Here I’ll give statistics from Trust Women about women’s reproductive health choices:

91.6 percent of abortions happen in the first trimester.

73 percent of women indicate they could not afford to have a baby at that point in their lives.

74 percent cited interference with their education or job/career or responsibility for existing children or other dependents.

49 percent of women who had abortions in 2014 were living below the federal poverty line.

95 percent of women terminating pregnancies think it was the right decision for them.

Between 50 and 60 percent of women who have abortions were using some form of contraception the month they got pregnant.

60 percent of women who have abortions already have children.

I’ll end here with this according to Peters:

“Women also face a host of barriers when trying to obtain birth control: cost and lack of insurance..difficulty accessing a pharmacy…challenges in getting prescription contraception..in scheduling appointments and getting to a clinic or doctor’s office.”

These barriers were greater for women living below 200 percent of the poverty line.

I recommend that readers go out and buy and read this Rebecca Todd Peters book.

In the next blog entry I’ll talk about my own life as a women with a diagnosis and how my own health narrative has informed my choices.

 

As a Lefty, I want to talk about a new 2018 book Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice by Rebecca Todd Peters.

This will be a 3-part blog carnival. To start here I’ll tell readers that I have always understood and aligned with people viewed as The Other.

My own life narrative is atypical. A woman I hired told me my story was “unusual.”

I don’t think and act like a lot of people of my race and gender do. I’ve always gone Left when everyone else goes Right.

First I’ll give an overview of this minister-author’s rationale. Then I’ll quote statistics. Lastly, I’ll talk about my own life.

I quote from Trust Women to encourage readers to go out and buy the book.

Rebecca Todd Peters asserts:

“The public rhetoric that insists women must justify their abortions represents a thinly veiled racial and class bias that does two things: It attempts to impose white, middle-class values about marriage, sexual activity, and childbearing on everyone. And it focuses on individual women’s behavior while effectively obfuscating the complexity of their day-to-day lives and the viability of their various choices.”

Instead the Christian minister proposes:

“Public policy ought to focus on addressing systemic social problems rather than attempting to police and control the behavior of women and their bodies.”

In her view the real issue is that women who have abortions are told they need to take responsibility. The truth is that “difficult real-life moral decisions stand in contrast” with the prevailing white, middle-class politicians and anti-choice crusaders perception that women who terminate pregnancies need to take responsibility.

In the next blog entry I’m going to quote statistics that reveal the real issues facing ordinary women tasked with deciding whether or not to give birth.