For many women, abortion on demand means abortion for someone else’s demand
Melinda Tankard Reist from Women Hurt by Abortion, Autumn Edition 1998 (Full text of article published in Herald Sun 16 March 1998)
In the mad rush to achieve abortion on demand in WA, two little things seem to have been forgotten: there was a baby in the fridge and a mother who knew it was a baby and wanted a proper, culturally appropriate burial for that baby.
In the deafening roar of the chanting of the ‘right-to-choose’ mantra, both the baby and the mother at the centre of events have been overlooked, swept aside in the charge to establish unfettered access to abortion.
The ‘pro-choice’ flag bearers don’t see the baby in the fridge. But the mother did. How did she feel, every time she opened that fridge door to prepare food for her other children, to see the remnants of her child? Others have denigrated what was in the fridge, but she knew what it was. That’s why she didn’t want it thrown in with the other ‘medical waste.’ That’s why she wanted a proper burial.
Did that mother look at what was left of her baby and give thanks for the wondrous, glorious ‘right-to-choose’? Did she think: ‘this is a great good whose cause I must champion’?
Did that mother look at what was left of her baby and give thanks for the wondrous, glorious ‘right-to-choose Did she think: ‘this is a great good whose cause I must Champion'? Did she feel empowered by her exercise of ‘choice’? Was her self esteem enhanced?
Or did she have other thoughts? Did she ponder that she had no choice, that other choices were not forthcoming, that she might have chosen differently had she had support? ("According to one Sydney clinic counsellor, one of the main reasons women cite for terminating pregnancies is lack of support." The Australian 24/21 1998.) Did she wish that little baby alive and seated at the table with her other children?
We may never know. But the pro-choice rhetoric is never as simple as it sounds. The rhetoric of choice makes all choices sound good and equal, like products in a supermarket from which she can pick and choose. It suggests no desperation, no pressure, no coercion, either direct or reflected, in a partner’s passive non-support.
Many women have discovered otherwise.
They may not have taken their baby-pieces home. But they are reminded of their babies every day. They understand what Bob Ellis wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald last November, about "the aborted child arriving in dreams at her bedside, tugging at her sleeve, calling Mummy, Mummy".
These women might have been told their babies look like "scraps of paper" (the description given to women by a Queensland abortion counsellor) but they know they’re not. Their arms feel empty, they don’t like looking at babies, they cry for no reason. They ask: What would my baby have looked like? Was it a boy or girl?
Would-be birthdays are quietly marked, year after year. They feel strange saying they are a mother of two when there was another one, nameless, anonymous, but never really forgotten. Some become pregnant soon after the termination to try to replace the lost baby. They are filled with feelings of self-loss and other loss.
The experiences of these women have been ignored. The politics of the ‘right-to-choose’ have taken precedence over a woman’s actual lived experience of abortion. They would like to grieve but are not allowed. If they had relinquished their baby to adoption, they could. But their babies have been relinquished to a cold stainless steel bowl.
These are different voices, so far stilled in the abortion shouting match. I am trying to give them a hearing.
Women contributing their abortion stories to a book I’m writing were physically and/or emotionally hurt by the procedure. A Melbourne woman delivered her aborted baby at home in the toilet after her "safe legal" abortion.
The lawyer of another says his client’s experiences equate with assault and battery. She had been told by a counsellor in a woman’s health centre in Sydney that it was wrong of her to speak badly of her abortion experience abortion was such a hard won right. Another Melbourne woman speaks of crawling through her house at night, searching for her three aborted babies. She has considered taking her life to be with them.
A former abortion clinic nurse says women deemed not good enough for motherhood were pressured to agree to termination. She was castigated for helping women who didn't want to go ahead with the termination to dress and leave the clinic.
Women sharing their stories feel the abortion took away a baby, but not their problems. They have worn too long the mantle of silent, passive maternal suffering.
While pregnancy support and Women Hurt By Abortion groups have been criticised in the media, a number of women contacting me say if it wasn’t for the care they received from these places, they might be dead. One of these groups in South Australia says it cannot keep up with the calls from distressed women seeking their help.
It’s time to re-examine ‘pro-choice’ orthodoxy. The rhetoric of choice is isolationist. It tells women: you're on your own. They are abandoned to their autonomy’.
Former abortion clinic nurse says women deemed not good enough for motherhood were pressured to agree to termination
Abortion has become an act of social obligation. Many women contacting me say others, usually partners or parents, wanted them to have the abortion. For many women, abortion on demand means someone else's demand. Is a woman celebrating her reproductive freedom if she fears abandonment?
Ramon Koala asked in the Weekend Australian (February 21-22) "Why should you (a 17-year-old) be denied the chance of completing your education at the whim of anti-abortion zealots?"
But there is a prior question: why shouldn’t she be able to complete her education even if she has the baby? And what sort of choice is it to have to decide between her education and her baby? Shouldn’t society be made to accommodate women and their children so that neither are disadvantaged? But no, women are restructured while society stays the same. Termination of pregnancy helps conform women’s bodies to their hostile environment, often perpetuating rather than solving, the injustices inflicted by our political and economic system.
No births should occur that would stretch our resources or call upon our repressed communitarian obligations to care. I was involved in setting up a home for single pregnant women; the neighbours objected and threatened legal action. They didn’t want girls like that in their nice street and anyway, shouldn’t we just send them to family planning. ie. for an abortion?
"Abortion is the last in a long line of non-choices..."
We can't talk about choice if women are driven by their difficult circumstances into the waiting arms of an abortionist. As Germain Greer once wrote: "Abortion is the last in a long line of non-choices... (Sydney Morning Herald, May 9, 1992)
There's a lot more to this issue than we’ve so far heard. The pro-choice orthodoxy has reigned supreme. The language of choice suppresses a critical examination of the Issues. While there are some other voices that need to be heard if we are going to get anywhere near an honest debate.
The author, who has a special interest in medical abuses of women, is writing a book documenting coerced abortions. I am especially interested in cases of coercion by the medical profession and abortion clinic staff but will consider stories of extreme coercion and pressure by families and friends. The book’s theme would be along the lines of the other side of choice/the untold story of abortion in Australia."
‘1 will have the utmost respect for privacy and there is no need for the use of real names." This is an opportunity for the voices of women to be heard.
Interested parties should address mad to:
Melinda Tankard Reist
P0 Box 197
Jamison ACT 2614
or telephone Melinda on 0414 305 738.