Roe v. Wade at 35: Biology is no longer destiny

On this 35 anniversary of Roe v. Wade it behooves us to recognize why the right to choose, the right to control one's own body was (and still is) so important and must be defended. It has cynically been used by right-wing demagogues to organize support for their agenda. It is an inherently anti-liberation agenda.

The religious right, which is at the core of the anti-choice movement, is at the same time it opposes a woman's right to control her own body also opposed to many of the basic ways we might actually reduce abortions.

The most important argument for choice was made 29 years ago by the late Ellen Willis in the Village Voice (March and April 1979). In this article Willis wrote

the only way to drastically reduce the number of abortions is to invent safer, more reliable contraceptives, ensure universal access to all birth control methods, eliminate sexual ignorance and guilt, and change the social and economic conditions that make motherhood a trap.

Those who oppose choice also oppose most, if not all, of these innovations. Don't ever forget the Catholic Church which has been in the forefront of this movement is also against gender equality, contraception and sympathetic sex education. Essentially the anti-choice movement is also an anti-female sexuality movement. Most people who are opposed to choice believe that the only way women can avoid the possibility of unwanted pregnancy is abstention. In other words, sex is OK for men, but not for women. That's biology, sorry.

Willis again:

When all the cant about "responsibility" is stripped away, what the right-to-life position comes down to is, if the effect of prohibiting abortion is to keep women slaves to their biology, so be it.

It should be obvious to even the most neanderthal-like anti-choice proponents that gender equality is impossible without a woman's right to control her own body.

There is one other thing that needs to be said. After the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, too many of us sat back and assumed that it was set in concrete forever. Unfortunately the right-wing opponents of choice did not sit back, they fought back. And after almost eight years of extreme right wing power, it looks like the battle has to be fought again. Lets make today, the 35th anniversary of Roe, a clarion moment in the battle for women's rights.