Building Bridges
In Recall Abortion, author and pro-life activist Janet Morana makes pointed and consistent arguments on how abortion hurts women. In her argument for recalling abortion she doesn’t rely on an array of statistics or biological facts about when life begins. Morana’s most powerful tool is the voices of women. All of whom exercised their choice to abort and ultimately felt victimized by the system that claimed to empower them. She also lifts up the voices of suffragettes whose wisdoms we’ve seemingly forgotten, “I suppose that means we women have our independence, but we have lost our way.”
“Sweeter even than to have had the joy of children of my own has it been for me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so that their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them.” - Susan B. Anthony
“When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.” - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
In the conservative pro-life movement we tend to overlook our pro-choice feminist sisters as resources, maybe in fear we’ll be shamed for our “backwards, old-timey, handmaids tale” type opinions. In reality these are smart, self-sufficient, brilliantly modern women who are absorbing the same cultural ailments we are. Many of whom have or will experience abortion firsthand, 1/3 to be exact. And from the looks of it, they’re just a perplexed as we are!
I want to take this opportunity to highlight a few pieces I’ve enjoyed reading over the last few months - one from Vogue, one from Literary Hub, and one from Glamour. All written by women who are grappling with how truly difficult it is to fit the complexities of modern day motherhood into the tiny tube we call fourth wave feminism.
Why Don’t We Talk About the Joys of Motherhood Anymore? by Faye Keegan
For some reason, despite how much pro-abortion media I consume, Faye’s observations on how bad the problem is still struck me. Likely because I’m pro-life and this work takes up a good chunk of brain space, I encounter anti-natalist content as the offended party. My immediate response is to huff and puff. “Can you BELIEVE this,” I’ll screech as I shove my phone in my boyfriends face, “we’re SCREWED!” Then I’ll take it to the other side of the aisle, allowing fellow pro-lifers to justify my anger. However, there are less suspecting women than me consuming the same media on a day-to-day basis who might not realize just how impacted by this we are until someone like Faye pauses for a moment to ask, ‘Where are all the happy moms?’
“But if I thought that minimizing references to the joy and profundity of motherhood was a kindness, I now see that, in focusing solely on its difficulties, I have inadvertently done an unkindness to women.”
Faye draws a beautifully nuanced observation here on how strangely difficult it is as a culture to acknowledge the incredible hardships that come with motherhood and the perfectly acceptable reasons women choose to forego it, without isolating the many of us who pursue it. And vice versa, how do women pursuing motherhood accept that there are a number of us who see it as devoid of the joys we imagine and experience?
What If Motherhood Was Considered as Ambitious as ‘Real’ Work? by Elissa Strauss
am·bi·tion (noun): “a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work."
Using this definition from Oxford, let’s take a deeper look at motherhood and all that it entails.
An indisputable amount of reputable and peer reviewed sources argue that most of us have an innate biological desire to reproduce and become mothers; to grow, nurture, and support the next generation. I can speak from personal experience as well as that of many girlfriends that this desire only becomes more insatiable the further one gets into her childbearing years. So what of the woman who deems motherhood the object of all her desires and her crowning achievement? We might celebrate her choice, but do we celebrate her ambition? Furthermore, we’re well aware of the determination and hard work that goes into pregnancy, birth, and mothering one to multiple children for 18+ years (or at least that’s what our Mothers Day cards say), so why is it that the picture of ambition in our culture remains men in suits and women in… mens suits?
“‘Glass doors’” are the reason I failed to see the political and economic value of my efforts raising my kids, and therefore hesitated before calling motherhood ambitious.”
I love the picture Elissa paints of our current fourth wave “Lean In” feminism and how it may be justified in basic feminist principles, but perhaps it’s come at the expense of whatever ambitions we might have outside the workplace, especially that of our maternal instincts. She points out that “asking a woman if she’s ambitious almost feels like a trick question.”
I would imagine the author and I have some disagreements on issues like reproductive rights, but I’d much rather focus on what we have in common. Thank you Elissa for writing such a thought provoking and comforting piece.
Necessary Yet Invisible: On the Unpaid Labor of Motherhood and Writing by Claire Kilroy
In this essay, Irish author Claire Kilroy wrestles with the above topic in the same tone of voice as my very own Irish mother would: honest, matter of fact, yet somehow warm and profoundly wise (without trying to sound wise).
“Motherhood is a reckoning with mortality, profundity, extremity, nobility—you will find resources you never knew you possessed. Every night will be a long dark night of the soul. It will be funny, it will be sad, it will at times be frankly mental. This is the real world, in here. It is also the place of art.”
This quote is so powerful to me because there’s no agenda here. This quote isn’t trying to sell me on motherhood nor is it compelling me to “Lean In” to my career and ignore my maternal desires.
I wonder how our movements might change if we put our pro-life or pro-choice agendas on the back burner in order to connect as women first and foremost. What do I have as a pro-lifer in common with a pro-choicer? Well, most likely it’s that I consider myself pro-woman, as does she. Why don’t we start there?
