Thank you for your coverage of the response to the disturbing and inaccurate Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL) display on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst on April 12, called the Truth About Choice. I am the lead of the Feminist Action Team of Indivisible Mass Coalition (IMC). We collaborated with the Students for Reproductive Justice, and I’d like to respond with some real truth about choice that your article missed.
The anti-abortion activists laid out tables of what appeared to be thousands of racially segregated plastic dolls, misrepresenting the actual color, size and development of fetuses, all in an effort to influence young people to make a life-altering and education-hindering decision. Their anti-science display was not a good look for the thousands of prospective students and parents visiting that day.
I presume the use of plastic dolls is meant to manipulate emotions and, without the benefit of logic or scientific inquiry, this might work, but this is Massachusetts. We believe in science, which tells us the majority (79%) of abortions occur before there is a recognizable human fetus. Abortions in late pregnancy tragically occur due to mortal, fetal or maternal danger and amount to only 1% of all abortions. The reason the anti-abortion movement uses dolls is because the typical abortion is just of a glob of cells and wouldn’t serve their faulty argument.
Contrary to the intimations of Myrna Maloney, president of MCFL, whom you quoted, those of us who support abortion rights do not try to coerce or force anyone to have an abortion. The very definition of choice means selecting between two or more options. Despite the claims to educate young women on the “truth about choice,” the religious right offers no other option but to carry a pregnancy to term — which is no choice at all, and something that is increasingly difficult in the current political climate of vanishing healthcare, rising prices and impossible childcare costs.
Addressing these serious issues should be where anti-abortion activists focus their energy. Being pro-life should mean promoting a world where all people have autonomy to shape their own lives and the environment to flourish.
The promise of “support” from religiously backed crisis pregnancy centers, or pregnancy resource centers, sounds nice but in reality does not manifest in any meaningful way. These centers never offer abortion and, in some cases, string clients along to decrease their options or frame abortion as shameful and dangerous.
A few packs of infant diapers or an infant car seat does nothing to cover the cost of childcare nor the cost of a derailed education for young mothers. As many have noted, the religious right is not pro-life, just pro-forced-birth.
Crisis pregnancy centers, funded by the religious right through tax-deductible donations and diverted Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) money (which, ironically, is intended for poor women and children) in anti-abortion states, target the under or uninsured, but do not cover the cost of pregnancy and delivery. They offer free ultrasounds — which are not medically necessary and have been shown to dangerously misdiagnose — and “abortion reversal,” an unsafe, non-medical procedure that proved so dangerous during medical trials that the trial needed to be cancelled.
Unlike abortion reversal, the abortion medication mifepristone has been scientifically proven to be safer than some over-the-counter medications, such as Viagra, and childbirth itself. Yet, anti-abortion politicians want to see it banned. They won’t stop there and are already framing birth control pills as abortifacients — which they are not.
If the anti-abortion conservatives really cared about stopping abortion, they would promote the use of birth control, but instead, it seems they really want to punish women.
I am proud of the students who recognize these real truths about choice and were able to voice their displeasure with what one student called a “creepy” intrusion on their campus.
Laurie Veninger can be reached at [email protected].
