Examples Of Voluntary Motherhood

Public health researchers with the UC San Francisco group, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, conducted a longitudinal study of 956 women who sought an abortion and were turned away. Diana Foster’s study reveals what happened to the women’s economic standing, health and relationship status after being denied their right. She claims that, “When a woman is denied the abortion she wants, she is statistically more likely to wind up unemployed, on public assistance, and below the poverty line” (Newitz). This is clear because one of the major factors in a woman’s decision to abort, is because of her awareness that she will not be able to financially support her child. One of a woman’s most formidable fears is to fail to adequately raise her child and provide him with his greatest odds to succeed. Naturally, a mother’s ultimate goal is for her children to have a better life than she did. This fuels the majority of people’s ambition and determination to obtain a comfortable and promising life style, to then pass on to their offspring. Women living in poverty seek abortions because they do not want to bring a child in a life of misery and suffering. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is not just blindly decided, all aspects of the mother’s and child’s life are considered. In fact, after initially being denied the right to abort, the survey demonstrates that 45% of the women were on public assistance (Newitz). However, Foster concludes, “a year later, they were far more likely to be on public assistance — 76% of the turnaways were on the dole…67% percent of the turnaways were below the poverty line” (Newitz). Therefore, it is evident that not allowing women to legally have abortions creates more strain on the state because of these mothers' increased dependence on social assistance programs.

In the news article “Abortion: Every Woman’s Rights” Sharon Smith wrote an article about women’s rights to get abortions prior to the hearing of the Planned Parenthood v. Casey court case, “which threatened to severely restrict women access to abortion” (Smith). Women wanted reproductive control over their lives and felt that they were not equal to men no matter what advances they got at work and how high their level of education was. The women’s right movement wanted women to have the choice of abortion for all women, the rich and the poor. In the US, thirty- seven states did not provide

One of the first moral issues addressed by both sides of the abortion debate concerns a pregnant woman’s so-called natural “right” to make “reproductive choices.” (“The Rights of Pregnant Women”) Anti-abortion advocacy groups claim that “the only way to actually protect the mother’s rights will be by enforcing laws that secure her child’s right to life,” (“Argument 2”) whereas pro-abortion groups contend that these laws “create a dangerous precedent for wide-ranging government intrusion into the lives of all women.” (“The Rights”) With two fundamentally contrasting viewpoints at odds with each other, it is apparent that one of the core issues concurrent with abortion is a woman’s rights versus the rights of her unborn fetus.

Out of this week’s readings, I found ‘When Pregnancy Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Be Pregnant’ by Tiloma Jayasinghe, most interesting and impactful. Her article dissects the way that pregnant women, specifically low-income women of color, are discriminated against by the State, anti-abortion groups, and the society, and are granted no control over their own bodies and choices.

The majority of the pregnancies are not planned or not wanted; these young teens are usually between 18 and 19 years old (Mann, Cardona & Gomez,2015). As the family is the primary source of support and identity, family dynamics affect the choices made available to Latina teenagers. Culturally, women are encouraged to remain chaste until marriage. Motherhood is the primary identity in the Chicano women's life and Latina girls are expected to uphold these traditions. Many Latina girls find themselves in a sticky situation where their religion holds them to a pro-life decision regardless of the consequences to them or the baby. A Latina teen does not have open access to contraception or abortion (Mann, Cardona and Gomez, 2015). The Catholic church has already placed restrictions on abortion availability. The right to an abortion is a government decision and church and state should remain separate. This rise in unprepared pregnancy will eventually trickle down to government assistance programs like welfare and even programs like SafeHaven. SafeHaven is a place mothers can drop off infants with no questions asked. These places are in many states and are often at hospitals and fire stations. Schools also will discern an increase along with foster care and domestic adoptions. Not all of these areas are negative, but bringing a life into the world that is not wanted is not an

Advocates of criminalization also stressed society’s obligation to halt the declining birthrate among white Americans. And many stressed the need to protect the sanctity of motherhood and the chastity of white women; abortion, after all, supported the separation of sexual intercourse from reproduction (Solinger, 2015, pg. 5).

Roberts attempts to convince readers that reproduction is an important topic, especially for black individuals. She addresses it important because certain policies that are set to keep black women from having children but also because these same policies persuade people in believing that racial inequality is perpetuated by Black people themselves. Roberts wants readers to think about reproduction in a new way and realize that these policies not only affect Black Americans but also the very meaning of reproductive freedom.

The Women’s March on January 21, 2017 also stirred the emotions of American citizens, for different reason. The vast response to the March throughout the country left some wondering why such action was needed, when women’s rights have come such a long way from when the US was founded. Those unware of the March’s mission are likely unaware that it was centered around many principles including: ending violence, LQBTQIA rights, worker’s rights, civil rights, disability rights, immigrant rights, environmental justice, and reproductive rights (Women’s March, 2017). The focus on reproductive right’s centered on reproductive freedom and an access to quality reproductive healthcare services, birth control, HIV/AIDS care and prevention, medically accurate sexuality education, and access to safe, legal, affordable abortion (Women’s March,2017). Access to abortion is an issue that varies state to state, similar to the issue of gun regulation.

The Chicanx experience in the United States over the past several decades has shaped their history and strengthened the community as a whole. There has been an overwhelming fight against many injustices imposed upon the Chicano community by outsiders, and one of those issues is reproductive justice. For many women of color, especially in the Chicano and Black communities, there has been a reproductive oppression that is constantly imposed upon them by government and medical officials. Women of color, are more common to be on many government programs to provide economic and health support to them and their families. The U.S. government has always tried to scheming tactics to avoid providing these women with the best possible welfare support

Roughly half of the pregnancies each year in the United States are unplanned and twenty percent of those are terminated. For years the various religious and anti-abortion organizations protested abortion due to the unsafe procedures that could result in maternal death. Once proven that abortions were not more harmful than childbirth, those same organizations started protesting abortions for the safety of the fetus (Barry, 2012). The court case, Roe v. Wade, made all types of abortions: elective and therapeutic legal, and also ruled that the father’s rights do not need to be discussed if an abortion were to occur (Purvis, 2015). This case is continually debated in social and educational instances, but when one learns which rights abortion is under, it shows that abortion is a fundamental right (McBride, 2016). By ruling that the father’s rights should not be mentioned, this was the start of men’s voices being

She continues her argument by stating, disadvantaged black women are being targeted for prosecution not for abusing an unborn child, but because they are targeted for being poor black women. “A policy that attempts to protect fetuses by denying the humanity of their mothers will inevitably fail. A commitment to guaranteeing these fundamental rights of poor women of color, rather than punishing them, is the real solution to the problem of unhealthy babies” (Roberts, 1991, p.1482).

These strategies continue to undermine the choices that the Women of Color have in deciding whether or not they want to have children because they do not want to be stigmatized with poverty. Obviously, the adverse and psychological effects of the various interlocking forms of oppressions that limits Women of Color’s reproductive rights makes it very important to understand them.

Feminism is about listening to other people and their experiences. Unfortunately, in the past, the feminist movement has not done this much. This can be seen in how feminists from different demographics see the same topics and issues. Chapter 4 of Feminism: Issues & Arguments by Jennifer Saul and “Racism, Birth Control, and Reproductive Rights”, a chapter of Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis, approach the topic of birth control very differently. In this essay, I will be discussing these differences.

Mohapatra expands upon Sujatha Jesudasan’s and Tracy Weits’s discussion in Eggs and Abortions: The Language of Protection in Legislative Regulating Abortion and Egg Donation in Debate over Two California Laws. In doing so, she argues that the use of women-protective arguments by anti-abortion lobbyists in debates regarding sex-selective abortions in the U.S. are racially charged and based on a lack of evidential proof. Specifically, she argues that there is a lack of proof of the overall supposed increase of sex-selective abortions in the U.S., and a lack of proof of the supposed trend of Asian women coming to U.S. with cultural son-preferences electing such procedures. Moreover, she makes a significant point that Jorawar and Yeung do not,

Just because a woman acted foolishly and carelessly does not mean that an innocent third party, the child, should have to accept the punishment for their mother’s actions. Another alarming statistic is that twenty-two percent of all pregnancies in the United States end in abortion (U.S. Abortion Statistics). Many of these abortions occur from people who live below the poverty level and cannot afford proper birth control. While abortion has been decreasing among most groups of categories that are determined by characteristics such as age, race, and financial income; abortions among poor people have been on the rise. In 2008, poor women were responsible for forty-two percent of all abortions that took place in the United States. Likewise, the abortion rate of poor women escalated by eight-teen percent from 2000-2008 (Wind). This problem can be solved by providing more heath care clinics through the country for those individuals who cannot afford birth control. With more available heath care clinics, the amount of abortions that occur will be diminished significantly and wrongful killing of unborn children will come to an end.