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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 37, No. 18. July 24, 1974

Abortion again

Abortion again

Dear Sir,

Both the anti-abortion letters in last week's Salient reflected an attitude which unfortunately is common to a lot of people in this society, where we grow up learning to take all kinds of coercion for granted. Most people's lives are so full of restrictions that the idea of allowing more freedom to some is seen to entail inevitably less freedom for others.

Wendy Turnbill said that if women have the right to choose whether or not to have abortions, a woman whose conscience would not allow her to have an abortion would be worse off than at present. Her right to force the potential father to provide support for the child may well be lost since it was her decision to continue the pregnancy, and not necessarily his. This would certainly not be a new situation at all: many women today are struggling to support a child on their own, because the social security system is not geared to help them unless they have made every effort to track down the father and sue him for maintenance. Many women find the whole business distasteful, or even impossible to organise, so they are forced to continue alone. Undoubtedly, some of these women decided not to seek abortions because of personal opposition to the practice.

It is very easy at present for men to avoid supporting a child. They need only to refuse to admit paternity and in most cases it cannot be proven. There are some people who suggest that better methods of proving paternity should be found, even to the point of forcing men to undergo genetic tests. That is the logical direction of thinking for people who accept that individuals, with their varied and often limited resources, must be held totally responsible for the support of children. But nobody—woman, child or man—benefits from that kind of set-up, and women and children who are dependent on the resources of one man are the worst off.

Wendy Turnbill should be campaigning for social (rather than individual) responsibility and support for children and solo parents. She would find on her side many of those who are currently working for repeal of abortion laws, since no contradiction arises between these two positions. If you support a woman's right to choose what happens to her pregnancy, you want that choice to be an effective one, whichever it is. It is certainly contradictory to want to keep present restrictions on that choice while claiming to be concerned with women's interests.

Joan Oldoman's letter implied that women's vulnerability in sexual matters was inevitable, especially if there was not possibility of combining sex with reproduction! If a woman takes steps to avoid child bearing, Ms Oldoman argued, she will be exploited sexually by men and treated as less than an equal. Does that mean she would be less open to such exploitation if she took no birth control precautions? Unless you have the mistaken view that men would be less likely to have sex with her, you would agree that this argument is nonsensical. It only makes sense if you think, as Ms Oldoman appears to, that sex itself is dirty and is degrading to women, unless it is a necessary means to a desirable end such as motherhood.

She is perfectly entitled to such a view. What I and many other women would object to is her assumption that woman have no sexual feelings of their own, and therefore have no interest in making it easier to have sex. While the pill and access to abortion have certain benefits for men, they also have very real benefits for women, who can for the first time feel positive about their own sexuality, free from the anxieties associated with inadequate birth control. It is therefore annoying to come across the attitude that the threat of pregnancy protects women's interests. In fact what it does is to keep women vulnerable, and as long as women are at a disadvantage compared to men, it is easy for men to abuse them. It is harder for men to exploit women if they have no more to lose than men have, and just as much to gain.

Of course, all the other inequalities that have been created between men and women mean that equal sexual relationship are somewhat Illusory. Ms Oldoman ought to join those who are fighting to get rid of those inequalities, rather than living to get women to return to Victorian times.

Kay Goodger