Keep Women in the Center of Pregnancy, and Life

To build a society based on human need, with love of all beings as its guiding
principle, the reproductive needs of women have to be included in the center of the foundation. The feminine aspects of life, heretofore treated as peripheral, marginal, or unimportant, must be given their rightful status as central to the human condition.                                                   —Life Choices

KEEP WOMEN IN THE CENTER OF PREGNANCY, AND LIFE

In a gorgeous commencement speech in 2010, Meryl Streep pointed Barnard College graduates towards their destiny and responsibility to carry the torch for gender equality and understand it as a human issue rather than only a women’s issue. It’s an important distinction.

Understanding gender equality as a human issue rather than as a women’s issue opens the way to correcting misperceptions and confusions about the specific issues that form the content of women’s lives. Reproductive choice is one of these, of course, and abortion the most controversial. Imagine what it would be like if we didn’t think of reproduction as a “woman’s issue,” and instead took responsibility as a society for the health and wellbeing of all.

The only way to do this of course is to give women a central role in determining ways to provide for the health and wellbeing of all. We’re on our way to getting there, but we have a long way to go. Women are only partially empowered and only in some parts of the world. The gains we have made are still precarious and in need of continuous vigilance and care.

Male referencing is rampant in our culture. Meryl speaks about it from her experience as a female actor. She explains her sense that men are unable to empathize with female characters. She says that most straight men can’t experience themselves through a female character the way most women are able to experience themselves and empathize with a male character. She attributes this to the way we are raised in this culture where a hero is assumed to be of the male gender and men and all things male are made to be superior to women and all things female.

A few weeks ago, I gave a talk to a local community group. I asked each of the listeners to do their best to keep the woman in the center of the pregnancy experience as I was talking about abortion. This became controversial almost instantly. Someone asserted that she could not do that because for her it’s always about two people, the man as well as the woman. Another person asked, “But what about the child?”

First, about the man. Ideally, it’s good for both the woman and the man involved to be on the same page with regard to a pregnancy. However, this is often not the case or not possible for myriad reasons, and the woman is left alone with the pregnancy and the decision. I go into more depth about this in my book.

If you wonder about “the child,” the best thing to do is to ask the woman. She is the best authority on the meaning and place of pregnancy in her life. Don’t allow yourself to separate her from her pregnancy in your mind just because she’s considering or has had an abortion. She is not the enemy of “the child.” Far from it. She is the one, the only one, who knows all the intricacies of her current situation as well as the subtleties of relationship, both actual and potential. It is her opinion and sense of things that will give you the most accurate understanding.

We usually act in terms of how we perceive the limitations of our circumstances. We also act in terms of the limitations of our perception of ourselves and the possibilities in our lives.

Karen Albright Lin has written an exquisite short story that captures the subtleties of relationship and timing that underlie making a decision under difficult circumstances. Click here to read her story.

Our world is a patriarchal world. We live in a patriarchal culture. Granted, it’s changing, but it’s still overwhelmingly male dominated. How we think about ourselves as women or as men is a direct result of the societal circumstances in which we live. The historical movement for women’s freedom—feminism—is changing this by moving human consciousness towards the recognition of women’s experience as central to the human condition. What could be more important?

It is vital to keep the woman in the center when you think about pregnancy. Not to do so denigrates motherhood as well as womanhood and personhood because it splits a woman within herself. It relegates a woman to a secondary status in relation to her own life and to life in general. It is deeply dishonoring. It is disempowering. It separates women from their own free will and active volition with regard to when, how, and under what circumstances they will bring life through their bodies. It censors choice and equates maternal service and sacrifice with servitude.

Each of us needs to do what we can to move our world towards an attitude of kindness, respect, and reverence when it comes to women and their decisions about pregnancy. Each of us needs to do what we can to empower women to make their decisions from a place of strength and connection, to those who are closest to them, and to Life as a whole.