Arizona’s top court stuck in 1864
State resurrects law from era ruled by white supremacy and xenophobia
When Arizona’s Supreme Court reinstated an abortion ban this week, it yanked a cord that connected its decision to a law birthed in white supremacy and xenophobia.
No surprise then that the topic of abortion rights is re-emerging when both those ideologies are making a resurgence. Now, as in the past, such laws disproportionately harm Black and Indigenous communities as well as women and people of colour.
Canada, which has a long history of forced sterilizations to limit births in those very communities, and where such practices persist today, is fertile ground for such ideologies.
Yet, “does one have the right to an abortion?” is such a tired and tiresome poseur of a question to deal with, in 2024.
Why are we still “debating” that most personal of choices? Bodily autonomy that was long exercised in human history was unnecessarily criminalized more than a century ago, and now women are trying to claw back this intrinsic right inch by inch. All the while, legal or not, millions of women and other genders continue to have abortions.
Yet, while abortion rights are talked about over and over again, discussions of the ins and outs of abortion itself are rarely loud.
Mainstream pregnancy stories are often about grinning mommies and gurgling babies, often in heterosexual relationships, living in relative luxury, with a shopping component thrown in — what to get for the baby? Heavens forbid we ignore the capital to be squeezed out of every life experience.
If there is a deviation from such narrow representation, it is to express sadness and grief — about a woman’s inability to become pregnant or an inability to carry a fetus to term. Don’t get me wrong. Having babies can be a wonderful experience, and not having one can leave one with profound sense loss. But the archaic, gendered expectation of giving birth is so seeped in the pores of our society that women often internalize feelings of inadequacy even when the issue is outside their control. Someone not wanting to be pregnant is too outside the realm of this blinkered view.
Maybe it’s for the best that abortion remain in the private realm, relegated to the same health-care category of a monthly period, discussed with a focus on support.
Instead, even though Canada is exemplary in approaching abortions precisely through this lens rather than a legal one, and the issue is not on the main parliamentary agenda, social campaigns are afoot to make abortion into everyone’s business, be they politicians or school trustees or ordinary folks undeterred by their ignorance of what women and others who need them, choose them and experience them have to say about it.
A male trustee is asking the Toronto Catholic School Board to fly a so-called “pro-life” flag during the month of May to support a “national march for life” on Parliament Hill. In a motion to be debated April 23, he’s asking the board to puff up the numbers at the march with staff and students. And to spend the month at school drilling the church’s position on abortion into kids’ heads.
Respect for life is but a conceit of the anti-abortion camp. To care about life is to care about the living. What is “pro-life” about forcing pregnancies without even investigating the conditions that make birth unsustainable? Without offering support systems to enable a thriving life? Without respecting the personal choice of a living person?
The self-righteous “pro-life” label is an attempt to make a concept with a heinous history palatable. Prior to the American Civil War, when abortion (and contraceptives) were legal, they were performed in large part by Black midwives and also Indigenous and white midwives. After slavery ended, Black midwives represented a threat to white men who wanted to enter the practice of childbirth.
During the ensuing Jim Crow era, white supremacists also saw Black and Asian populations as a threat to their own. Gynecologists then lobbied to ban midwifery and abortions. Some even exhorted white women across the country to “spread their loins” and produce more white babies.
Arizona’s resurrection of a law that comes from this time — 1864 to be precise — forces pregnancies even if they result from rape or incest, and only makes an exception if it threatens the mother’s life. Various abortion bans and restrictions are sprouting up in places such as Poland and Hungary.
All of this is often done in the name of morality or health or religion. But banning abortions simply means desperate people with few means will reach for desperate measures including secret, unsafe abortions. Bans and restrictions severely harm ethnic and racial minorities who already receive poor standards of health care. Most people don’t know what pill to buy and where if they want to manage an abortion themselves. (Mifepristone and misoprostol, both of which are completely safe, in case anyone is wondering.) Medical abortion, doctors say, is safer than a penicillin shot.
Anti-abortion laws don’t reduce the number of abortions, they just make them less safe. That’s not “pro-life.”
The logical extension of “pro-life” positions simply pan out into antichoice ideology. At their root, banning abortions and forcing pregnancies don’t embody lofty ideals. They’re about controlling our choices. Today it’s our choice on abortions, tomorrow it will be back to the chastity belt.
Let’s stop this nonsense.