- Maybe a woman gets an abortion because she doesn’t want to be pregnant.
- Maybe a woman gets an abortion because she does’t want what comes after being pregnant, which is becoming a mom.
- Maybe a woman gets an abortion because she doesn’t want what comes after becoming a mom, which is either giving her baby away — probably to strangers — or raising it herself.
Maybe a woman who gets pregnant just *doesn’t want to be pregnant*. Women’s bodies aren’t ever really the same after a pregnancy. They swell. Their feet get larger. Their breasts hurt and will leak milk. If, afterwards, they try to jump on a trampoline, they’re likely to pee. Oh, and they can die in childbirth.
The going rate for surrogate mothers begins at $30,000 for a pregnancy from first heartbeat through delivery. The reason the compensation is relatively significant is that getting pregnant and then being pregnant and giving birth and then giving away the baby you have born is a huge undertaking. So the free market thinks that being pregnant is the equivalent of working full time for a year. Here’s an interesting thought experiment, especially if you are a man...assuming that you don’t get a baby at the end of the process, you’re just pregnant for nine months...so...how much would you be willing to pay to not be pregnant?
Or perhaps a woman who gets pregnant doesn’t want to have the baby because she doesn’t think the guy she had sex with would make a good dad. Maybe he’s a jerk, or she thinks sharing custody would be a nightmare (and, oh, yes, an unmarried mom will be required to share custody with the biological father if he shows any interest in that at all), or she thinks he might contest the adoption (absolutely can happen). Maybe she doesn’t want to be a single mom. Maybe she wants to have a certain number of kids, but she wants to have them after she has gotten her education, established herself in her profession, and is in a better socio-economic situation for child rearing.
So for a woman maybe an abortion now doesn’t equate to “one less baby in the world.” Maybe its a tradeoff between a current baby, maybe with a dad she would prefer to not have a baby with, which she will have to either give away or raise herself and a future baby, maybe with a dad that she is happily married to, and more emotional and financial resources. So maybe *this* abortion isn’t one soul that doesn’t get to exist. Maybe it’s just a trade-off of an unplanned-for soul now versus a planned-for and wanted soul later, when the woman is ready.
People who argue that a pregnant woman should just go ahead with the pregnancy, give birth, and give up her child to a childless couple? Maybe a woman just doesn’t want to be pregnant for nine months for a baby she doesn’t want. Maybe she wants to go through that only for a baby she wants for herself. Maybe *she doesn’t want to give her child away*.
Or maybe a woman doesn’t want to be a mom at all. Ever. Maybe there’s a family history she is afraid of passing on, or maybe the idea of being a mom just doesn’t float her boat. The additional X chromosome doesn’t come with an iron-clad contract that requires that every woman who has it to reproduce. A woman doesn’t want to be a mom? Fine. In fact, it’s probably better all around if women who don’t want to be moms aren’t forced into pregnancy, childbirth, and/or raising children. Because a job you are forced into doing is a job you are probably likely to not do as well. So women who don’t want to be pregnant maybe shouldn’t be pregnant (you have to take vitamins, not drink too much alcohol, eat right, not get toxoplasmosis, go to the doctor frequently, avoid getting your hair dyed, etc, etc, etc...there are 400 page books about everything you have to do and/or not do).
If Mitt Romney doesn’t have an obligation to give impoverished families a living wage just because he is a billionaire, a woman doesn’t have an obligation to gestate spare fetuses for childless people simply because she is fertile and enjoys sex.
So whereas I appreciate the “I really wanted to have my baby, but there was something terribly wrong with the fetus and that’s why I had to have an abortion” stories, and I agree that they have their place, I wish that we would stand up a lot more for women who have abortions because:
1. They want to have sex, and
2. They don’t want to be pregnant
And maybe someday women can stop being defensive about their abortions. Wouldn’t that be something.