Abortion as a Social Good: Author Katha Pollitt Pens New Vision for Pro-Choice Movement

Women

We look at a book out this week that offers a new vision for the pro-choice movement. In "Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights," Nation columnist Katha Pollitt dissects the logic behind the hundreds of abortion restrictions enacted over the past few years and shows that, at their core, they are not about safety, but about controlling women. In order to reverse the tide of eroding access, Pollitt concludes, the pro-choice movement must end the "awfulization" of abortion. She writes, "I want us to start thinking of abortion as a positive social good and saying this out loud."

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracy now.org, The War and Peace Report, as we turn now to our next guest. We continue to discuss the crisis in abortion access as we turn to a new book that offers a new vision for the pro-choice movement. It’s called Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights. We’re joined by Katha Pollitt.

Welcome to Democracy Now! Why "Pro"?

KATHA POLLITT: Well, I chose that title because I wanted to make a positive case for abortion rights, as opposed to the negative case of "if abortion is illegal, women will die"—which is true. I wanted to talk about how abortion is part of what makes it possible for women to have a decent, reasonable life in which they have children when they’re ready to have them, and it’s good for everybody. It’s good for children to be wanted and to be well timed, and it’s good for men, too. We forget that. But when you have women having random—expected to have random children with random people, just because a stray sperm gets in their womb, this is not good for anybody.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Katha Pollitt, you say that you’ve addressed the book to those who are in the middle of the abortion debate here in the United States and, as you say, millions of Americans, more than half, who don’t want to ban abortion exactly, but don’t want it to be widely available, either. How do you explain that kind of middle space?

KATHA POLLITT: Well, I think abortion is very stigmatized. And it’s connected with ideas about women and sex, like you can have an abortion if you’ve been raped, but if you’ve had voluntary sex, too bad. You know, a lot of people feel that way. And most abortion in the United States is for social, economic and personal reasons. It’s not for the really hard cases. About maybe 10 percent is for rape and incest and medical catastrophes for the mother or the fetus. But most of it is because the woman is—she’s in school, she doesn’t have any money, she doesn’t have a partner, and she doesn’t want to be a single mother, and—you know, and reasons like that. But those reasons, which basically say this should be a woman’s decision, because having children when you want to have children is very important to women’s lives, that, I think, is a harder message for middle-of-the-road people to take in.