This article is a response to the Oct. 23 Viewpoint written by Benjamin Bell regarding abortion.
I, unlike Benjamin Bell, do not refrain from broaching the issue of abortion. In fact, once a week, I sit down with a group of pro-choice women and men and discuss the current state of reproductive rights in our country. When I say women and men, what I really mean is women and man, as there is only one active male member of Tufts VOX. If Benjamin would like to discuss abortion in an open forum, I invite him to attend one of our meetings, which are held every Tuesday evening at 9:30 p.m. in the Women's Center.
I will sympathize with Benjamin in that, yes, when a man approaches a woman with an opinion about reproductive rights or an issue that deals specifically with women, he may often be greeted with skepticism. However, I think it is natural and wise for a woman to be extra-critical in a situation like this. After all, this is her body they are talking about, and that man will never have to get an abortion.
All of this is not to say that a man cannot have an informed and valid opinion about abortion - he is just going to have to work a little harder to have it heard by his peers. Benjamin may call this unfair, but I call it self-protection.
This, of course, is only true in the private sectors of our lives. In the public arena, men's opinions are all that matter when it comes to reproductive rights. The overwhelming majority of our lawmakers are men. Our lawmakers decide who can have abortions, when they can have them, and who will pay for them. So, when Benjamin refuses to abide by this "unspoken, meaningless rule" that men are prohibited from offering their opinions on the abortion issue, he joins the president and all of the male lawmakers who get to decide for me today.
The two main camps in the abortion debate are often improperly categorized as two polar groups. I will focus on the pro-choice camp, because it is the camp with which I am most familiar.
Within the pro-choice community, there are countless women who will never get an abortion. There are countless women who would never get an abortion. There are also countless women who would have an abortion or have had abortions.
The pro-choice camp advocates choice as its main objective. This is why we are most accurately labeled "pro-choice," and not "pro-abortionists," as Benjamin incorrectly asserts. Calling pro-choice women "pro-abortionists" only demonizes us and suggests that we would like to "always be able to abort children as if the 'fetuses' were some sort of cancerous growth that can and should be disposed of at a moments notice." Similarly, claiming that Debra Wise promotes the dumping of newborn babies into the trash by teenage girls is a gross manipulation of her concern for the utter desperation that a teenage girl must have felt in order to commit such an atrocity.
It is Benjamin who is disappointed with what he feels to be the "black or white logic" behind abortion debates. However, I find his oversimplification of this unfortunate incidence to be a prime example of the black-and-white logic he attacks. Why did this teenage girl get pregnant? Why couldn't she go to her parents for help in getting a safe and legal abortion? These are the questions we need to ask if we want to prevent situations like this from occurring.
The fact is this: having an abortion is never desirable. If Benjamin had been present at the Oct. 19 performance of "Mothers and Whores," by Debra Wise and the Underground Railway Theater, he could have taken part in the lengthy and thoughtful discussion following the event that dealt with the moral and emotional consequences of abortions.
No one wants to have an abortion, but until there are family planning resources and services available to all women before, during and after pregnancy, regardless of economic status, abortion services must exist.
Benjamin, I appreciate your meaningful solution to abortion emphasizing sex education and the distribution of contraceptives, but your argument is not new, and I have yet to see its permanence. Until I do, I will remain among other "pro-abortionists" as you call us, fighting on every level for reproductive rights.
Andrea Cote is a senior majoring in mathematics. She is the co-president of Tufts VOX.
