Opinions regarding reproductive rights, contraceptive policies and the abortion debate have become a widespread phenomenon. Upcoming political elections and increasing reproductive technologies have resulted in a hostile climate for women’s reproductive rights. While many opinions project a facade of concern for women’s health, there are clear underlying reasons for the focus on the problematic uterus. Every political candidate, contraceptive representative, and local pastor is likely to express opinions congruent with their institution’s initiatives. While expressing personal opinions is a valid method of self-expression, I find the demographics behind these media representations slightly startling. Political, religious, and economic initiatives all have a stake in the debate, yet the majority of these institutions are disproportionately male and disproportionately white. Why are so many male-dominated institutions this concerned with an exclusively female organ?
Reading anti-abortion media makes women who support abortion rights appear almost sinister. It’s juxtaposed as if there’s an exclusivy female conspiracy to eliminate future generations – though the scenario is not nearly as simple as ‘good versus evil’. The anti-abortion side of the debate can appear just as terrifying – rooted in conservative religious ideology, infringing upon an intended secular society. Either way, headlines are starting to read like thr editors have mistaken articles with Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
With divergent opinions represented in the media, the matter of reproductive rights is a challenging one to come to a consensus on, and even more challenging to formulate personal decisions for. Between religious influence on politics and economic interest in developing contraceptive and reproductive technologies, there exists a clear affiliation between power, profits, and reproductive policies. It is clear that such interest in the uterus is not coincidental or haphazard, but instead a strategic maneuver from which to maintain religious and political power, or economic profit, at the expense of the women to whom these body parts and rights belong. Abortion has become important both politically and religiously in deciding which candidates to support. Steven Erlelt from Lifenews.com reports that Catholic Bishops have released a statement encouraging voters to make anti-abortion initiatives the centrifuge of their political priorities. A little research returns other vocal attacks against abortion rights, initiatives, making ridiculous statements harmful to reproductive rights: Armstrong Williams from The Hill advises, ‘women need to think about the consequences before having an abortion.’
According to Right Wing Watch, anti-abortion activist Lila Rose suggested in 2009 that if they’re legal, “abortions would be performed in the public square.” Both comments set women’s rights back generations. In a Reuters article by Corrie MacLaggan, he reports that last May Texas Gov. Rick Perry was‘pleased’ to put in place a law that forces women to undergo a pre-abortion sonogram before they finalize a decision. With such misinformed, draconia and aggressive opinions in the media, it’s indeed challenging not to make a dystopian fiction analogy.
From an economic perspective, fertility treatments and contraceptive medications are expanding markets in which extensive profits are to be incurred. News stations describe “wombs for rent” and other egg donation services as examples of solidarity amongst women – experiences with positive results for everyone involved. Fertility procedures and contraceptive medication, however, have very harmful potential affects, that too frequently go miscommunicated. Both the medical discourse on the back of my birth control medication, and the attacking political debates making me, as a reproductive rights supporter, responsible for baby killing mayhem, have disenfranchised both myself and other women. If products and procedures are intended for our use, their harmful effects and economic incentives should be more clearly communicated.
Debates over women’s reproductive organs have a unique characteristic: they exclusively affect women. These policies and technologies do not affect the entire society, as they do women and their bodies, yet the most vocal institutions are not reflective of the population that their opinions and policies are meant to represent. A democracy is supposed to be characteristic of its constituents, but in regards to reproductive debate and policies, opinions are often male-dominated. While women and their partners are both affected by personal reproductive choices, it is ultimately the women’s body and rights that are at risk. With so many divergent opinions and misinformation, it’s hard to navigate reproductive rights media – from my perspective, these are crucial times in which people in cohorts for profit and power are trying to influence you and your healthcare decisions; if you examine the debate from a different angle it sounds even more ominous, doesn’t it?
Kimberly Ovitz is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].
![By freestocks.org [Creative Commons Zero], via Wikimedia Commons](https://dailycollegian.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Picture1-1.png)
James Fiorentino • Nov 7, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Simple: Anti-woman bigots, nutjobs, and all-around clowns–Keep your laws off of women’s bodies, and we’ll keep our hands off of your throats.
Kimberly Ovitz • Nov 5, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Pius-
I do not believe that men and women have the same human reason. I believe that their reasoning is shaped by many personalized characteristics but especially their experiences as being male, female, or however they choose to identify. To address your analogy — I could not say something as personal or informed about China, as someone who is from China. Do I think some men and women have developed certain similarities in their reason, naturally, but I do not think that this is the case in comparing women to institutions of American politics, religion, or the healthcare industry. There is no A = A truth between different perspectives arising from divergent epistemologies.
Pius Aeneas • Nov 3, 2011 at 11:13 pm
“Pius — I am not sure I understand your comment, generally both men and women have fists, also I would hope you could conjure up a better analogy.”
Why does it matter if both women and men have fists? Cannot a man understand everything he need to about female physiology to make sound judgments about it. Or do you deny that both men and women have the same human reason?
However, the fact you do not answer the analogy shows that you do not want to tread where it leads. Does an armless person have no right to tell me what to do with my fists? Yes or no. They obviously do since they can grasp that me using my fists in order to assault people is detrimental to human rights and prosperity. It is not having a fist that enables me to come to grips with that judgment, but by following human reason. Similarly, a man can come to a proper conclusion based on human reason about abortion.
I do not get why who is in power matters. Who cares who says something as long as its true? I do not have to be Muslim to say something true about Islam nor do I have to be Chinese to say something true about China. The truth is objective and available to anyone by virtue of human reason.
” I do not picture a board of male representatives plotting to divide and conquer women — but rather, a scenario where women’s rights are being infringed upon by their lack of representation.”
Again, why does it matter? The truth is the truth, A=A, no matter who says it!
Kimberly Ovitz • Nov 2, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Thank you — though it does probably read a bit of a conspiracy, what I am trying to emphasize is that women are disproportionately absent from these institutions which is conflicting given these institutions roles in the debate over women’s reproductive rights. I do not picture a board of male representatives plotting to divide and conquer women — but rather, a scenario where women’s rights are being infringed upon by their lack of representation. Positions of power in politics, economics, and religion are definitely male dominated in the U.S. and that is not conspiracy but a fact. In regards to economics, women do account for major gender specific markets and it is only natural, and also detrimental, that these markets are manipulated for the sake of profit, yet at times, also at the expensive of female consumers.
john • Nov 2, 2011 at 3:03 am
Interesting well-written article although your emphasis on a conspiracy theory of evil male controlled corporations trying to manipulate womens’ bodies to make extra money sounds a little crazy. But honestly it was a good story except for the conspiracy theory.
Anon111 • Oct 25, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Personally, if I were encountered with the circumstance of an unexpected pregnancy with my partner it would be a difficult choice, but I believe it would tip in the favor of abortion. My girlfriend and I are young, working professionals. Our experience in the workforce inform our ambitions of a bright future, while graduate school/medical school loom just around the corner. However, our experience also informs our perspective and conversations about pregnancy. Despite working ~50 hours a week for a well-respected scientific institution, the pay for recent college graduates is scarce. Consequently, my girlfriend and I both work a job on the side on top of juggling time for studying for important exams and leisure. No where does a baby fit into that picture with the next three-five years being financially uncertain. Though a child does not fit into that picture, we are not careless and use contraceptives responsibly. If the contraceptive fails, pregnancy is the inconvenient consequence, which was unintended by the use of contraceptives in the first place. I maintain that my girlfriend has the right to choose what she does both with her body and her future. In the scenario that my significant other becomes pregnant, it would be a difficult choice. But the reality is, we’re still young and have been chasing our dreams since childhood. Not only do we want to give our future prospective children that opportunity by securing a permanent job and financial stability, but we want to give ourselves a sensible chance of accomplishing and pursuing our own opportunities first. A child does not necessarily take those opportunities away, but a child severely complicates matters. Your argument sounds terrific on paper and from an ethical perspective, but it is out of touch with the reality of how circumstance informs perspective.
Dwayne McKnight • Oct 25, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Okay, so I take it you haven’t heard of the heap paradox since you replied directly to me without answering my question at all: at what point in your mind (which is SO TOTALLY CLEAR of emotional blackmail and operating on purely sound logic considering your continued Nazi moral comparison) does a group of live cells become a baby? At conception? Is one sperm and one egg a “baby” in your mind? Or is it later, when the clustering of cells begins to appear relatively human-like in its traits? The former seems completely asinine, the latter seems like an entirely cosmetic decision. Does your decision have to do with the level of brain activity? You are aware that late term abortions are illegal, i.e. any abortion is done before any level of consciousness could ever possibly be established, correct?
I am genuinely interested in hearing your reason – the baby obviously doesn’t exist indefinitely in the womb before being born, so when does it go from being a cluster of cells to a “baby” in your mind? Can you manage to answer that without irreverently referring to people who disagree with you as war criminals? I don’t mean to patronize you but your username implies you graduated from college in 1990 and adults can usually answer a straightforward question the first time it’s asked.
David Hunt '90 • Oct 25, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Dwayne: You DO know the difference between a human being that is capable of saying “no” to sexual intercourse – let alone unprotected intercourse (rape is another matter entirely with its own ethical quandries) – and a rutting animal? Because what it boils down to is the “right” to have sex and dispose of inconvenient consequences.
And the first step to doing that is to dehumanize the baby to a fetus… just like the Nazis did to the Jews, the Turks to the Armenians, etc.
Dwayne McKnight • Oct 25, 2011 at 12:31 pm
@ David Hunt ’90
And do YOU know what the difference between you and your wife consciously deciding to have kids and a non-deliberately pregnant woman who is financially incapable and/or emotionally unprepared to have a child is? Luckily enough, you answered your own question: Perspective. And really? Comparing those with a pro-choice stance with Nazis? Now who’s losing perspective…
You can call a fetus a “baby” all you want, it doesn’t hide the fact that you’re just proposing an emotionally loaded argument in order to curb peoples’ civil rights. Just out of curiosity, have you ever heard of Sorites paradox of the heap? How many live cells have to cluster together before you’re ready and willing to browbeat someone over what they do with their body?
David Hunt '90 • Oct 25, 2011 at 8:58 am
My point, Ms. Ovitz, is that whether one is pro-life or pro-choice is one of perspective: how we view the naescent life within.
Doing a little cut and paste, let’s start with the core of my essay:
A woman wakes up to another day of morning nausea. She buys a pregnancy test, and it comes up positive. From there, two scenarios unfold, admittedly at extreme ends of the spectrum….
Scenario One: She is suffused with warmth, knowing that she is about to be a mother. Names flash through her mind. Visions of baby clothes, cribs, and everything else dance before her eyes as she starts making plans for one of — if not the — biggest events in her life.
Scenario Two: She curses, throwing the test into the trash. Upon leaving the bathroom, she reaches for the yellow pages for the phone number of an abortion clinic.
What is the difference between these two women? Perspective. How the life within is perceived – because there is no real difference in the facts-on-the-ground. The woman is pregnant. Whether it is a child-to-be, or “just a fetus”, the physical reality is the same – only the terminology differs.
The Nazis called Jews and other undesirables “untermensch”. Under-men. They justified the Shoah (I’m Jewish) solely on the basis of dehumanizing those they killed. “Fetus”, while technically accurate, is a way of blinding us to the reality that it is a baby.
I recall the first time my wife saw the pregnancy test for our beloved daughter. and rushed to show it to me. Neither of us thought the word “fetus”. It was a BABY. As that baby grew, we felt her kick. And, thank G-d, we now have a gorgeous little girl and are planning / hoping for another.
Which comes around to why I inquired about your mother. Do you think – and ask her if you can! – that she EVER referred to you as a “fetus”? Or as her baby, even before you were in her arms?
Kimberly Ovitz • Oct 24, 2011 at 7:48 pm
David, thank you for response. I have tried to access your link, but it doesn’t seem to be working. This article is from my own perspective, not that of my mothers. Her experience was particularly unique and incredibly non traditional; I couldn’t even begin to grasp her feelings, regardless of my gender. Given that, I’m not sure that you would be able to grasp a women’s feelings on being pregnant either. As I have refereed to in my article however, pregnancy and other reproductive choices are crucial for both partners involved, I am not attempting to delegitimize a man’s experience in the situation. My article is meant to acknowledge the fact that the representation however is disproportionate.
Pius — I am not sure I understand your comment, generally both men and women have fists, also I would hope you could conjure up a better analogy.
Pius Aeneas • Oct 24, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Leave your sense of justice out of my fists! I have the right to do whatever I want with my body and you have no right constraining my use of it with your own moral judgments, with you being a woman clearly incapable of grasping what a man ought to do with his fists! I don’t care what you do yourself, just leave my fists out of it! Now excuse me as I go beat my roommate to death…
Pius Aeneas • Oct 24, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Leave your sense of justice out of my fist! I have the right to do whatever I want to do with my body and you haven right imposing your own judgments, with you being a woman clearly influenced by your inability to grasp a man’s use of his fists, out of them! Now excuse me as I go beat my roommate to death…
David Hunt '90 • Oct 24, 2011 at 12:01 pm
I have a question, Ms. Ovitz: When your mother found out she was pregnant with you, do you think she said “Wow, I’m gonna have a baby” or “Wow, I’ve got a fetus in me”?
I refer you to my essay:
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles2/HuntAbortion.php