Lynn Paltrow's open letter to Gov. Sarah Palin, published on Alternet, does a wonderful job of connecting the dots between abortion choices, birthing choices and who gets to choose what happens to a pregnant woman's body. Considering birthing rights is absolutely necessary when we talk about restricting abortion and granting a fetus protections that trump the needs of the mother. Paltrow and her organization National Advocates for Pregnant Women, are some of the heroes of the reproductive justice movement. Below is an exerpt, but the whole letter definitely deserves a read.
"Dear Governor Sarah Palin:
Many Americans agree with your position regarding abortion -- they do this as a matter of faith, ethics, personal experience and sometimes politics. I am just wondering though, if you have thought about what would happen if you succeeded in getting your position -- that fetuses have a right to life -- established as the law of the land? Did you know that it not only threatens the lives, health and freedom of women who might want or need someday to end their pregnancies, it would also give the government the power to control the lives of women -- like you who -- go to term?
Your last pregnancy, the one that has become the topic of widespread discussion and speculation provides an important opportunity to demonstrate how this could be true.
According to press reports your water broke while you were giving a keynote speech in Texas at the Republican Governors' Energy Conference. You did not immediately go to the hospital -- instead you gave your speech and then waited at least 11 hours to get to a hospital. You evaluated the risks, made a choice, and were able to carry on your life without state interference. Texas Governor Rick Perry worried about your pregnancy but didn't stop you from speaking or take you into custody to protect the rights of the fetus."
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Damn, that's good!
Our country does this to women, and yet we, with brazen self-righteousnesses and no hint of awareness of our own hypocrisy, chide the nations who stone and circumcise their women? Are they all not simply different methods of control and suppression, and are they all not, in their own ways, equally cruel and unusual? What a dangerous precedent any small amount of control over a woman's right to choose can set... "give them an inch," as they saying goes.
I finally see (finally) the enormity of the issue, and I can't believe it took me this long. The tricky language and definition changes surrounding birth control and what that meant wasn't escaping me; I knew all of that was leading dangerously toward removing the right to choose, but even then, I didn't fully absorb the consequences of that right being removed.
Didn't, until reading this letter, understand this fully that the pro-choice stance is not only one that aims to ensure each woman has the ability to make personal choices, but that it's also one trying desperately to safeguard women from finding themselves being UTTERLY controlled by a government and/or sect of people all too comfortable with viewing women as incubators, first - people second.