Gwynn: Pro-choice movement is part of personal freedom

TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN Senior defensive specialist Morgan Boub prepares for the serve during the match against the Wyoming Cowgirls Saturday night September 8. Kansas defeated the Wyoming Cowgirls 3-0 sets scoring 25-13, 25-21, and 25-18.

A few months ago, I was spending time with my five-year-old niece, along with one of her uncles. I’m not quite sure how the conversation started, but at some point we were discussing things my niece could be when she “grows up.” Her uncle started jokingly telling her that one of the options (it might have been a lion tamer) was “not the best idea.” However, rather than let it slide, my niece turned to him, replying with indigence vividly sharp in her voice, hand on her hip, “I decide my own life!”

As my niece proudly declared herself in charge of her own fate, I grinned and high-fived her like the good feminist aunt I am. But, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of sadness along with my pride. See, when my niece says “I decide my own life,”— even though every fiber of my being wants to tell her “Yes, you’re absolutely right, of course”—I can’t nod along with 100 percent honesty.

My niece believes her rights for bodily autonomy are par for the course in what she sees as a fair world. Not having a say in her own life is a bewildering concept for her to wrap her head around. My niece believes she should have choices, and get to make those choices, whether it’s choosing her lunch or choosing her future career.

However, the notion that my niece should be powerless in her own life is not at all bewildering to an alarming number of people. In fact, the notion that people, particularly young people, and particularly young people with the capability to become pregnant, should feel powerless in their own lives is the driving factor behind an entire political movement.

This scares me. No scratch that—this terrifies me.

According to the American Pregnancy Association, 49 percent of all pregnancies are unintended, and the rate of unintended pregnancy is particularly high among 18 to 24-year-olds—the age of the typical KU student. An age group my niece will belong to when she “goes to KU or Harvard” (she hasn’t decided which yet).

There is a very real possibility that entities will attempt to take the power of “I decide my own life” away from my niece. She may be raped. She may be lied to by her doctor about her health and body. She may be told she has no right to a decision about her body, that she is not an authority on her own life, that she in fact cannot, and should not be able to say, “I decide my own life.”

I want her to be able to decide.

This is the root of the pro-choice movement. This is my niece, someday, if she happens to have an unplanned pregnancy, being able to decide her own life. This is my niece, or your niece, or sister, mother, friend, or you, me, or any of the people whose body has the capability to become pregnant, being able to say “I decide my own life.” This is about having options, and having access to those options; about deciding to end a pregnancy, or about continuing with a pregnancy and choosing adoption, or about continuing with a pregnancy and being a parent.

The pro-choice movement is not the pro-abortion movement. The pro-choice movement is the “you decide your own life” movement. Having options available to a person, and allowing a person to choose the option that is best for them, and their current and future family? That is choice.

My niece is five years old. She was born five years ago because of an unplanned pregnancy when my sister was 19 years old, younger than I am now; the age of a significant amount of students on campus. My sister, when discovering she was pregnant, looked at her options: abortion, adoption, or parenthood. She decided, for her own personal and unique circumstances, that parenthood was the best option for her. She had the means to be able to do this unlike many others, which makes her very lucky and grateful because being a parent has worked out for her. It doesn’t for everyone.

I want my niece, and all those with the capability to become pregnant, to be able to pick the best option when it comes to a decision that literally can decide the path your life takes. And I want my niece, and us all, to say, “I decide my own life.”

Gwynn is a sophomore majoring in English and women, gender, and sexuality from Olathe. Follow her on twitter @AllidoisGwynn.

Contact at kgwynn@kansan.com .
  • Updated Sep. 18, 2012 at 11:16 pm
  • xz007

    Well, this article certainly doesn’t ooze with irony. Talk about a little girl saying, “I decide my own life,” while defending abortion, the abridgement of someone’s life. Motherhood is a responsibility and not something that can be abdicated on a whim, no matter how distressing the situation is. If you care so badly about choice, you’ll care about choice for everyone. This is not a country that gives choice to some if it encroaches on the choices of many. As someone whose mother chose to have him, I’d just as soon have wanted my mother not to have a choice on whether I deserved to be born or not. Listen, I’ll completely defend an abortion in cases of the woman’s life being in grave danger, but those aren’t the parameters being set here, are they? If a person’s livelihood in this country is only determined by how “wanted” they are or how “supportable” they are, then this is not a country I want to live in. “I decide my life.” Try telling your niece that her mother had the option of not giving birth to her, and she’s lucky that she’s alive, as if she didn’t deserve to be alive if her mother decided otherwise. Talk about horrifying.

    • fiddleback

      “Livelihood” means profession; I think you mean “right to live.” With “supportable,” you do make a good point about the tragedy of abortions based on financial or more selfish reasons, but you’re not addressing the practical dilemma. As you know, abortions, whether legal or illegal, are as old as civilization. For as long as women have become pregnant, some are desperate to reverse it. And, as Akin’s blunder served to remind us, there are actually over 30,000 victims of rape or incest who become pregnant every year. To not allow a window such as the first trimester for abortions is not only highly impractical, it makes the woman a slave to what is initially a mass of undifferentiated cells, a zygote with no central nervous system. If you want to consider that collection of cells entitled to the same rights as the mother, then we’re at the usual impasse, but that’s no reason to insult the author simply because she disagrees. She made her points fairly enough.

      • xz007

        People have been doing a lot of terrible things since the beginning of civilization, from racism to misogyny. That doesn’t make it “okay.” And “slave to what is initially undifferentiated cells?” A fetus is most susceptible to fetal alcohol syndrome during the first trimester; that sounds like when a mother is most responsible for a fetus, not least. As I said, a woman has the right to abort if her life is in danger, so I think that should answer whether I think a fetus’s rights are on equal footing with a mother’s, but assuming it has no rights is beyond the pall.

        The author made an emotional argument by introducing her cousin. Fine. But that means she opens up the hypocrisy of her argument to discussions of same emotional items. I’m not insulting the author, just pointing out the roots of her argument directly conflict with what she actually argues for. Basically, don’t play your audience for a fool, and they won’t point out how foolish your argument is.

        • fiddleback

          The long history is to remind us that women will continue to find a way to do this one way or another; at least currently we provide not only a medically safe environment but a support system that allows women to consider their options. The alcohol susceptibility is based on its smaller size and nascent neurological system. Should that vulnerability make the mother feel like carrying the fetus to term if it’s a product of rape or a dysfunctional relationship? It most likely won’t. Ultimately, viability, not vulnerability, is the factor most considered in the ethics of abortion. Obviously we tend to outlaw late-term abortion because the fetus becomes viable outside the womb.
          As for the cousin, I get the irony that you’re driving at, and sure you could consider the girl lucky, but then I’d suspect that her mother never seriously considered abortion. Many women simply couldn’t live with such a decision. But for the ones who have weighed their options and have determined that that is the best course, I just don’t consider it my place to judge them and stand in their way.

          • xz007

            I’m not interested in judging them either. I’m more interested in not having such a horrible choice foisted on them to begin with, a choice that was never there’s to make, nor is it anyone’s.

          • fiddleback

            Foisted? Again, the choice has existed via natural abortifacients for millenia, so this is not just some modern dilemma enabled only by medical advances. Desperate women seek solutions to unwanted pregnancy; there is no foisting. We just disagree over whether they have that right.

  • Eagle_Eyed

    This is the same, tired, lame sophistry one would expect from a women’s studies major. But let’s run with this logic. If the right to abort, or rid oneself of an ‘unplanned pregnancy’ (ironically the people who follow traditional Judeo-Christian teaching with regard to sex don’t have these unplanned pregnancies) can be defended under the guise of freedom then why shouldn’t the father have this same luxury?

    One could see why the father couldn’t force the mother to get an abortion I suppose, but couldn’t the father prevent her from getting one? After all, she is carrying his child–of which he is 50% responsible. Much like a disgruntled business partner couldn’t destroy property he co-owned with his former colleague/current enemy, does a woman’s ‘bodily autonomy’ include property destruction of a shared entity? If the father could show that the two intended to get pregnant at the time they conceived, and the mother reneged on this verbal contract, shouldn’t he be able to sue for damages (or allow for the child to be born so that he could raise his child with whom he has a vested interest in seeing flourish)?

    Or if one is adamant in claiming a human being isn’t a human being until that person is outside the geographical and arbitrary confines of the womb, then that person must be against forced child support. A man who lives in a world where sexual intercourse itself does not constitute taking on the responsibility of the consequence of a possible pregnancy which may result (due to legalized abortion), shouldn’t be told he has to relinquish his money to the party which chose to have the kid instead. If a woman gets to decide the fate of her having maternal duties, even after she’s conceived, why doesn’t a man get to decide the fate of his own paternal duties after impregnating someone?

    I won’t hold my breath for the column where the pro-choice, arch-feminist liberal arts major defends dead-beat dads under the guise of personal freedom.

    • fiddleback

      Is that you, Savage?

      • Eagle_Eyed

        They changed the log in, and I’m just using this one now. Glad to hear from you…

        • fiddleback

          Likewise, and your gripe about forced child support is duly noted. But this was just funny: “ironically the people who follow traditional Judeo-Christian teaching
          with regard to sex don’t have these unplanned pregnancies” You mean abstinence before marriage? LOL–totally unrealistic, even for people of devout Christian faith, who are just as likely (including Catholics!) to have abortions. And many of them are trying to be responsible – 58% of pregnancies occur with women *using* contraception.

  • UnreliableLarry

    One must assume the author of this post would have supported her sister’s right to abort this precious, precocious 5-year-old.

    Also, can we assume she replied with indignation and not indigence? I assume the little girl is not homeless.