I agree with Michelle in that some of Arcana’s points were not well explained such as relating an abortion to any choice a mother makes for a child. I don’t agree that aborting a child is like sending a child to school or telling your child you’re a lesbian. I understand Arcana is trying to make the point that abortions are not bad and that it is a woman’s choice, however I don’t think any woman feels the need to celebrate and make public their decision to have an abortion. I’d imagine it would be extremely emotional and most women would not want to discuss it. I liked how Arcana used her experience working at and abortion clinic to describe how emotional it was for every single woman she encountered. Arcana’s chapter is important in addressing abortions because it puts the topic on a very public platform. I agree women need to know there are other women like themselves who are struggling with abortions and all people need to recognize abortion as a motherhood issue.
The passage in the Essential Feminist Reader was interesting because it told the history of abortions is the whole world. It seems odd that abortions use to be illegal and it wasn’t until Roe vs. Wade it became legal. I have never thought of abortion in a global perspective, which seems odd because it is clearly a woman’s issue throughout the world. I think it is awesome that these women were able to support each other and fight for their rights. If these women never gained the courage to speak out then who knows where the legality of abortions would lie today.
Obviously, abortions are a very controversial topic in much U.S. political debate. I recently watched Freakonomics and discovered something new about abortions. The writers examine why crime rates fell tremendously from the 1970s to present day. They cannot find any other reason why crime rates fell besides the fact that Roe vs. Wade happened and abortions became legal. States where abortions were illegal had higher crime rates than states where abortions were legal. This is really interesting because a lot of unwanted pregnancies were aborted, therefore many children were conceived and delivered in to loving parents and were not as prone to criminal activities.
http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/
Whitney-
ReplyDeleteI found your comment on the correlation between crime-rate drop since the 1970s and abortion legality in the US to be extremely interesting. I think that this statistic, while partially unbelievable, makes perfect sense. While there are an infinite amount of other variables that can affect the instance of crime in a country, in my Psych/Neuro classes here we often discuss that with a strong and loving social support network, developing children will rarely turn to illegal activity. Thus, the ability for women to choose abortion when they know that they will be incapable of selflessly nurturing a child becomes even more important, because it allows for future safety and security within society.
Whitney – I too was really interested to read your comments regarding abortion and crime rates. I read Freakonomics in high school and totally forgot about most of the facts it stated (although I remember being entirely consumed by it when I was reading)! After reading your post I remembered that I was VERY intrigued by the possible correlation between the falling levels of crime and the legality of abortion. I think that this is particularly interesting to discuss because in class, and in most discussions regarding abortions that I have had, we focus mostly on the rights of the woman to chose and we talk about how being forced to carry a baby and then raise it may negatively impact the mother’s quality of life. However, these statistics force me to think about the quality of life of the child in question. If a mother were seriously convinced that an abortion is in the best interest of herself and the child it is important that we consider how not being able to terminate the pregnancy affects the childs life. The crime statistics tells me that their lives are more likely to be challenging, probably emotionally and economically, and thus they might be led to a destructive path of crime. This is an interesting argument that I will keep in mind when further discussing the issue of abortions with people.
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