Thanks Mom: How attitudes towards abortion change
In several Russian regions have introduced a temporary moratorium on abortion, reported last week a Kommersant sensation: in the Primorye Territory the moratorium operated from July 31 to August 3, and in the Ryazan region from July 9 to 15. At the same time, Russian abortion legislation remains completely liberal: the woman herself decides whether she wants to end the pregnancy. In Paraguay and Chile, for example, abortion can be resolved only when a woman’s health is threatened. And in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Malta, abortion is prohibited in principle.
Yesterday, the Argentine Senate voted against the legalization of abortion - abortion in the country is possible only in the event of rape or a threat to the life of the mother, and residents demand that women have a choice: many Argentines are still dying because of clandestine operations. But does the attitude of society towards abortion itself remain against this background?
The fight against the ban on artificial interruption of pregnancy has many undisputed grounds. In Russia, attempts to change the existing state of affairs are undertaken mainly at the suggestion of the church. Back in 2015, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia proposed to remove abortions from the compulsory health insurance system, and two years earlier a group of deputies from the Samara region proposed banning free abortions without medical indications.
The rejection of such initiatives becomes rather the resistance of tradition and the imposition of "family values". According to Levada Center, over the past twenty years, the share of citizens who consider abortion unacceptable has increased from 12% (in 1998) to 35% (in 2018). According to the same survey, Russians generally adhere to traditional attitudes: 83%, for example, do not approve of homosexual relations, and 68% condemn any extra-marital sex relations among family people.
Speaking against the ban on abortion, the society is trying to talk not only about the potential child, but also about the rights of the woman who will have to bear and give birth to this child. According to WHO, in 2010-2014, an average of 56 million abortions were carried out worldwide. In many countries (especially where abortion is prohibited by law) there are no exact statistics - but where they are allowed, statistics allow us to conclude which women are in the most vulnerable position if there is no possibility to terminate the pregnancy.
Speaking against the ban on abortion, the society is trying to talk not only about the potential child, but also about the rights of the woman who will have to bear and give birth to this child.
For example, according to the survey, which was attended by about a thousand American women, most often the cause of abortion is a lack of funds or unemployment. Slightly less often, women said that they were afraid of a situation where, due to the birth of another child, they could not pay enough attention to their other children. Many were not sure of a partner or felt they would like a better life for a child than they can offer.
An example of countries where, as in Poland, artificial termination of pregnancy is prohibited in most cases, shows that legislative prohibition leads to an increase in the number of illegal abortions and "abortion tourism." The problem does not go away, but even more deeply is driven underground: the impossibility of an abortion is unlikely to change the financial position of a woman and her relationship with a partner or help change the environment in which the child will grow up.
The study of 220 children born in Prague in 1961-1963 as a result of an unwanted pregnancy (the authors of the study make this conclusion because women applied to the commission twice for permission to have an abortion, and they were denied twice) compared to 220 children whose mothers were not they tried to terminate the pregnancy, showed that children from the first group were less likely to be excellent students at school, they were more often sentenced to prison terms, and they often needed psychiatric help in adulthood. Of course, the coincidence of these indicators does not mean that it was the attitude to pregnancy that caused everything, and an unplanned pregnancy may well end in a conscious decision in favor of motherhood - but the importance of a child growing up in a loving family is difficult to overestimate.
“Maternity is a constant balance between great joy and deep sadness - the latter always threatens to devour you completely,” says Ghazale Moayed, an obstetrician-gynecologist who performs abortions. abortion exists in a different space than motherhood. But motherhood is not a "random" or "natural" work of a woman; it is a work where a woman must consciously make an effort. " Ghazala considers the actions of patients who do not want to become parents right now, a "conscious step" in motherhood: "Choosing when to become a parent is an act of love."
The discussion of abortion is usually presented as a categorical dispute between two large groups. Some allegedly support the preservation of the fetus at any cost, regardless of the circumstances of the mother’s life, others highlight freedom of choice, and abortion in this coordinate system is just another decision-making tool. Yet, public attitudes toward abortions themselves are not so linear — especially in communities where motherhood is no longer perceived as the “sacred duty” of a woman and the propensity for it is not considered to be pledged “by default”.
To think, for example, that the “for choice” movement encourages or promotes abortions is a strong simplification. Rather, it is about the right of women to freely dispose of their bodies and about conscious motherhood, which are achieved primarily with the help of sex questions and reliable contraception (in such circumstances, the need for abortion often disappears). A poll by Vox showed that when they are asked to decide whether they are “for life” or “for choice,” they say they hold both views, 21% are not ready to choose either. .
In addition, the legal opportunity to have an abortion in practice does not always mean that a woman is free in her decisions. In the USSR, for the first time in the world, abortion was legalized at the request of a woman, but before the widespread use of contraceptives, as in many other countries, the USSR became almost a domestic phenomenon and the main way to control fertility. Despite the prevalence of abortions, they were condemned everywhere, and women resorted to abortions precisely because they often had no other choice and reliable method to prevent pregnancy.
Legal opportunity to have an abortion in practice does not always mean that a woman is free in her decisions.
With the emergence of the right to independent reproductive choices, the attitude towards motherhood and childhood as a whole also changes: people begin to more consciously treat children who decide to have, and not just this possibility itself. Special "children's" measures that are introduced by modern societies help this. Many states are changing policies regarding parental leave, introducing “decrees” independent of gender, and extending the guaranteed payment of such vacations — so that both parents could be engaged in the child in the first months, it would cease to be exclusively a “female” thing, and birth a child would not bring down a career. For example, in Sweden, the possibility for both parents to go on maternity leave was introduced in 1974, and in the UK, similar measures appeared in 2015: the first two weeks of leave after birth are reserved for the mother, and the remaining 48 parents can distribute among themselves. Private business is following the same path: in tough competition for qualified employees, mothers and fathers are offered a flexible scheme of work and care for the baby.
Such incentives not only destroy false stereotypes about the distribution of roles between partners, but also balance the load in a couple who decided to have a child. Maternity becomes even "fashionable" in the women's community, which had previously been denied, with an emphasis on self-development, career, and the fight against the imposed canon. In a situation where being with the child is also compensated financially (that is, being away from work does not mean losing her), young ambitious mothers, if they wish, can afford to lengthen the breastfeeding period or not immediately resort to babysitters.
It is noteworthy that even in Russia, the number of abortions has been decreasing since the eighties without any prohibitive measures: in 2017 they were 8.8% less than in 2016 - considering that the so-called spontaneous abortions, that is, miscarriages, are also included in the statistics. . Of course, it is difficult to draw parallels between public attitudes and medical statistics (the latter could be influenced by many other factors, from greater prevalence of contraception to changes in the economic situation), but the change cannot be noted.
In 2018, women still have to fight for the right to dispose of their own body - but it is important to talk about voluntary choice in both directions. Where abortions are legal, and society ceases to condemn those who resort to them, and real freedom begins: a woman can choose whether to become a mother or not, when to do it and under what conditions. And in this sense, the desire to have children or the unwillingness to do so becomes truly equal.
Photographs: Kenneth Murphy / Flickr, Adam Fagen / Flickr (1, 2), Steve Rhodes / Flickr
