Women deserve the right to decide if and when they become mothers

By Steve Halpern

Recently the news media has reported that there is a strong possibility that women’s right to abortion will be reversed. State governments would be empowered to make the decision to allow, or not to allow women to have the right to abortion.

We might think about the fact that if women lose this right, many will continue to seek abortions by illegal means. Before the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade legalizing abortions, we lived in a different atmosphere. During those years, many women were mutilated or lost their lives due to back-alley abortions. Why? Because thousands of women were willing to risk their lives because they felt the absolute need to terminate a pregnancy.

I have worked in factories, as a housekeeper, and as a school bus driver. In my experience, there are times when my coworkers and I fail to find the words to describe the conditions we face. In those moments we might use words described as profanity. So, when we think of how women might lose the right to decide if and when they become mothers, I ask the question: How the f— did that happen?

The history of women: The revolution of the thirteen colonies

So, in order to explain how and why many women might lose the right to decide if or when they become mothers, I believe we need to look at a bit of history. We can begin with the revolution of the thirteen colonies.

The revolution that created the United States was a battle between two classes that had opposing interests. The British ruling powers demanded that the thirteen colonies continue to subjugate their interests to a brutal feudal monarch. The inhabitants of those colonies declared independence to put in place a government that would advance capitalist development here. 

This new nation was built on the foundation that a small minority would control the productive forces. For those reasons, initially only landowners had the right to vote. Women, slaves, Native Americans, and workers who owned no land were all denied the right to vote. 

The first government in this country felt that giving these people the right to vote would interfere with the rule of those who had a lot of money. However, after the revolution Shay’s Rebellion prompted the government to include the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. For the first time, many people living here had rights that the government was supposed to respect.

For most of the history of this country women’s right to own property was compromised. It wasn’t until the 1970s that women gained the right to have credit cards. Women who were slaves were property and had literally no rights. The rape or murder of slave women was legal.

The Declaration of Independence made it clear that the revolutionary government in this country in no way supported the rights of Native American women. One of the complaints listed in this Declaration was that the signers didn’t feel the British gave enough support to the colonists in their genocidal war against Native Americans. In those wars that lasted over 100 years, Native American women lost their lives, their homeland, and even much of their culture. However, during those 100 years Native Americans, who consisted of many nations, battled tenaciously to defend their homeland. That struggle continues today.

Mercy Otis Warren was an ardent defender of the Revolution. Warren wrote highly influential plays arguing why a revolution was necessary. She was one of the only participants in the Revolution who wrote a history of the war for independence.

After the Revolution one of Warren’s sons died in the war against Native Americans. Warren was one of the few who argued against those wars. She felt that the actions of the government provoked Native Americans to resist the theft of their homeland and the genocide against their people.

The Civil War

About 360,000 Union soldiers died in the Civil War that ended the system of chattel slavery here. Harriet Tubman was one of the Union soldiers. Tubman risked her life during slavery to liberate many of those who were viewed as the property of their owners.  

However, after the period of radical reconstruction, the federal government ordered union soldiers to withdraw from the former confederate states. That action effectively gave power to the Ku Klux Klan that proceeded to deny Black men and women the citizenship rights they were supposed to have because of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

As a result, racist vigilantes murdered thousands of Black men and women. All three branches of the federal government refused to enforce the Constitution and prosecute the murderers. These horrors continued for decades.

Ida Wells was an outstanding leader who was born into slavery and dedicated her life to ending the horrors of the lynching of Black men and women. After one of her close friends was lynched, Wells advised the Black people living where Jim Crow was the law to leave. She also argued that Black people needed to reserve a special place in their home for a Winchester rifle to defend themselves against racist murderers.

The suffragettes

Wells also participated in the movement to win the right to vote for all women in this country. At that time, there were suffragettes who had racist attitudes and Ida Wells not only battled for women’s right to vote, but also against racism in the suffragette movement.

One of those suffragettes was Alice Paul. Paul organized demonstrations in front of the White House demanding women’s right to vote. Those demonstrators ridiculed President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to send U.S. soldiers to fight in the First World War. Wilson argued that this would be a “war for democracy.” The suffragettes argued that there could be no war for democracy when women didn’t have the right to vote.

Wilson responded by arresting the demonstrators, sending them to prison, and treating them as common criminals. Alice Paul and the suffragettes protested this with a hunger strike. Guards then placed a tube into Alice Paul’s throat and force fed her three times a day. These were some of the actions that won women the right to vote in this country.

Mother Jones was another outstanding leader. Jones supported every effort to organize workers here and in other countries. In the year 1903, she organized her 125-mile march of the children protesting child labor in this country. 

Clearly all leaders make mistakes. Mother Jones opposed the suffragette movement, and felt that her primary effort was to win better working conditions for men.

However, when the Russian Revolution erupted, Mother Jones said she was a Bolshevik from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet. The Bolsheviks put in place a government that gave women the right to vote for the first time in the history of the world. 

The civil rights, anti-war, women’s rights, and immigrant rights movements

Then in 1955, Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This action sparked the bus boycott in that city that lasted for over one year. Every day for that entire year Black women and men either walked long distances to work or found rides on the vehicles donated by supporters of the boycott.

We might also consider that during these years the U.S. government allowed for the forced sterilizations of Black, Puerto Rican, and Native American women. These women didn’t have the power to prevent those sterilizations.

For those reasons, many in those communities opposed the right to abortion. That sentiment, no doubt, comes from the fact that these women were denied the chance to choose to become mothers. 

Actions continued for many years demanding that Black people receive full citizenship rights in this country. Then, in the mid 1960s the government bowed to that movement and enacted the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Those actions effectively did away with Jim Crow segregation. Fannie Lou Hammer was one of the outstanding women who were leaders of this movement.

However, racist discrimination continued in many ways throughout the country. Routine police brutality against Black people sparked rebellions in hundreds of cities in this country in the 1960s. 

It appears that those actions convinced people who have power in this country to give millions of Black people opportunities they never had before. These included opportunities in education and employment. However, racist discrimination, as well as routine police brutality continues to be a fact of life for Black people in this country.

Immigrant women

Just as Black people were denied basic citizenship rights in the past, people born in other nations who live here are also denied those basic rights. Back in the 1960s there was a labor shortage in this country and the government initiated measures to attract workers from other nations to come here. 

 In the past few years, the economy has deteriorated, and the government has organized to deport literally millions of workers merely because they were born in other nations. Because of this reality, many immigrant women will not report a rape to the police because they fear deportation. Thousands of immigrant women have been separated from their children who were born here. The parents are forced to leave this country, while their children oftentimes are sent into foster care. 

Clearly all workers in this country face many difficult challenges. However, along with these challenges, immigrants face the continuous threat of deportation. Deportation for many immigrants means going to a nation where the wages are between one and ten dollars per day. However, faced with all these challenges the twelve million immigrants who live here continue the struggle demanding their rights.

The Cuban Revolution

We might also consider that in 1959, during the same years as the civil rights movement, a revolution erupted in Cuba. Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin were among the leaders of the revolutionary forces that took power on the island. 

Today, the women’s contingent of the Cuban armed forces is named for Mariana Grajales. Grajales’ entire family was dedicated to the Cuban revolutionary war of independence from Spain. Antonio Maceo was the son of Grajales, and became a Major General of the revolutionary forces. 

Today women are fully integrated into Cuban everyday life. All Cuban women who are pregnant, as well as their children, receive regular medical checkups. While Cubans do not have many of the conveniences we have in this country, all women on the island have an absolute right to an abortion.  

The war against Vietnam

With the war against Vietnam, millions of mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters saw their loved ones go to war against the men, women, and children of Vietnam. An anti-war movement erupted that convinced about 80% of the population to oppose this war. We might consider that about half of the millions of Vietnamese people who lost their lives because of this war were women.

Advances for women

Out of the anti-war and civil rights movements erupted a movement demanding equal rights for women. Because of this movement, employers began to hire women in occupations they rarely had before. In the 1960s only a tiny minority of medical doctors were women. Today about half of the medical doctors are women.

I am a school bus driver. Back in the 1960s only a small minority of the drivers were women. Today about half of the drivers are women.

Because of this movement in support of women’s rights, the Supreme Court ruled in their Roe v. Wade decision that women have the right to abortion. This decision gave women the right to decide if and when they become mothers. For the first time in this country, working women gained this right. We might consider that affluent women always had ways of getting safe abortions.

However, since 1973 powerful interests organized to take this basic right to abortion away from women. These forces paid to open hundreds of centers used for the sole purpose of convincing women not to have abortions. The government enacted the Hyde Amendment that prevented federal funds to be used for abortions. Administrators of many hospitals refused to allow abortions to be performed in their facilities. In most counties in this country women have no access to abortion. Now, the Supreme Court is considering doing away with the federal mandate to the right to abortion altogether.

So, thinking about this history, we might ask another question. Why do I feel that all women deserve the right to decide if and when they become mothers?

Why is this so important?

Literally ever human being in the world is here because a woman carried us for about nine months before giving birth. These women are usually the primary care givers for all these children for perhaps about eighteen years. 

We all depend on a continuous supply of goods and services. We can speculate that about half of the labor required to produce all these goods and services comes from the labor of women. So, we can conclude that women participate in giving us literally everything we need and want, as well as our lives. 

Yet the government in this country, that claims to represent “liberty and justice for all,” also has and will continue to argue that women do not have the intelligence to decide if and when they become mothers. Those government officials are fully prepared to enact laws that will force pregnant women to have children they clearly do not want.

I’m writing this blog to demonstrate how women have clearly shown throughout history that they, and their male allies have the potential to win the dignity and respect that they clearly deserve.

Opponents to the right to abortion oftentimes make the following argument. “You wouldn’t even be here if your mother had an abortion.”   

Well, one of the most insulting comments a person can make is to say something derogatory about a person’s mother. The argument against the right to abortion is an argument that clearly states that women do not deserve the right to decide if and when they become mothers.

In the year 2020 millions of people from all over the world protested against murders by the police in this country. Those demonstrations changed the political climate here. Now police officers are being convicted of the murders they were responsible for. 

After attending a few of those demonstrations, I attended demonstrations protesting the bombing of Palestinians, in solidarity with Puerto Rico, and in defense of the environment. Recently, I also attended one of the largest demonstrations in support of abortion rights.

I’m saying all of this at make an argument that the struggle for abortion rights is also a struggle in support of the rights of workers all over the world. My opinion is that by viewing ourselves as workers living in the world, this will only enhance the battle in support of all women’s rights. 

Growing numbers of people are preparing to struggle to make sure that every woman has the fundamental right to decide if and when she becomes a mother.