His Right to Choose

A guest post by Jessica Prominski

“Abortion”—the context and meaning of this word has been in the media, legislation, and public discourse. Nations and states have discussed, decided on, and revised abortion legislation for decades. And yet, the discussion never seems to end.

First, I am a self-identified heterosexual woman and I identify as feminist. I am pro-choice. This has an impact on the way I view pro/anti-choice legislation and abortion. However, while my feminism is about choice, it’s also about inclusion and addressing limitations of supporting rigid gender roles and gender expression.

I was reminded of the consequences of supporting and teaching rigid gender roles when I was talking to a previous sexual partner about abortion. We were not having sex (defined here as penetrative intercourse) but I am fascinated with people’s responses to abortion and discussions around choice. My partner previously identified to me that he is pro-choice. When I asked him what he would think or do if I got pregnant, I was surprised at his answer. My previous partners indicated they would not only support but would actually prefer me getting an abortion should pregnancy become a reality for us.  However, he indicated that he sees pregnancy and parenthood as a crucial responsibility and does not agree with using abortion as a form of birth control. He said he would do everything he could to encourage me to complete the pregnancy and deliver the baby. When I asked how we could ever afford to take care of a baby, and co-parent a child (we have not been together very long) he said I didn’t have to be involved in the child’s life if I didn’t want to but he would be responsible for his mistake and take care of the child to the best of his abilities.

I suggested the idea of adoption as a solution to my hypothetical pregnancy. He said he would not be okay with adoption and would be responsible for the child he created, even if it’s not the ideal time in his life for parenthood.

I told him that while I would talk to him about it and consider his perspective, the choice to complete or terminate a pregnancy was mine, because the child would be inside of my body. I told him that there is no way I could complete a pregnancy and deliver a child and then say “see ya never” and leave him to parent alone so that’s why I would prefer abortion at this time in my life. He said if I got an abortion, he would never speak to me again. I was shocked … I’ve never had this response before and didn’t know what to say.

For a few weeks, I thought about this conversation and wasn’t sure what I’d do if we did have sex and I got pregnant (maybe this is still why we haven’t had sex). But all of this thinking brought me to thinking about the rigidity of gender roles. I have been noticing limitations for gender expression and roles for women but have not considered how rigid and difficult expectations of gender expression are for men. But men feel pressure too—to be a gentlemanly but unemotional, aggressive, logical, responsible provider and sexual being.

Masculinity is defined extremely rigidly in much of the global community. I believe young men have been taught that they are decision-makers that have power and should make all decisions, even if it is outside of their rights or they do not have the knowledge to do so.  We hear so much in the media about men who are dead-beat dads and men who don’t pay child support, and how bad and devastating single-mother-led-families can be on children. This becomes ingrained in our thoughts and behaviours. And this is where I think my partner was during our discussion about abortion. Most men are simultaneously taught that they are biologically determined to be sexual and unemotional, safe sex isn’t important, and that they should avoid being dead-beat dads, which is completely illogical given how each of these demands overlap. They are supposed to want sex often, whether it is inside of a committed relationship or not, that they should be hard-working, unemotional, dominant in relationships, and that they should at the same time, be responsible fathers if pregnancy becomes a reality. Men receive mixed, confusing, contradictory messages about masculinity similar to those that women receive about femininity, and neither can seem to win.

If men support abortion, they will be perceived as supporting murder and ignoring their “responsibilities.” If they support adoption, they are taking the easy way out and will be called pussies and powerless. If they support a pregnancy and are a responsible father, they are expected to be: (1) a good provider and hard-worker, yet also spend enough time with children to make sure they don’t have the “devastating” impacts of a single-parent-led-family, (2) unemotional but supportive, and (3) dominant leader of the household without controlling every single decision of their children. Expectations for men and definitions of masculinity, especially in terms of parenting and having children, are impossible to fulfill which is why perhaps so many men identify as pro-choice but then if a pregnancy became a reality in their relationships, they struggle to find a solution supported by society and other men and a situation in which they feel comfortable supporting while still feeling “masculine enough.”

Some of the hesitation around having sex might have been because we were not together long or perhaps because we weren’t “officially together”, just seeing each other. However, some of it might rely on the fact that we would had some conflict in approaching an unplanned pregnancy. In fact, if we did have sex and I did happen to get pregnant, given his response, I don’t know if I would even tell my partner about my decision to have an abortion.

And I know that’s not necessarily fair and not a situation I would like to be involved in, so I’m struggling a little bit. It might just be the way things have gone, but our decision not to have sex is mutual, and I think our conflict about abortion is a contributing factor. Which is hard. We have an intense physical chemistry and I would like to have those intimate moments together. Maybe this is something that will change over time or as we grow more comfortable with each other we would be able to have a different discussion. 

Ultimately, this partner and I stopped seeing each other but remain close. 

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Jessica Prominski is currently a Master of Arts student in Equity Studies and plans to begin her Masters in Social Work in the next two years. She is a case manager at a women's shelter in Hamilton and does diversity education for Hamilton Health Sciences. Jessica is also a Board of Directors member for a shelter in Mississauga, Media Coordinator for Slutwalk Hamilton and is doing policy work on violence against women through Rainbow Health Ontario.

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Cross-posted at The Good Men Project

All of My Eggs in One Basket

A guest post by Tricia Morris.


Recently I went to a talk at the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton) about reproductive justice. A couple of humans from the law school spoke, along with a clinic escort, and a few other notable feministing folks from around Fredericton. In many ways, the talk was amazing. It is always inspiring to be around so many people who respect people’s bodies and the choices they make about them. I learned some interesting things about laws that regulate abortion here in New Brunswick, and I chatted with a few people who I want to be my new friends. Great.

There were parts of the event, though, that left me feeling so frustrated. A lot of the discussion seemed to center around autonomy, and the idea that if “it’s my body, it’s my choice.” I know it’s a bit unusual to find this frustrating. All of the humans who sat behind me offered appreciative “mmmmmmmhm” noises after someone spoke about autonomy and choice. As a “pro-choice” human I’m supposed to talk about how it’s my body and thus my choice, but I just don’t want that to be my only option anymore. Bear with me! Here’s my thinking:

During a presentation, one of the presenters spoke about how sophisticated the Right is getting in their recent discussions of abortion. The Right is, time and time again, coming up with arguments and laws that significantly threaten people’s ability to make reproductive choices in New Brunswick. And people who were on the fence about abortion are being convinced by these laws and arguments. The Right is using pro-women and pro-family rhetoric to denounce abortion, and they’re being sneaky about it (see, for example, this gem). They’re co-opting activists’ language, and they’re using pro-lady lingo to advance super gross right-wing agendas. The Right is gaining even more ground, and the world is getting even scarier here on the East Coast of Canada. . . It was, needless to say, a great presentation. At the end of their presentation, the presenter offered a thought that stuck with me: those of us who support abortion need to step it up. The Right is getting even more sophisticated with their arguments, and as pro-choice folks we need to follow suit.

I could not agree more. I need more than the arguments I’ve got right now. So many of the arguments I hear in support of a human’s right to choose abortion end up like this: “It’s my body. I’ll do what I want with it!” Yes. Sure. But in many ways this argument also frustrates the hell out of me. I know that is not a popular thing to put out there—that you’re frustrated by current arguments about autonomy. But I am. I have a problem with them, in part, because I think they get heard in much the same ways as a child’s answer to an argument is heard (e.g. “It’s my truck! I don’t have to share it!”). The arguments aren’t working for me very well any more. People already know how to tell me how wrong I am—why sharing is good, and how I should be using my truck, and where the truck comes from. It’s not that I don’t think autonomy is an important thing to talk about. I definitely do. It’s just not enough for me anymore to say that autonomy is synonymous with the tagline “my body, my choice.” If the only defense I have against people who want me to carry a fetus to term against my will is that it’s my choice, then I am so afraid that I’m going to lose the argument. The Right is getting more sophisticated, and I’ve got so much to lose and the only argument I’ve got at my disposal is an argument that the Right already knows how to dispute. That is so scary.

The Right already knows how to dispute the argument, in part, because they played such a big role in creating it. Individual choice is the cornerstone of a neoliberal/capitalist market—the individual makes rational choices and takes personal responsibility for their actions. If abortion is positioned as a rational choice that humans make about their bodies, the Right has a ready-made opposition. We live in a world where we consistently call some humans (notably cis women, but other humans too) “overly emotional,” “crazy,” “untrustworhy,” “irrational,” and a whole host of other things that invalidate our abilities to make rational choices. Only straight, white males make rational choices. So when the only argument I have for abortion is that it is “my body, my choice” we have a problem: the Right already knows how to tells us that overly emotional and irrational people can’t make reasonable choices.

Here’s the other part: I don’t even think I believe the arguments about autonomy anymore. I know I’m supposed to say “It’s my body!” . . . but I don’t even believe myself as I’m saying it anymore. Maybe it’s because every single day I get cues that tell me that my body isn’t mine, and I’ve internalized it in such a bad way that I don’t believe in bodily autonomy anymore. Maybe my body belongs, just a little bit, to the guy who grabbed my butt this morning or to the woman who judged me with her eyes when I ordered a cheeseburger or the human from 40 Days for “Life” who told me not to be an abortion. And that’s about patriarchy, and I want to fight it all with arguments about autonomy. I do! But when I think about autonomy as being equal to individual choice, it just isn’t a productive conceptualization of autonomy for me. What does it mean when we argue for autonomy? What does that look like? I don't think these are questions we talk about enough.

In so many ways, I rely on others. I rely on community, and family, and a whole host of other human bodies in order to “be myself.” Arguments that I should control my body ignore that, in so many ways, this body isn’t out there on its own making choices. It is constituted through my interactions with other bodies. It relies on other bodies. “Being me” requires so many other people to make that possible. I understand that there is a certain level of danger in positioning abortion as a ‘community’ issue, or as an issue that is not about individual women’s bodies. I understand that there are risks to talking about bodies without recourse to the autonomy argument. But this argument is, itself, so fucking dangerous. Not only is it an argument the Right knows how to combat, but it is also one that isolates me and individualizes the problem of my unwanted fetus. In community, together, can’t we think of new ways of talking about abortion that don’t leave me isolated and making an individual choice in a scary world that calls me irrational? I just can’t put all of my eggs in that one basket.

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Tricia Morris is a feminist and fiction lover who lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She is starting a nursing program at the University of New Brunswick in January, which she hopes will lead to more amazing conversations about abortion, friendships with seniors, and subversive knowledge about the healthcare system that will help humans get what they need.
Heh? Heh.

Write for Me! A Letter to My Readers

Dear Readers,

As you may have noticed, the posting here at Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome has been spotty over the last year or so. At first I convinced myself that it was on temporary hold while I planned my wedding, but the wedding is over and I find myself with a conundrum: I don’t have the time or the energy to produce a reasonable amount of new content for the blog.

In its heyday, ACiAA had a pretty reasonable audience, and it did pretty well for a blog largely about abortion access in the Maritimes. I don’t want to get rid of it, mainly because I think there are things that still need to be said and it would be a shame to waste this platform. It has become increasingly clear to me that I am just not the one to say those things.

So, I’m opening the blog up to contributors. I would love to hear from anyone, but am particularly looking for young people, particularly in the Maritimes, and especially activists and clinic escorts. ACiAA has mostly dealt with abortion and related issues but I’m open to posting on any number of related topics, including (but not limited to): pregnancy, birth control, adoption, childfree/parenting, sex, sexuality, gender, reproductive justice, access to sexual/reproductive health services, challenges of activism, etc. The most important thing is that we're not just re-hashing American abortion news - this is a Canadian content blog.

If you would like to contribute to the blog, please contact me. It can be as frequently or infrequently as you like (one-time guest spots welcome!). Ideally I would like to be putting up weekly content, but I’ll see what kind of interests this gets. Please feel free to spread the word - the more interested people, the better!

Email me at pedgehog (at) gmail (dot) com.

Your humble blogger,
Peggy (the Pedgehog)

My Film Debut!

Hey, so remember that documentary I was talking about - the one I'm in? Well, they have announced the Canadian premiere, which will take place at the Whistler Film Festival in BC on November 29th, 2012 (next Thursday!).

If you're in the area I highly recommend checking it out. The film is called Status Quo? - the unfinished business of Feminism in Canada and it's a really innovative and very nitty-gritty look at contemporary feminism, including topics like missing and murdered Aboriginal women and immigrant childcare workers that are often left out of mainstream and second wave-centric evaluations of "where we are now" in the movement. You guys, it made my heart burst out of my chest. There are some really amazing and inspiring people in the film that you will want to listen to all day and then maybe hug.

If you're not in Whistler, please look out for the film in your area (it will most likely be played widely as part of International Women's Day in March). I will keep you abreast of details, of course, particularly any screenings in Toronto or the Maritimes. It's not only a great film, but a perfect way to support young female filmmakers and feminist women of colour.