Diane Monaco <dmonaco at pop3.utoledo.edu> wrote: Carrol Cox wrote:
> . That social pressure kills women all the time. It killed my first wife.
Yes indeed, social pressure kills women all the time and has done so throughout history. Abortion exists, not because we now have laws that make it legal, but because of the norms/constraints/controls put on women by our patriarchal system (social pressure/norms). These patriarchal values make abortion necessary and a fact of life. Nearly all reasons for "choosing" to terminate an unwanted pregnancy really go back to some ludicrous patriarchal value that seeks to control the sexuality and reproductive freedom of women. I'm sure attempts to terminate unwanted pregnancies (abortion) have existed for nearly as long as the values/institutions that have evolved around patriarchal attempts to control sexuality/reproduction.
Women have "chosen" to risk their lives (during periods of poverty, war, disease, famine) to follow through with a "wanted" pregnancy (childbirth is at least 10 times more risky than abortion in general and during adverse times considerably more risky; in Ethiopia 1 in 7 women will die in childbirth)...but social (patriarchal) norms would hardly take issue with that "choice."
Put an unjust control in place...desperate attempts will be made to circumvent that control...if needed, new and improved controls will be put in place...but again ways around those new controls will be frantically sought...and so on until we have one big screwed-up system. Lots of social pressure that kills.
Abortion won't go away until the patriarchal values that make it necessary go away.
Diane
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