On Oct. 19, Underground Railway Theater will present "Mothers & Whores," a cabaret sponsored by Tufts VOX and co-sponsored by the Women's Center, Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, the Black Women's Collective, the History Department, the Philosophy Department, the Women's Studies Department and Tufts Feminist Alliance. The performance explores choice as it relates to that persistent split in our cultural imagination about women and reproductive rights.
"Choice rots the bones like candy rots the teeth." A father snarls this to his daughter in a poem by Rosellen Brown, a line that has haunted me since I read it 25 years ago.
What could possibly inspire such a cruel vision of a young woman's life? What fears lie behind it? I encourage myself: certainly, this is pass?© now. Aren't women (most, anyway) capable both legally and personally of making choices about their lives - that is, both their professional lives and their reproductive lives?
No, not necessarily.
That nightmarish anti-choice sentiment lurks behind the work of the South Dakota legislature, for instance, which recently passed a law banning all abortions, including in cases of rape and incest.
Choice is an abused and often trivialized word. We are Americans and "freedom of choice" is an assumed birthright. But some of the choices we assume we have are illusory, due to the structures of power or our own willingness to be disengaged or complicit in injustice.
Do we really choose our government? Our foreign policy? At what cost come our dizzying choices of consumer products? ("Choice rots the bones..." might apply here.)
We know we consume an outrageously high percentage of the world's resources; in this context, "freedom of choice" is decadent, and most of us practice it unconsciously, or, if conscious, we choose to ignore its price.
Using the word "choice" in the debate over abortion and reproductive rights is often criticized as a euphemism or a smoke screen. But I think that conscious, informed choice is the basic requirement for a woman's ability to design a useful, productive, caring, and satisfying life for herself, certainly, but ultimately also for her community and family - however she defines them.
"Each woman must be the presiding genius over her own body," wrote poet Adrienne Rich. Can we afford to doubt that?
What are the costs of a woman's choices being unconscious or forced upon her? A baby boy was abandoned in an empty lot in Roslindale, Mass., this month. What story lies behind that desperate act? What choices did his mother perceive she had? What difficulties lie ahead for that child? I am a parent, and one thing I know: we are hard-wired to reproduce at least some of the choices made by our parents. Will that child also make choices out of fear and despair?
"I choose you." The conscious choice of a child, a life partner or a life's work implies clear-eyed commitment, acceptance of stewardship, respect, even love. No one would want any less for our children's futures, except, perhaps, members of the South Dakota legislature and those who seek to erode Roe vs. Wade.
Debra Wise is the artistic director for Underground Railway Theater.
