Happy Mother’s Day to Edie Ceccarelli, the oldest person in the U.S. and one of only a few women still living born before President Woodrow Wilson signed the Congressional Resolution into law in 1914.
Mothers are unique for several reasons, but most importantly, because mothers serve as the vehicle that helps create new life. Defining what a mother is should be simple, but being a mother can mean different things to different people. In the textbook Human Anatomy & Physiology the authors state, “Biological motherhood in humans, as in other mammals, results from the development of the fertilized ovum within the female reproductive tract.” Regardless of your definition of a ‘mother,’ becoming a mother should be a choice, and through abstinence, contraceptives, and abortions, it has been.
Even though access to birth control for women in the United States varies depending on several factors, including employer insurance coverage, state laws, and income level, until the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it would have been fair to suggest that most, if not all, women who do not want to have children have had access to various options for preventing or ending a pregnancy. A National Health Statistics report released before the Supreme Court’s reversal found that 99% of sexually active women will have used one type of birth control in their life.
The Affordable Care Act mandates coverage of all FDA-approved contraceptive methods in most private health plans. State laws regarding access to birth control can vary widely, with some states allowing pharmacists to prescribe and dispense hormonal birth control without a doctor’s prescription. Low-income women may have more difficulty accessing birth control due to cost, but there are programs available that provide low-cost or free birth control.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade last summer, thirteen states have banned abortion, including nine states (Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas) that have banned abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest (see Graph 1). In addition, legislators in some of these states plan to begin implementing ways to restrict access to birth control.
Graph 1: Banned Abortion States
Created by: Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race.
A New Mother Is Born
In these nine states that have banned abortion with no exception for rape or incest, the stage has been set for the birth of a new type of mother I will refer to as a “Forced Mother.” I define “Forced Mothers” as women who are impregnated through rape or molestation and, because of banned abortion laws, are consequently forced to carry a fetus until birth.
“Until the Roe ruling, I had never had a colleague tell me about a pregnancy that was being forced to continue because of rape,” said Dr. Erika Werner, chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Tufts Medical Center, in an interview for USA Today.
Some may argue that the quantity of these mothers is and will likely remain low. However, in a past study, the Centers for Disease Control found that almost 3 million women in the U.S. experienced rape-related pregnancies during their lifetime.
We’d hope that becoming a mother could be a joyous experience for all mothers. But at least it should not be a traumatic experience forced upon someone as a result of a traumatic experience.
This Mother’s Day lets us also support and celebrate a woman’s right to choose motherhood.
Happy Mother’s Day!
