Choice: A Brief 37 Year Retrospective

This post is part of our "What Does Choice Mean to You?" series commemorating the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

In the ideal, the concept of choice for American women would be the inalienable right to the full array of life opportunities and the right to bodily autonomy. In other words, American women would be full citizens with the entitlements of all rights and responsibilities. But, I'm not deluding myself. While many American women enjoy this notion of choice, many do not. Barriers of gender, class, race, ethnicity, education, and sexual orientation (to list a few) prevent less fortunate women from determining their own life path. Even corporate conglomerates' mass media and legislative bodies maintain narrow definitions of women's roles and worth. Just read the news to learn how important Hilary Clinton's cleavage is or to learn about the incarceration of pregnant Amber Lovill to ensure the safety of her fetus. And it is to these powerful entities, media and government, that I point a finger for women's lack of bodily autonomy.

Between media representations of stock characters for women, especially women of color, and our legislators' patriarchal and, often, misogynist governance, women don't stand a chance for bodily autonomy. A poor woman of color suffers the whims and vagaries of media images of welfare, drug-addicted single mothers. Women who do not conform to the heteronormative construct of our society often incur the wrath of the bigoted and hateful. A report of lesbians being beaten on a New York City street barely deserves a 15 second spot in the news. And in films, when a woman finds herself with an unintended pregnancy, the fairy tale always ends with carrying the fetus to term. Abortion is almost always viewed as a non-viable option. Yet, in the real world since 1973, 45 million good women have chosen abortion as the best option for them. And in response, since 1973, both the media and our legislators have done everything they can imagine to remove women's inalienable right to bodily autonomy. So, on this 37th anniversary of Roe v Wade, I call on the spirit of sisterhood to invoke the ideal of choice for all women, to demand women be restored to full citizens with the entitlements of all rights and responsibilities.