Makers of Angels for Women,

Makers of Angels

For women, the control of their reproductive rights, of the most private parts of their bodies, is one of the most important ways in which they define themselves to themselves, to their families, and to their larger communities. Being able to have control over their reproductive options is one of the most important ways in which women can affect their fertility and so the persona with which they interact with the world. Without full control over their own sexuality, which includes the right to engage in sexual behavior without the risk of unwanted childbearing, women's relationship to themselves as well as others is fundamentally compromised.

The brilliant legal scholar Laurence Tribe wrote that the debate over abortion that has seized and sometimes seemingly paralyzed the political and cultural dialogue in this nation most vehemently since the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade is a "clash of absolutes." His phrase has a powerful resonance because, of course, at one level the question of abortion is indeed a question of absolutes: A woman either has an abortion or does not. Just as one cannot be a little bit pregnant, neither can one have part of an abortion.

Other aspects of reproductive health and freedom are not so black and white. Women make decisions every day about their bodies and their reproductive freedom in degrees. They may choose to have sex with a partner when they do not really want to, for example, because they are dependent on that partner for economic support. Such an act is not rape, because the woman has given consent, but it is a limited form of consent. Most of the decisions that women have to make are like this: For women, even in an age in which at least some women have access to reliable birth control, sexuality cannot ever be undone entirely from fertility.

Thus in asking how a woman's reproductive options affect her self-concept and the ways in which she relates to her family and to her larger community, the question can also be parsed as the question of the absolutes of abortion and childbirth. There are aspects of reproductive freedom that are also absolute, including sterilization (although this is potentially reversible) to female genital mutilation. These two must be looked at as proving to be very problematic in terms of how women view themselves as well as the others in their communities.

The less permanent the choice that is made by women or for women, the less of an effect in general it will have on the ways in which the choice affects the women's relationship to self and the social world around her.

Even when the reproductive issue is one of absolutes like abortion, the choices that women face and the psychological consequences are complicated and messy, and while it is certainly possible for a woman to know with great certainty that either the choice to have an abortion or to carry a pregnancy to term is the right one for her, it will most likely still feel like a compromise, one step in a lifelong negotiation about autonomy, fertility, and different types of destiny. Central to the way that each woman negotiates her own fertility -- and this is very different from the way in which men's choices about their own fertility affect other men -- is affected by the way in which all other women in her community understand and act out their relationship with their own body.

American women are constantly reminded of this fact -- that the larger community in which they live -- sees them as vessels for pregnancy. Women are reduced to fertility time and again by others, and eventually for many by themselves as well. Pregnancy and its alternatives have always been a part of the ways in which women have defined themselves and been forced to define themselves. Because of the visible nature of pregnancy, as well as its attendant dangers, women's fertility has been central to women's lives in ways that have been celebrated and demonized and everything in between.

How reproductive rights defines a woman's sense of self depends on a range of factors that are so complex and so diverse that there can be no single relationship between legal or practical access to reproductive care and freedom and a woman's sense of self. If we look at one of the absolutes, such as abortion in cultures in which choice is at least generally available about reproductive options abortion is at least relatively unstigmatized and access to it is legal and there are no significant economic barriers, a woman may still have religious or ethical or emotional reasons why she would perceive abortion negatively.

A woman, for example, who has suffered through a number of miscarriages of wanted pregnancies may find herself for various reasons unable or unwilling to carry a pregnancy to term. In such a case, having an abortion may be the right choice for that woman but may still be very painful.

In general, the ways in which sexuality and fertility shapes a woman's relationship with self -- as well as with family and the larger community -- is largely determined by the degree of choice that she has over having her body procedure. If she feels pressured into having an abortion by economic reasons, or forced to have sex by her more economically successful partner, or denied the chance to have a same-sex relationship, or lives in a society that says (for example) that black women do not have as much right to control their fertility and their bodies as do white women, is likely to feel diminished all around.

She is likely to feel that her position as a lesser citizen (something that she may be capable of ignoring or at least downplaying most of the time) has been irretrievably reinforced and that others in her family or her community have far too great a say in how she makes decisions about her body, including both her sexuality and her fertility.

Sexual freedom can often be a cause of increased conflict between a woman and other members of her family, especially the male members of her family.This extends to her community at large, as men who are not related to her may feel an analogous relationship to the men who are closest to her. Male control of female fertility and thus of women's lives in general is most effective when familial controls are either implicitly or explicitly supported by the larger community. Women are reminded by laws and customs about their sexuality that they belong to the collective of their gender. They can never quite be individuals in the way that men can. How can this not be a cause for both rage and despair?