I don’t think this needs clarifying but by now everyone knows I am firmly pro choice. Yet, I am constantly troubled by some of the rhetoric the pro choice camp uses to defend our position. I mean, I’ve said this before but what does the word “choice” even mean when for so many the only options are a rock and a hard place? Choice for whom and under what circumstances?
But that’s neither here nor there. Lately, I’ve been coming across another rhetoric device that people are using regularly, mostly in view of the laws that Kansas and other States are debating/ passing that allow doctors to lie to pregnant patients. Some people are saying “Well, those doctors should be forced to adopt the children that are born as a result of their lies”. And you know? No. This is messed up. We know the kind of woman that will most likely be lied to (hint: probably not White, middle or above class, with legal recourses and the possibility to have the procedure done some place else). The people that will most likely be lied to are people whose babies have been always treated as either commodities up for grabs or not human at all (i.e. the babies of PoC, the babies of people with disabilities, babies born with disabilities, etc.). To suggest that yet again, it’d be legitimate to hand those babies away as if the parents had no agency or as if the best remedy is to actually remove their autonomy is actually a disservice to reproductive justice.
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