| The right’s gift
for nomenclature as policy (as with “pro-life,”
doesn’t calling it a “war on terror”
make it so?) has paid off generously from a public
relations standpoint, and has been hard to challenge.
This past September, however, Lynn Paltrow, Executive
Director of National
Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), had the guts
to pose hard questions and clear challenges to the
South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion (SDTFSA)
when she gave testimony before them. In doing so,
she silenced the room — and laid out a way to
put the right on the run.
Paltrow’s presentation
offers a glimpse of a reframed abortion debate in
the US — a debate that can be turned into a
larger, broader, and farther-reaching discussion about
how best to recognize, respect, and meet the needs
of all pregnant and parenting women and their families.
The SDTFSA hearings were the doing of anti-choice
activists who had convinced the South Dakota legislature
to consider the question of whether or not abortion
in America today is voluntary and informed. But the
activists had not counted on Paltrow, whose numerous
commentaries and articles have appeared in medical
journals and the popular press, and who is a frequent
lecturer to medical and public health organizations
and health care providers. Her fans include Nation
columnist Katha Pollitt, who referred to Paltrow as
“brilliant” in a piece
earlier this year.
“Of course, abortion is both [voluntary and
informed],” Paltrow said firmly. “But
by asking such questions, anti-choice proponents create
doubt and put pro-choice supporters on the defensive.”
She explained that anti-choice activists often use
state legislatures as a laboratory for new restrictions
on abortion: "The new restrictions — whether
on ‘partial birth abortion’ or ‘fetal
pain’— also provide vehicles for inflaming
and organizing opposition to abortion and support
for broader economic and political agendas.”
Paltrow was a South Dakota anti-choice activist’s
nightmare — a polished expert witness who has
worked on many cases involving women who wanted to
continue their pregnancies to term, but were denied
the freedom to decide how by “pro-life”
policies. So she had quite a bit to say on the topic
of what is and is not a voluntary or informed medical
procedure.
From these cases, Paltrow offered a grim assessment
of the harm that “pro-life” legislation
has done in the name of “protecting” the
“unborn.” She outlined three actual cases
in which hospitals successfully advocated for a cesarean
section over the objections of pregnant women and
their families by using the anti-abortion argument
that fetuses are separate legal persons with independent
rights.
The first case ends tragically, with the death of
the mother and the fetus; in the second, the forced
surgery turns out not to have been necessary; and
the couple in the third scenario — devout Christians
who are expecting their seventh child — leave
the hospital that is trying to force a cesarean section
on the mother and successfully have their baby elsewhere,
through vaginal delivery.
Having eviscerated the argument that “pro-life”
policies support the health, well-being, and autonomy
of women who want to carry their pregnancies to term,
Paltrow turns to the larger task of outlining genuine
protections and supports for pregnant and parenting
women.
But there’s just one small problem: the South
Dakota legislature, despite its alleged interest in
the health and welfare of women and their children,
has never convened a task force to explore any of
the issues she raises, let alone approved any of the
measures she suggests.
This, of course, is Paltrow’s point.
“The leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths
in American today is murder,” Paltrow coolly
informs the SDTFSA. Perhaps “a Task Force to
examine why men commit violence against women…would
reflect true valuing of mothers, pregnant women and
their families, and life itself.” How about
“legislation that might protect the 10 to 20
million women, including those who work part-time
or for small companies, who are not protected from
discrimination based on pregnancy, but must work in
order to feed and house their children”? Or
legislation that would “grant new mothers or
fathers paid parental leave”?
What might the world look like if our elected officials
and “pro-life” activists devoted the time,
energy, and funding they currently spend on restricting
abortion to helping women to care for their families?
Or to ensuring that pregnant women live in a country
where they need not worry that their children will
survive infancy or go without health care, food, shelter,
a good education, and a safe and healthy environment?
If only that were really their agenda.
Nancy Goldstein’s next column will appear
on Thursday, December 22nd. She can be reached at
[email protected].
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