Abortion and patriarchy

WHY ABORTION?

Though the anti-abortion movement defines itself as “PROLIFE” in fact many of the positions taken by this group are anything but:  they generally favor the death penalty for murderers, and sometimes for other criminals as well;  some members of the group see no inconsistency in killing doctors who carry out abortions.  So what is so pro life about these views?

Also puzzling is the way that this issue has become a central one in recent American political debate.  It would be nice to think that our political system is so sensitive to the issues of the unborn child that it would center a major focus on this issue.  But in fact the politicians put almost no interest into children’s needs,  the preservation of the family, or any other core issue for children.  (In case you haven’t noticed, children can’t  vote.)  So why is abortion such a central issue?

A clue may come from the rhetoric of their opponents the “PROCHOICE” group.  According to this group the issue is not about life or death, but about a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body, ie, whether she chooses to have a baby after impregnation or not.  (In some versions, this even extends to whether she can choose to become impregnated, ie learn about certain birth control methods or not.)  If this is not about the lives of children, then what is so important about whether women can choose to have babies or not?

One answer comes readily from Anthropology:  the determination of control of reproduction is crucial to the definition of your family cultural system.  Typically there are two basic types, matriarchy and patriarchy, and variations on these.  In matrilineal systems, the woman bears  children by as many males as she chooses, who carry her name,  and the control of delineation of the family is down the female line.  The choice of reproduction is under female direction and control. 

In the patrilineal system, the woman bears children to a specific man,  who carry his name, and delineation of family including property etc is down the male line.  The choice of reproduction must be under male control in this system.  If women have control of reproduction, then males cannot entirely be sure that the children the mother bears are genetically their children!

Lest this seem like an abstract lesson in anthropology, please be advised:  in 2002, far more children were born to single household women in the USA than to women who had husbands.  This was not restricted to any ethnic or socio-economic group but was seen across the entire social spectrum of American women.   There is every indication that the trend is increasing in 2003.

If we look at recent presidential administrations in the USA a similar trend appears:  The Clinton administration  was probably the most “matriarchal” administration in our history as measured by 1) the single parent status of his mother, 2) the powerful role of females in his cabinet, ( including some that didn’t make it, like Zoe Baird) and 3) the powerful political role that his wife played in his administration.  (One could argue that N Reagan played a similarly powerful role in the Reagan administration, but that was never allowed to be overt or publicly acknowledged.  Which is typical of strong women’s roles in partriarchal systems.) By contrast, the Bush 2 administration shows many indications of being more partriarchal in values and attitude than any we have seen in a long time.

In the absence of evidence refuting this,  I would argue that abortion is the issue most suited to test the position of the individual on the matriarchy/patriarchy scale in current politics and is being used as such.  It is the test case for the ambiguous “family values”—which does not mean having a caring and loving family which is rare in politicians who spend so much of their time away from family ----  but “PATRIARCHAL family values”.  It is interesting that the Republicans have not seized on the fact that the Mormon culture is one of the strongest patriarchal systems in present day USA.  They do not seem in a hurry to point out that many of their initiatives lead toward  Mormon society.

The Supreme Court has removed the "right" of adult women to choose to terminate a pregnancy for the entire nation.  This decision has now shifted to the states, where the view of matriarchy and patriarchy is very different in different places.  Will this lead to a more personal approach to defining the basis of our culture?  I don't think so.  If we are to be one country,  we have one culture, and that is not currently the case.