Randi Kreiss

Young women only know a world of choice

Posted

In the maelstrom that has followed Donald Trump’s election, it is difficult to sort out the most urgent priorities for people worried about our country. Millions of us are shocked and grieving for a nation that would elect a racist and misogynist to the highest office in the land.

If we take Trump at his word, the environment, women’s rights, minority issues and religious freedom are not on his to-do list; they are on his hit list. Although he seems to be equivocating on some of his most alarming proposals, like banning all Muslims, his talk and cabinet choices are not reassuring.

Where to turn first? When will the first assault on civil rights come? How do we know where to put our energy and financial support? For me, a woman’s right to choose is the primary focus in these early days. The issue crosses all social, religious and ethnic lines. It defines personal freedom.

Most important, today’s young women have grown up in a culture where abortion is available, and their complacency can be calamitous.

Ironically, since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 guaranteeing the right to choose, abortion rates have dropped. The number and rate of abortions tallied by federal authorities have fallen to their lowest level in decades, according to data released recently by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The right to have an abortion is guaranteed by Roe v. Wade, but the devil is in the details left up to the states. Nobody wants to have an abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy. And nobody wants anyone else to have one, either. Still, it is legal in most states, and sometimes it is necessary.

Nevertheless, anti-abortion legislators keep poking their noses into exam rooms around the country, trying to undo Roe v. Wade at the state level. We know they will be reinvigorated by Trump’s election.

Women will do what they have always done: find a way. Whether it is by crossing the border for abortion pills in Mexico or by seeking out abortions in other states, women will end pregnancies they cannot or will not carry.

Both sides claim the moral high ground in the fight over choice. The only possible resolution is to agree that abortion is a private issue, not a legal one.

I have had the experience — more than once — of sitting around a table of women when the subject of abortion comes up. If six or eight of us are gathered, at least one or two will speak about the abortion she had. No one remembers the event with anything but sadness and regret — not that they had the abortion, but that they had to have the abortion. Everyone wants her daughters and granddaughters to have the same choice and the same right to privacy.

The bad old days are not an option.

In the 2000s, the candidacies of Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin — and comments from GOP spokesmen like Rep. Todd Aiken, who designated a category for “legitimate” rape — once again politicized an essentially private matter. Their ilk is back again, talking about naming judges to the Supreme Court who will overturn Roe v. Wade.

It just doesn’t stop. A few years back, hundreds of thousands of us spoke out when a spokesman for Komen for the Cure advocated defunding Planned Parenthood because the group offers pregnancy counseling along with myriad other women’s health services. The reaction was swift and unequivocal: Donations dropped sharply, and Komen was forced to clean house, firing its top executives, including founder Nancy Brinker. They forgot that politics has no place in the exam room.

Some time ago, The New York Times published a piece by a woman titled, “My Mother’s Abortion.” She wrote about her mother telling her about an abortion she had as a young woman. The writer was grateful for the conversation. She understood that her mother was communicating a sense of empowerment to her, and perhaps caution about how to conduct herself in the world. The writer urged women of my generation to speak more freely about their own experiences, about a subject that is personal, but need not be secret.

Perhaps we can find a middle ground by keeping abortion private, within our own lives, within our own families. The screaming debates on the floor of a statehouse are discordant and inappropriate.

Every woman who goes through the experience has to make peace only with herself, and that is how it should be. But if Roe v. Wade is challenged, and the private becomes public again, we must be prepared to fight for our rights.

Copyright © 2016 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com.