The Pro-Choice Defect

Last week I checked my medicine cabinet and realized that my birth control (from a year-long prescription) would be gone in two days. There was only one dreadful solution: a trip to UHS.When I arrived things started off well, but somehow the nurse practitioner became confused about my request for birth control and actually thought I was pregnant. After three minutes of learning about my options as a pregnant woman in college, I had endured enough. “NO, I’M NOT PREGNANT, BUT I WILL BE IF YOU DON’T GIVE ME MY BIRTH CONTROL!”

I got my point across, and picked up my birth control at CVS by the end of the day. But despite the false accusation leveled at my uterus, it was admittedly easy for me to rightfully obtain what I needed. In fact, most of my health needs are met easily for a simple reason, but one that is often overlooked in politics: I’m not poor. And in looking at the liberal overreaction to last week’s Supreme Court ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart, it is striking to me that so-called progressives so easily forget the disparity in health care that exists between the rich and the non-rich.

After this ruling, in which the Supreme Court upheld a national ban on partial birth abortion, both the pro-choice and pro-life camps emerged with their rhetorical guns blazing. While I consider myself pro-choice and I believe life begins at birth and not conception, I have come to realize the pro-choice movement can be just as delusional as the pro-lifers who cling militantly to the notion that a fetus is a life form.

Since the Hyde Amendment was passed in 1976, the federal government cannot lawfully fund abortions unless the mother’s life is in danger, or the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. The Center for American Progress reports that in 2001, the number of federally or state-funded Medicaid abortions was 81. Furthermore, 70,000 women a year die from abortion procedures around the world because of faulty and sub-standard medical conditions according to a 2006 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics report. The political infrastructure in place in America currently does not adequately allow women from lower-income households to have equal access to abortions as their wealthier counterparts. The consequences of such measures include later-term abortions, and even death.

The National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) is a group dedicated to the needs of America’s poorest women. A report issued in 2005 entitled “U.S. Abortion Policies Result in Later Abortions and Deny Reproductive Choice to Low-Income Women,” provides statistical data rarely discussed amongst higher-profile pro-choice circles. According to their report, “the proportion of women helped by abortion funds who have abortions in the second trimester far exceeds the national average of 12%; in some cases, 66% of the women helped by abortion funds were more than 12 weeks pregnant.

While these economic discrepancies have existed for decades, it appears that the abortion debates have been hijacked by alleged liberals looking to score political points at the expense of thousands of women who cannot afford what, we’re told, is a constitutional right. This one ruling sent the pro-choice contingent into feverish mania. Nevermind that partial birth abortions, otherwise known as dilation and evacuation (D&E), constituted a tiny percentage of abortions performed in this country.

Emily’s List, a grassroots network committed to electing pro-choice democrats into political offices nationwide, tells us, “the toxic threats to Roe and our reproductive rights are immediate—but Emily’s List is the only group that can provide the antidote through our proven and effective campaign and political programs to elect pro-choice Democratic women leaders to local, state, and federal office.” In other words, they could just rephrase all of this into a succinct message: “Pissed that a conservative court is eroding Roe? Donate to us!”

Senator Hillary Clinton, a politician who stands to benefit greatly from both Emily’s List and this latest Supreme Court ruling, wasted no time in updating her website, writing, “As the Supreme Court recognized in Roe v. Wade in 1973, this issue is complex and highly personal; the rights and lives of women must be taken into account.” And of course Senator Clinton makes sure to give herself props, “It is precisely this erosion of our constitutional rights that I warned against when I opposed the nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.”

Now I do not want to criticize these pro-choice organizations or leaders for expressing their discontent about this latest federal development, but they’re turning the pro-choice movement into a forum for political donations and media attention. Why can’t we bring to the forefront the issues surrounding abortion that matter (i.e. shedding light upon the women who suffer most from the abortion infrastructure).

This ruling from the Court is worrisome, no doubt about that, but the political clamor that has emerged from the strongest pro-choice proponents is even more troubling. Until these organizations and politicians contextualize the abortion debate to encompass women of all economic backgrounds, their political message will lead to failure.



Jessica C. Coggins ’08 is a women, gender, and sexuality studies concentrator in Cabot House. Her column appears on alternate Thursdays.