THE ABORTION STRUGGLE: SUMMER 1989 Historically Compromised Rut/J Rosen times of crisis feminists never know whom to trust. The good news is that, at both the San Francisco and Washington, DC. pro-choice matches in April, about 15 percent of the marchers were men? not half, but a considerable improvement over rallies that have taken place during the last twenty years. The bad news is that many men are simply ducking the question or, in the extreme case, becoming fashionably preoccupied with the rights of the fetus. Take Christopher Hitchens, for example, whose bi- weekly column in the Nation regularly supports all man- ner of leftist struggle. Hitchens rarely takes up women?s issues, but when he does, he sure knows how to stir up controversy. Across the country, feminists felt a depres- sing sense Of betrayal as they read Hitchens?s ?Minority Report? in the. April 24 issue of the Nation. As hundreds of thousands of women and men descended upon the capital to protect women?s right to choose abortion, Hitchens came out of the closet as a left-wing pro-lifer to Offer a grand historic compromise on abortion. You may ask: Just what is a left-wing pro-lifer? Hitchens has provided an example. It is someone who would swap socialist reforms for women?s right to abortion. Appalled by abortion, Hitchens asks: ?What if there were to be a historic compromise between pro-choicers and pro-lifers?? His grand compromise requires that pro-lifers offer a national health service that guarantees free contraception, prenatal care, nutrition and health care for children, sex education in the schools, and a national adoption service. In return for this (rather short) list of concessions, Hitchens would have pro-choicers give up women?s right to abortion?except (a la Bush!) in the case of rape or incest, or if the woman?s ?mental or physical health is threatened.? So what is wrong with Hitchens?s grand historical compromise? Plenty. If Hitchens is interested in prag- Rutb Rosen, a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, is currently writing a history of contemporary American feminism. Her last boo/e was The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America (Io/ans opkins University Press, 1982). 20 TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 4 matic considerations, then he should know that his historic compromise is, and will be, completely unaccept- able to pro-lifers and to the right in general?who don?t seem inclined to augment the welfare state. Hitchens?s short list of concessions, moreover, consti- tutes an inadequate response to the many economic and social conditions that discourage women from bearing?and rearing?children. Lack of child care, lack of housing, and men?s unwillingness to raise children are also at issue. But let us leave pragmatism out of it and assume that Hitchens is simply searching for an acceptable ethical position. In that case, his blind spot regarding women?s rights and the experience of being female is of embar- rassing proportions. The ?rst problem with Hitchens?s historic compromise is that it converts biological difference into a justi?cation for the subordination of women. To state the obvious, women get pregnant; men do not. And when women do, their lives are changed forever?not only for nine months. Giving up a child for adoption is no easy logical matter. To achieve equality between the sexes, women, like men, must be able to determine the course of their lives. Hitchens fails to see that the right to abor- tion is integral to the entire complex of women?s rights. His historic compromise creates a two-track society in which women alone must bear the burden of the double standard imposed by biology. The second problem is that Hitchens?s compromise in effect allows the state to enforce coercive childbearing, a kind of involuntary servitude. Granting the state such power over women?s lives?in the name of socialism, no less! ?comes perilously close to creating a left-wing version of Margaret Atwood?s brilliant A Handmaid?s Tale, a totalitarian society in which women?s abject sub- ordination is achieved through coercive childbearing. Hitchens?s argument for a historic compromise is also riddled with faulty logic and factual error. At one point he states that ?one of the century?s most positive developments [is] the sexual autonomy of women.? But how can women exercise that autonomy if the state has the right to coerce childbearing? With great authority, Hitchens also announces that ?in order to terminate a pregnancy, you have to still a heartbeat, switch off a developing brain, and, whatever the method, break some bones and rupture some organs.? This is certainly true during the later stages of pregnancy, which is why I personally advocate that abortion take place before the end of the ?rst trimester. But at four weeks? At six weeks? Just which textbooks on embryology has Hitchens been studying? At another point, Hitchens states that ?obviously the fetus is alive, so that disputation about whether or not it counts as ?a life? is casuistry.? Yet just a few paragraphs later, Hitchens joins Bush in arguing that he would exempt women who have been victims of rape or incest. Why? ?Because not all taking of life is murder, and .. . it is immoral and unscienti?c to maintain otherwise. . . Aha. Now it is clear. It is murder if a woman has con- sented (and God forbid enjoyed) sex, but it is not murder if she has been coerced. (I have much greater respect for the consistent pro-lifer who doesn?t care how it happened but simply wants to save life.) Such is the logic of a left-wing pro-lifer who thinks women?s sexual autonomy is one of the century?s most positive developments. But positive for whom? Hitchens?s historic compromise reminds me of the naive young left-wing men who at ?rst welcomed the women?s movement, thinking it was about greater sexual freedom. It was not. It was about equality. One way of obtaining equality was to make sure that the sexual revolution did not remain on men?s terms. At the height of the sexual revolution, too many women found that they, not their partners, paid the price for the sexual autonomy Hitchens so admires. That is why women?s movements all over Western Europe and the United States have clamored for abortion rights. 8 a historian, I grow suspicious whenever men try to discredit the effort to secure women?s rights by denouncing women as sel?sh. This is a long and dishonorable tradition throughout history. The not-too-hidden assumption is that women should sacri?ce their own needs and rights in order to service men and the family. When women sought the vote, anti-suffragists called them sel?sh. When women sought the right to education, men called them sel?sh. When women demanded birth control, society called them sel?sh. During the 19505, critics pilloried working women as the epitome of sel?shness. When socialist feminists in China, Russia, Cuba, and Nicaragua argued for women?s rights, the revolutionary male elite called them sel?sh. Hitchens joins this tradition as he concludes his essay: ?It is a pity that the majority of feminists and their allies have stuck to the dead ground of ?Me Decade? possessive individualism. . . The rig/9t to abortion is integral to the entire complex of womenit rights. It is true that some of the most radical visions of the women?s movement?redistribution of wealth, class trans- formation, collective advancement?were transformed and rede?ned by the Me Decade into an acquisitive indi- vidualism celebrating self-realization and self-promotion. But women didn?t start having?or demanding the right to~abortions during the 19703. Throughout history women have resorted to abortion. Poor Jewish women on the Lower East Side during the early years of this century didn?t seek abortion because they wanted to advance a career. Nor did the struggle to secure safe and legal abortions during the 19605 have much to do with ?possessive individualism.? It was a serious effort to prevent women from dying from botched abortions. Hitchens fails to address this issue at all. Even if Hitchens?s historic compromise were accepted, women would still seek illegal abortions. They always have; they always will. There will always be reasons why women want to end pregnancies; legislation will not change that. A longer list of socialist?and feminist? reforms would probably encourage fewer abortions, a prospect I heartily welcome. But women should maintain the right to make this personal decision; it should not be swapped in some grand patriarchal compromise. Strange that a writer who has written so eloquently of the Palestinian right to self-determination should fail to acknowledge women?s right to control their own lives. But the left?s blind spot regarding women is nothing new. That Hitchens has revealed it all over again is a scandalous reminder of why the women?s movement arose in the ?rst place. ABORTION 21