"Trust Women" Cuts Both Ways

There's no way around it. It's going to have to happen. As your resident militant Nota Bene feminist, I'm going to have to write this week's column about Roe v. Wade's thirty-seventh anniversary, which happened this past Thursday. As it happens, the "theme" for the anniversary this year was "Trust Women", in honor of the late Dr. Tiller, a well-known late-term abortion provider who was gunned down while attending church in his hometown, and the "Trust Women" buttons he often wore.

I do realize, of course, that not everyone is pro-choice. If I didn't know that before, I would have definitely figured it out yesterday when I left my internship to go pick up a bite to eat and ran smack into the March for Life. Seeing thousands of people holding signs saying things like, "Women DO regret abortions", and "Don't take away my chance at fatherhood!" was enough to make nearly any feminist scream, but hey - we get the March for Women's Lives, right? Then, I accidentally made eye-contact with one of the marchers, a middle-aged man who immediately asked me, "Are you pro-life?" Still respectful and polite as ever - I, after all, just wanted to get to Chipotle and eat a delicious chicken burrito bowl - I shook my head and said, "Actually, I'm pro-choice." And that's when he started yelling at me. Didn't I know that babies just wanted to be born? That babies need their mothers? That women have an innate desire to have babies (Hannah's Biological Clock: Batteries NOT included)? And didn't I know that abortions hurt women?

Confused and a little upset that my peaceful trip to stuff my face had turned into a lecture on how I was killing the unborn, I just stared at him and walked away. I understand that the abortion debate is tense and polarized, but, um, what? Yelling at me in the middle of the street isn't going to make me agree with you. So I began to think about this phrase, "Trust Women".

Sarah Silverman once said, "I was going to get an abortion the other day. I totally wanted an abortion. And it turns out I was just thirsty." The reason this is a joke is because the audience knows that women don't act like this. Unfortunately, not everyone gets it.

If I could pick a prime example of someone NOT trusting women, it would be Justice Kennedy in Gonzalez v. Carhart. In one paragraph, he explains that even though there aren't statistics on how many women regret getting abortions, he's sure they exist! They must! Partial birth abortions are gross, and women totally don't understand what's going to happen to them if they allow the procedure to be performed. It's practically science, guys! But the Real Live Science in the Congressional Record from individual doctors and medical organizations testifying that women's lives would be endangered with the passage of the law prohibiting partial birth abortion - or intact D&E, if you want to use the medical term instead of politicized language - wasn't good enough for Justice Kennedy.

I can respect pro-life arguments that center on the life of the fetus. I don't buy it, but I understand that's a pretty powerful argument for a lot of people. I can't, however, give a bit of weight to the argument that we should prohibit abortions because they hurt women. Women, by and large, are not rushing into clinics the minute they find out they're pregnant and demanding abortions. They don't NOT understand what an abortion is. And thanks to state mandated waiting periods (which I am firmly against, but I get it - so, whatever), women must, BY LAW, take at least 24 hours to think it over.

Even though Justice Kennedy and a large percentage of March for Life participants think they're protecting women from the presumed dangers of abortion, they aren't. They're trying to protect women from their choices, essentially saying, "You can't be trusted to make this decision rationally and reasonably, so we'll make it for you." Some women do, of course, come to regret their abortions. Others don't. For some, the decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is an agonizing choice. For others, it isn't. If the pro-life camp respects women as much as they say they do, they should immediately stop arguing for banning abortion based on "women's regrets".

If "regret" and "bad for women" was an argument for banning surgical procedures, I'd argue that we should ban plastic surgery: you think Heidi Montag is going to love her new look in 30 years? You think that plastic surgery is good for women? But Montag is capable of making her own choices, even if that means she looks like a creepy plastic alien version of her old self. I don't mean to conflate plastic surgery with abortion; they are vastly different procedures with vastly different outcomes. But it does demonstrate how "regret" shouldn't be a valid argument in discussions about whether or not we should allow individuals to make particular choices about their lives.

I don't care if you are pro-choice or pro-life. Well, no, I do. I wish everyone was pro-choice, but I get that isn't realistic. I just think that we should stay away from arguments based on women's perceived inability to make important decisions in their lives.