Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site watmath.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!saquigley From: saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley, Univ. of Waterloo) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: punishment & abortion (cont.) (moral) Message-ID: <7061@watmath.UUCP> Date: Thu, 1-Mar-84 14:01:17 EST Article-I.D.: watmath.7061 Posted: Thu Mar 1 14:01:17 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 2-Mar-84 12:31:17 EST Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 168 In this section, I will refer to "punitive-pregnancy" groups as groups who are advocating using forced pregnancy as a punishment for people who have not "behaved" properly. People of such beliefs are to be found both in the pro-life and pro-choice groups. _0._1. _T_h_e _c_r_i_m_e Even though in most people's minds the crime is quite clear: lack of a responsible attitude while having sex, it is not very easily defined, and the definition varies from person to person, as the responses to my questions showed (which I didn't post, but I can tell you that they were varied). Basically it seems that each person has her/his own definition of "sexual responsibility", and some people believe that they should impose their view of responsability on other people. There is nothing new about this, except that the means used in this case are very debatable. I will talk a bit more about responsability later on, but for the purpose of the present chapter, I can safely (I hope) say that the crime in question here is "having the wrong atti- tude about sex and parenthood". _0._2. _T_h_e _c_r_i_m_i_n_a_l_s The criminals can be defined as "the people who are guilty of the crime and who will be punished if caught". In most cases - except when one of the sexual partners lied to the other about their use of birth control or attitudes about parenthood - the people who are guilty of the crime are both sexual partners, yet of the two, the woman is the one who is punished the most severely if the pregnancy is not allowed to be terminated. If the child is given up for adoption, she will be punished physically by being foced to stay pregnant against her will. The father will not be pun- ished. If the child is not given up for adoption, not only will she be punished during her pregnancy, but she will be punished afterwards for the next 20 years or so, taking care of a child she did not want. The father will be punished in the sense that he will have to support the child finan- cially, but this is the only legal punishment reserved for him. Notice that I am not talking about the actual punish- ments, as some fathers might decide to marry their lover to provide a home for the child, or might decide to share the mother's punishment by taking an active role in the preg- nancy, childbirth and care of the child, but I am talking about the "legal" punishments: except for the financial sup- port of the child, the father is not punished by the law for his crime; as any parent knows, financial support is useful, but is nothing compared with all the rest of the work involved in bringing up children. Therefore the punitive- pregnancy legal systems to date have been very anti-women, punishing only mainly the woman of the guilty couple. This is not to say that an equitable (in a sense) punitive- pregnancy legal system could not be devised whereby both partners could be as much as possible equally punished, but simply that no such system has existed yet to the best of my knowledge, and that groups concerned about punishment of this specific crime have not been too concerned about the equitability of their punishment system, justifying the feminist accusations of rampant women-hating in these groups. Turning my attention to the selection of the guilty couple. It is interesting to note that the only couples being punished for their crimes are those where the mother actually becomes pregnant. If society is interested in the punishment of this particular crime, it should, if it is equitable, also punish those who are found by other means to have commited the crime, and the punishment should be the same as the one for those who get pregnant: forced preg- nancy. Yet, the mere suggestion of such a punishment is revolting to most for many different reasons most of which could be used as pro-choice arguments. I will not list them here as I will (or have already) mentioned these arguments somewhere along the way in this monologue (if I am wrong, please correct me). Again this is not to say that it would be impossible to devise a punitive-pregnancy system whereby all guilty people could be punished whether or not they get pregnant, but sim- ply that such a system is not being seriously considered by people interested in punitive-pregnancy systems. This could mean a few things: 1 that punishment of this crime is not worth setting up such a system, in which case, why set up the system in the first place if not to make a few people suffer or to use those people for deterrence purposes? 2 That the punishment system is just an excuse for some- thing else, in which case, why not be honest and state the real purpose? maybe there are better ways of obtaining what is wanted. 3 That only pregnant women are sufficiently guilty to be punished. The only difference between them and other women who commited the same crime, is their fertility, something they probably have no control over. This would also justify some feminist claims of complete disrespect for women's fertility by society. _0._3. _T_h_e _p_o_l_i_c_e As only pregnant women are punished under current punitive-pregnancy systems, the policing for this crime is be very easily done. The women's own bodies take care of it. This implies, that women who do not whish to have many children will consider their own bodies and fertility as alien to themselves, waiting to catch them doing something wrong. This paranoid schizophrenic attitude about their own bodies is already quite common among women who practise birth control, as birth control is a power fight between women's will and their bodies. The methods used to silence the body are more or less forceful and harmful but they are antagonistic, and create a mistrust of their own bodies by women. Using their own fertility as a watchdog over women will only reinforce this antagonism. The result will often be self-hate and a feeling of being trapped by one's own anatomy, something we are barely starting to come out of, thank god. This self-hate is a very powerful tool for anybody interested in the subjugation of women, this is why it is so important to really look very closely at our motives for proposing such a punitive-pregnancy system. If the system is not completely equitable, then one has reasons to wonder whether it is not simply an excuse to hit a specific group people. (..... to be continued ........) Sophie Quigley ..!watmath!saquigley March 1, 1984