Abortion Protects Children

I understand the fear of abortion. The images it conjures in the imaginations of people, particularly those with children of their own — children they love dearly and feel have an intrinsic right to life. I see the cognitions behind the belief system, the human desire towards goodness. It activates the need to protect our young, to care for our babies. I can imagine how infuriating it feels for those struggling with infertility to think someone out there could not want a pregnancy when they so desperately do. I don’t judge those who believe differently than me, but I do wish to sit down and speak. To attempt to clear some of the misconceptions. To tell you how deeply I love the children in my life, how I wave at every baby I see in the market, how I hope to create a family of my own and I believe in the right to abortions. To explain how my own innate desire to protect children actually led me to support abortions. Please read what I have to say, even if you feel differently, engage with me a moment.

The majority who seek abortions are already mothers. Learning this fact completely altered my conceptualization of those who abort. I, like many, imagined young women afraid of the responsibility of motherhood concluding they were unprepared. When in reality, most choosing to abort know the weight motherhood carries. They know the gift and burden. And they are disproportionately likely to be young, single, and poor, with 49% living below the poverty line. If you are a mother I beg you to imagine your pregnancy and subsequent motherhood, but without a partner, without money, while working-full time, and raising children on your own. If you are not a mother, think of the mothers you know. I know mothers, including my own, who became so sick while pregnant they were confined to their beds for their and their baby’s well-being. What would they do if theirs was the sole-income? If one or more children relied entirely on them to provide food, shelter, clothing? Would their children have been taken from them? What kind of parent would you be, without the support of a partner? Without financial security or stability? What kind of parent would you be in constant survival mode? Statistically, parenting capabilities decrease with income. Neglect sharply increases as income decreases. Physical abuse increases as income decreases as well, though at slower rates than neglect. Most children put in the Foster care system are put their due to neglect, not sexual nor physical abuse. The 1996 decision by the Clinton administration to limit the number of years a single mother can stay on welfare has directly correlated to a nationwide increase of neglect. I am not aiming to admonish parents in poverty, but emphasize child abuse and neglect is often a result of bad situations not bad parents. How can a mother parent her children when she cannot be with them? When she works all day to pay the bills and nothing is leftover for childcare? This system leaves impoverished single mothers in an impossible situation, and then blames them for not doing enough and takes away their kids. The loss of abortion rights will impact them the most.

Where do these children then go when taken away from a ‘neglectful’ parent? To our foster care system, where 1 in 3 children reports sexual or physical abuse. Children are not protected in this country. As someone earning a Masters in Social Work I assure you, children are not protected in this country, only unborn ones. So when women are forced to give birth to children they either do not want, or want but lack the resources to care for, it is likely that child will end up in foster care. What about adoption? 62% of adoptees were placed with adoptive families at birth. People want babies, which leaves 114,556 children waiting to be adopted in foster care. These children are disproportionately Black and the majority are 6 years or older. The number of children waiting to be adopted in foster care will rise after this decision. Mothers forced to have children with minimal resources will be overstretched and overburdened and the state will take their children instead of helping them. Those children will then end up waiting in a system rampant with abuse, like 114,000 others, while people who adopt take home babies.

Abortion is too necessary in too many situations to start playing the ‘if’ game of legality. Ultimately, it is young single mothers in poverty who it harms the most. Mothers desperate to take care of their children, making a sacrifice for them. No one wakes up in the morning wanting to get an abortion, they need them. If Republicans truly cared about reducing abortions, creating effective and less side-effect laden birth control options would be an excellent start. Then making birth control free and available in every drug store would be a great next step. If they truly cared about children and families, there would be nationally mandated paid family leave, state childcare centers, foster care reform, and systems of support for impoverished parents. But neither families or birth control are the focus. The focus is controlling the unfortunate humans born with a uterus, restricting rights, and relegating us into our ‘assigned’ place. That won’t happen, but their efforts will leave carnage in its wake.