Where do we go from here?

While keeping abortion legal and accessible is a valiant fight and widely known as a concern for women’s rights, one might wonder why the rate of abortion is so high. Yes, the practice of abortion has been around since the beginning of time, with spontaneous abortion, women using herbs to cause sickness, or tools to “stir the uterus”. And there will always be the instance of failed contraceptives, rape, and other cases where a child should not be brought into the world. But why is the rate so high? Australia has one of the highest teenage abortion rates in the world and it is ranked sixth among OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries for teenage pregnancies. Abortions are the second most common reason for young Australian woman to be admitted to the hospital, and 22 out of every 1000 pregnancies result in an abortion, compared with 19 out of 1000 live births. http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2003/s917051.htm In the U.S., the abortion rate among teenage women is decreasing. The most recent information I found stated that among 15- to 19-year-old females, the abortion rate declined by 39 percent between 1990 and 1999, from 38 per 1,000 women to 25. The birth rate also fell, with my source stating that among all teens ages 15 to 19, the U.S. birth rate declined by 30 percent between 1991 and 2002, from 62 per 1,000 women in 1991 to a record low of 43 in 2002. http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/PUBLICATIONS/factsheet/fsprechd.htm 22 abortions in Australia and 25 in the U.S. out of 1000 teenage women doesn’t seem like much, especially when you consider the fact that the numbers are falling. But when one is coerced into having a sexual encounter, not educated about contraceptives or birth control, or forced to abort a female fetus or forced to abort for other reasons, even one abortion can be too many. Not that I’m taking an anti-choice stance here, as my use of words might convey. The fact is, abortion is not a simple procedure, nor is it one that should be taken lightly, but it is a choice that women must have. However, there must be steps to prevent the necessity of an abortion such as education reform. Do away with abstinence only education. Yes, it’s a beautiful ideal, but the fact is, teens experiment and have sexual encounters, and parents are less and less likely to talk to their children about sex, depending on schools to do it for them. If the schools promote “Just say no”, these teens get their information from their friends, information ranging anywhere from “Do it standing up and you wont get pregnant” to “You can get pregnant from swallowing” to any of the other atrocities you hear on the streets and in school hallways that are completely untrue. Abortion should be legal and accessible to all women everywhere. It should be a choice one woman makes for herself, based on what she believes and what her life circumstances are. To help prevent the need to make this choice aside from instances of rape, failed contraceptives, and other accidents, I feel that education reform is a big key. Also, removing the stigma from sex, not to degrade it but to impart accurate and impartial knowledge at all appropriate age levels.

To futher the change of our foremothers, we must first recognize a woman a whole being which incorporates reproductive rights, but of which is not wholly made. We must ask ourselves why sex is so frightening that we shy away from the discussion with our parents or children, and do not embrace it as a part of our human being and development. We must listen to the voices that can't be heard, and instead of speaking for them, silence others so that they may speak for themselves. We must recognize a pregnancy as the responsibility of a man and a woman instead of soley stigmatizing the woman. We must embrace choice as the correct option in the furthering on women's and reproductive rights. We must reform our education and health care systems so that access is granted to those who need it most.

We must think outside ourselves, advocate, and act for the rights we, as feminists, as people, deserve.