How the Pro-Choice Movement Excludes People With Disabilities

[loyalsister]

I think she makes some good points. There are specific reasons and barriers for women with disabilities who choose to have abortions, but they are not part of the conversation.

So I’m not interested in criticizing individual choices. Rather, I’m calling attention to the (supposedly) feminist discourse that reproduces stereotypes about people with disabilities, in turn reinforcing the barriers to rights they already confront. My focus is on those who shape the debate: media outlets, organizations, corporations, and people who are trying to change the culture around abortion. Because if we’re truly interested in crafting a just movement, we have to stop emphasizing narratives that implicitly encourage the abortions of fetuses with disabilities.

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All I ask is that feminists acknowledge the systemic pressures felt by pregnant people whose fetuses have been diagnosed with a disability. I want to open up space for individuals to come forward and talk about their abortions without censorship. But if we don’t encourage a variety of narratives, we are contributing to the idea that certain abortions are justified and others aren’t. Until feminists begin to openly recognize and work against this argument, people with disabilities and those who care about them will continue to be alienated by pro-choice rhetoric.
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/10/17/pro-choice-movement-excludes-people-disabilities/

[uppityperson]

1. Staunch pro-choice and I disagree with saying everyone would or should have/not have an abortion.

This strategy attempts to justify later abortions to anti-choicers by trading on the rhetoric that some abortions—of fetuses with “abnormalities”—are inarguably necessary. Rather than reasoning that all abortions should be equally accessible no matter what, many pro-choice advocates lean on the argument that of course people, including anti-choicers, would opt out of having a disabled child if they had the means. Thus, later abortions should be legal.

Not "would" but "could".

I will need to read this article and think about it, will hopefully remember to come back and comment more because a fast read is not enough.

[loyalsister]

2. To me pro-choice means respecting reproductive choices

Even the ones we would not make ourselves. It's not just about ensuring abortion is available. It's about assuming that women can be trusted to make their own choices.

[uppityperson]

4. That too, of course. Trusting her to make her own choice, and making sure it is available if she

choses.

[jwirr]

3. There is some truth to this. I have both a disabled daughter and two other daughters. So for me

I must decide if I feel like somehow I was wrong to have my first daughter or keep my other daughters from having a choice. This is a question that any pro-choice discussion opens up for me. Fortunately I am lucky and it really does not apply in my case so I can push it away.

My first child has a severe disability that even today cannot be diagnosed in the uterus. Thus I never had to make the decision. So for me it is easy to be pro-choice for the other two. But I can see how this would be a real struggle for a new mother today asked to make this decision.

[loyalsister]

5. I don't think any woman should feel she has to justify her choice

But, I don't think it's too much to ask to avoid the "life unworthy of life" argument used to try to get anti-choicers on board.

As a disabled woman who had to make the decision with my disability as a factor, I think the author is spot on in pointing out that women with disabilities should be part of the conversation. People criticize women with disabilities for deciding to go through with their pregnancies. And, abortion can be especially complicated for women who have physical disabilities, but no one talks about making sure those procedures are safe.

[jwirr]

7. I agree. My daughter cannot talk - literally does not have the ability to talk for herself - nor

does she have the ability to bear a child so I have never thought about much of what you say. But if she could I would want her to have a right to whatever choice she made and to expect safe procedures. This is every woman's right. Nor does anyone have the right to tell us we should have gotten an abortion. Each of us has the right to decide for our own body.

[Warpy]

6. I find it a lot of absolute donkey bollocks

The prochoice argument states that whatever a woman decides to do about any sort of a problem pregnancy is between her and her doctor. Period.

No woman is left out of this argument and I find this whole thing a bunch of silly deflection from the truth: women with disabilities aren't left out, they are included in "all women."

I don't know if this idiot is proposing the prochoice movement as a eugenics movement against disabled women or children, but the whole thing strikes me as both weird and dishonest.

I am prochoice. I am also partially disabled to the point that trying to go through pregnancy and childbirth was very dangerous. My decision would have been with my doctor had it ever come up. I wouldn't have consulted the author of that article

[loyalsister]

8. That may be your pro-choice argument

It is mine, as well. But The most popular argument used to court anti-choicers does lean on ensuring women don't have to give birth to disabled infants.
Did you actually read the article? The author argues that the Hyde amendment limits choice for women with disabilities as it does other women who live in poverty. No one seems to argue that this is an injustice. Instead, the Hyde amendment is used as a defense of choice with the claim that since no tax dollars fund abortion it shouldn't bother anti-choicers.

[Brickbat]

9. Worries about fetal health account for 13-14 percent of abortions.

When asked about the "most important" reason for getting an abortion, that percentage drops to 3.