the door for me,” you may say. “But it would be a nice gesture.” A gesture indeed it is – and a powerful one. But let’s look a little more closely at what the message really is.

On its surface, chivalry, or gentlemanliness, seems like nothing more than common, or depending on your perspective, uncommon, courtesy. In this world where women have to bear so much – childbirth and childrearing, the not infrequent physical brutality of men, and the perpetual heartache of being the ones most often called upon to give up our dreams – it seems the least society (men) can do in return is to open the occasional door or carry the occasional bag of groceries. So then, the rationale goes, it’s good for women since, if even for a moment, it lessens her burdens, and it’s good for men in that, if even for a moment, it calls them to mind.

But in reality, there is nothing good – or noble – about what is really happening for women in that moment (not to mention the rest of the time). 

First, these kinds of gestures distract from real efforts to achieve true gender equality in society by posing as expressions of honor and respect towards women. But in truth, they don't help women's condition and they don't provide any positive affirmation on a mental or emotional level. Chivalry is a symbol and a symptom of institutionalized gender inequality, not an effort to counteract it. As chivalry in medieval times did nothing to undermine widespread patterns of oppression of and brutality towards women of that time, so today chivalry fails to actually address the uniquely female burdens it purports to lessen. It perpetuates the illusion that inviting a woman to exit an elevator first will somehow compensate her for the fact that, even though she may arrive at her desk first, she won’t be paid equally once she gets there. It distracts from the fact that even though a man may go gallantly out of his way to give a woman a ride home late at night, the world will not thereby be made a safer or more welcoming place for her.

Chivalry is an attempt to hold on more tightly to male privilege by behaving more graciously towards those from whom you are denying it.

Second, it reinforces men’s hold on the outside world by treating women as merely guests. By, say, opening a door for a woman, a man is posing as a sort of host, graciously offering her entrance into his world. It is a subtle reminder that, even though he is allowing her entrance, it is still his world. And like most hosts, chivalrous men expect to be repaid for their kindness through a kind of reciprocity. Though direct reciprocity - women in turn opening the door for them - is the last thing they want (after all they, of course know, that this would feel belittling). Instead, men want to be repaid by experiencing from women the same deference they are pretending to show to them. And brilliantly, they ensure this through the effects of the gesture itself. If men can evoke in women a sense of obligation towards them, knowing we have been socialized to respond this way, by performing a presumably generous gesture on their behalf, men can ensure women feel beholden to them, collectively, in some vague but unmistakable way. A sense of obligation that a man can, at some future time and in some way he chooses, can cash in on. It is an investment in his future comfort and pleasure - to ensure favorable treatment - and compliant behavior - from women. It is a manipulative attempt to disguise a power play as humble service, and demeans women by making them feel beholden to men for paying them lip service. So this gesture is, despite appearances, not intended to lay the groundwork for equality through respect and honor, but to reinforce inequality. It is man's way of perpetuating his dominance in society by ensuring that, although he is letting her share the turf, she understands it is on his terms. 

Chivalry is a symbol that men consider women's consent to their exercise of control over them to be at best presumed and at worst irrelevant.  

Third, chivalry reinforces the disproportionate lack of consent women give for the ways their lives are shaped by men, both on a societal and on a personal level. By intruding, unbidden, into a woman’s life to perform a gesture which expresses his power over her powerlessness, a man establishes the precedent for intruding again, in less benign circumstances, unbidden, into a woman's life to perform gestures that express his power over her powerlessness. The incidence of violence by men towards women continues unabated in our world, and at an appalling rate. This is because we give men the power to dominate women, and then naively expect them to self-regulate this power. That's tantamount to giving the wolf the right to decide when to eat the hen. It is foolhardy. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Until we deliberately build a society where no blanket permission to dominate one gender is given to the other, this violence will not abate. As long as men believe that, merely because they are men, they have the power to impose their will in women's lives, merely because they are women, the analysis will stop there and discernment, wisdom and humility will never enter into the picture.   

Chivalry is not a gentle offer of support but rather an ominous reminder that although men sometimes choose to use their power over women benignly, it's still their prerogative.  

So how do we address this? Obviously, opening the door for a woman doesn't cause inequality, and not opening the door for her won't erase it. But by ceasing to perpetuate acts towards women that make them feel belittled, we are helping to remove one of the man-made obstacles to the natural state of gender equality: the mentality that women don't have as much of a right to be here. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Work towards a world where we can all perform true acts of kindness towards anyone based on their need and our capacity to meet it, conscious to uphold their dignity, not out of a desire to build yourself up at their expense. If you tell yourself you're performing an act of kindness but would be offended were that same gesture to be performed for you, it's obviously not an act of kindness. Let that be your guide. 

Chivalry does nothing but perpetuate archaic, limiting and destructive gender roles. 

Let chivalry die. Let respect for human dignity live.