Abortion and the Working Class

 Criminalizing Abortion is Not Just a Women's Issue

Criminalizing abortion oppresses all members of the working class, but supporters of abortion rights have generally not recognized that fact. They have presented their case as a women's issue. They have said that a woman should have control of her own body and that it is wrong for men to tell her what to do with it. This is true as far as it goes, but it misses an important aspect of the issue. The anti-abortion movement promotes oppression of the working class.

Rich women have always been able to obtain abortions, and that will not change. Rich women in states where abortions are illegal will be able to travel to other states or to foreign countries, but working-class women will often be unable to do so. Thus, prohibiting abortions affects mainly working-class women.

A young working-class woman with no children may have an opportunity to acquire skills and improve her economic situation, but an unwanted pregnancy condemns her to poverty because caring for a child and working to support it leave her no time to improve her skills through education. In contrast, a young woman from a rich family may simply take a semester off from college and then go on to become a lawyer or an accountant.

An unwanted pregnancy affects not only the economic prospects of a working-class woman but  also those of her whole family. If she is a single parent, the economic effect of an unwanted pregnancy is obvious, but if she is married and her family loses her income, the effect will still be serious. Thus, the abortion issue is not just a women's issue. It affects her husband and her children, too. Therefore, a woman’s right to choose is clearly a class-related issue. Banning abortions does not affect rich people very much, but it oppresses all working-class people, and we should stress that in our framing of the issue.

Framing Abortion in Terms of Class

As always, we should begin by stating basic values, and here are some that we can use:

• All women should have opportunities to get ahead in life by learning new skills. Working-class women should not face artificial barriers that the rich do not face.
• It is unfair for rich people to invent moral restrictions that bind working-class women but can be ignored by the rich.
• In a society that prides itself on equality of opportunity, we should not condemn working-class children to poverty by creating artificial barriers to the employment and education for their mothers.
• We should not waste our human potential by creating artificial barriers to employment and education for working-class women.

·      Having enunciated these values and others like them, we will then be able to say things like:

• Abortion should be legal in order to give working-class women the same opportunity to get ahead that rich women already have.
• Abortion should be legal, so that working-class children will not be condemned to poverty.
• Abortion should be legal so that we do not waste a huge part of our human potential.

Why Frame Abortion in Terms of Class?

We should frame abortion in terms of class partly because such a framing reveals an important truth but also because framing the issue in this way provides a motive for working-class men to join the fight to protect a woman’s right to choose. This framing of the issue makes it clear that criminalizing abortion will not affect women alone. All working-class families will be hurt. Criminalizing abortion will make it harder for parents to provide for their families and to give their children a path to a better life.  Criminalizing abortion will make it harder for them to purchase homes or to provide for their retirement. Criminalizing abortion will hold them down. 

If we want the broadest possible support for a woman's right to choose, we need to make it clear that protecting that right will benefit everyone.