Crisis Pregnancy - Assignment Example

 Crisis Pregnancy Introduction In today's world, women have choices they have never had before. They are able to determine, for the most part, when they will have a child. Women are working more than ever before and very often raising children is not the primary goal that it was in the past. [1] With family planning what it is today, women can actively decide whether to get pregnant and many have chosen not to because of the need to pay for daycare or change lifestyles. However, there are still many unwanted pregnancies and today women can decide whether or not to continue with that pregnancy. This may sometimes mean the termination of that pregnancy. This paper will argue that women have the right to make their own decision about the pregnancy that they carry and support is needed to help them make the right decision for them and their infant. Background Modernity has impacted the lives of women quite a lot. They now have paid employment and they can control their fertility which improves their ability to participate in paid employment. There has been a decline in fertility in Ireland as well as the rest of the European countries. At one time, children were assets to the family, for many reasons but that is no longer always true. Family planning has allowed women to determine if they are going to have any children at all. Childcare for the working woman can be high enough in cost to make the work that she does become negated. [1] This has also changed the relationships with the opposite sex, including spouses and society at large. In the decision to become a parent there are some awesome responsibilities. Women who are contemplating keeping a child must have a chance to think about these responsibilities. There is stability and care and spending time with this child. The mother feels she must be able to understand and cope with herself in order to cope with a child and this may be completely true. Therefore, when one is making the decision to have a child, it is a complicated decision. Much of what complicates it is the mix of pleasure and fear that comes with the pregnancy. One must remember, though, that only a woman can become pregnant and so even if this is a wanted pregnancy, only the woman can put her career on hold while she is off with a delivery and new baby. This can affect a career drastically and one must also consider this issue. The general public often thinks about women who are pregnant in one light. That light reflects that women always want their babies and they would protect them at all costs, that even female animals protect their babies not matter what. This may not be true however, and there are many reasons for that. Women often have a pregnancy experience that does not reflect what society believes to be the norm. Many do not talk about it because it is expected by society that they will be very happy about their pregnancy. [2] Women do not have identical experiences with their pregnancies and because of that fact have different reasons for accepting or rejecting a pregnancy. [3] Thus women who reject their pregnancies do not have identical experiences in this rejection. There is also the fact that society believes that these women are young women who are not married. The fact is that women ages 35 years and older have the greatest proportion of contraceptive nonuse and unintended pregnancies ending in abortion. [7] This is a stunning statistic and makes the question of the right to abortion larger but this body still belongs to that female. Women must speak for themselves and in the case of pregnancy, this is nearly impossible due to the overall feelings of society about pregnancy. There is very little ability to have voice if an unwanted pregnancy is being carried. Friends, family, husbands and society do not understand why a pregnancy is not wanted or needed. They do not understand that this female who is supposed to have children does not want that part of life and values something else more. They also cannot understand how she could have gotten herself into this predicament and how can she not love this baby anyway? Body Consciousness One must remember that the woman has a consciousness about her body in being her own. The body is both a subject and an object. [3] Women often experience their pregnancies as a change in their own body. Their breasts get larger, and become more sensitive and their waistline begins to expand. Then there is the change that comes from something other than her own body which are the tiny new feelings of the fetus. Suddenly this pregnancy both belongs to her body and does not. This self defined space that has been her own body now also becomes the space of another. [4] This is unique to pregnancy and in no other case is it true. Only in pregnancy does the case of what Young notes occurs which is "In pregnancy I literally do not have a firm sense of where my body ends and the world begins." [5]. Suddenly there is a difference that may not be appreciated in the body she has had and the body she now has. One must also remember that when society and the law is making a decision as to the right or wrong choice that a woman makes in deciding whether or not to accept her pregnancy, that is a livid experience that happens to no one but the female and that can be experienced under no other circumstances. Throughout a pregnancy, a woman has a unique relationship with the child she is carrying. The sense of attachment to this infant does not completely occur, however, until the second or third trimester so if a female chooses to end her pregnancy in the first trimester, there is not always a strong attachment to that fetus. [4,5] This allows the demonizing of the fetus. If this is an unwanted pregnancy, this becomes a less than human sometimes monstrous object within her body. This can occur because of rape or because of the strong desire not to be pregnant. This can happen even more strongly in women who are in some way forced to carry a fetus that is unwanted to term. Many times this pregnancy is denied all together or becomes the object of a consistent need to get rid of the pregnancy. These women with unwanted pregnancies suffer in silence due to the stigmata of not wanting a child. [6] The child that is born under these circumstances may suffer the consequences of the feelings that this female has had throughout her pregnancy as this is an infant that is not an individual but an annoyance or intrusion. [4, 5] This is especially true of the woman who has not had an opportunity to put voice to here distress. This description of an unwanted pregnancy, of course, is nothing like that of the wanted pregnancy and this becomes part of the problem for many reasons. Women are expected to have a pregnancy that does not make them feel this way and they grow up thinking that they will have an instinct to protect this unborn child, no matter what. When this does not happen and they do not feel that way, it creates a vacillating inability to make a choice that has to be made early on. This coupled with the legal society trying to make this decision for her becomes quite difficult. In many countries, abortion is now against the law and in the US it is against the law in some states and not in others. Women may have fewer abortions but the ramifications of that may be devastating. Others who do have abortions are forced to travel to other countries or other states and have this abortion many times alone. Infanticide There have been some examples in the media recently that illustrate what happens when a woman, for whatever reason, is forced to carry a baby to term. This includes women who are forced by spouses and loved ones as well as the laws of the nation. Many times, this woman will find ways to hide this pregnancy, terminating the infants life on delivery. There have been many cases of this. An example has been the young woman at prom who delivered her baby in the toilet at prom and went right on back to the prom and had a great time, not even noticing that her infant died. This kind of case occurs because of the subjective division of self from the infant growing inside. This happens not because this young mother did not love this baby but to this young mother, there was no baby at all, therefore, there was no death. Denial In other cases, women have denial that is so strong that they do not know they have even delivered an infant. An example of a case like this goes to a young woman who was admitted to the emergency room complaining of gallbladder pain. She was overweight and at first glance, it was not determined that she was pregnant and in questioning, she stated that this was impossible. Her pain continued to get worse and she delivered a 10 lb baby boy. In trying to pass the infant to this young mother, she screamed out that she was not pregnant and this baby was not hers and what were we trying to do. This, of course, eventually led to the adoption of this infant but this young mother was never able to accept this as her baby. One must remember, in particular society who chooses to judge, that women do not make infants, the infant makes itself. The female is a vessel in which the infant grows. [8] Counseling Counseling services are not easily available to many women with crisis pregnancy. This is an essential need in helping these women identify what they are feeling and why, as well as helping them to make the right decision for them and for their infant. [8] Women perceive a great need for crisis pregnancy support and counseling services. At this point it appears that only 38 out of 87 women receive any kind of counseling or support prior to going to the UK for an abortion. The Minister of Health of Ireland states that 9% of pregnancies end in termination and the most common causes are not using contraception, as well as ignorance about contraception and how to obtain it. In Ireland at this time, it is reported that 24% of single women and 2% of married women have abortions. [9] Those that did receive counseling did not feel that what they received helped in any way. [8] There are more women who reject abortion and put their babies up for adoption but this occurs only after they have determined that abortion is not an option for them. Women without means to go to the UK for abortion also are forced into a situation in which they must have the baby but once this happens it is difficult to give up an infant that has been a part of them for 9 months even though if kept the child may end up being one of the infanticide cases. Many women do without any kind of counseling while deciding what to do. She may carry her baby to term due solely to the fact that the law or society believes she should. Then the shock of infanticide or the murder of a child within the first year of life occurs. [3] Many of these women are given lenient sentencing and psychiatric treatment, understanding that there are some issues involved that would drive a mother to kill her infant. The true crime here is that counseling at an earlier stage may have saved this horrible thing from happening at all. Many of the women who commit to the killing of their young children describe pregnancies in which they saw this infant as something other than a child. Society Society severely criticizes these women for what they have done. "How could they do such a horrible thing to a young infant or child?" To this group of women, this is not really a baby so they are not killing a real infant or child but a foreign object that grew inside them. Whatever happens, we as a society want to see these women as monsters or victims themselves, refusing to understand that there are times when the pregnancy was unwanted from the beginning and a termination may have been the best alternative in this case. [4] This is a hard thing to say but certainly until it is determined a better way to help these women cope or remove their children once they become attached, it is an alternative that prevents this child from suffering at the hands of a mother who does not see the child as human at all. The abortion debate in Ireland has become quite strong. The numbers of abortions has increased. Abortion is given a voice by the public who debates the right or lack of it, of women having an abortion. She does not have a right to kill her infant.[6] As noted throughout the previous description, there is the realistic possibility that she will kill her infant anyway, whether it occurs during the first trimester or into infancy and/or childhood. Forcing a woman to carry unwanted pregnancy is not the answer. There are, of course, alternatives to abortion including adoption, single parenting, and fostering. Each of these is a good alternative, however, if one understands the previous discussion and the severity of the problem of carrying this baby into the second and third trimester and then to delivery can only be determined by the woman carrying the baby. It has been suggested that society might approach the problem differently in the media as well as otherwise. For example, the media might show women who are having crisis pregnancies delivering their infants and giving them up for adoption. Then show these infants growing up in a happy environment. At this time almost all of this type of public information is skewed toward the mother who takes the baby home as a single parent and lives happily ever after, again accomplishing two things, one being to make the woman feel guilty about not feeling that way and the other making her believe that is her only alternative. [6] Crisis Pregnancy Centers Crisis pregnancy centers are available for these women. These clinics make an effort to help a woman understand what the ramifications of each of her choices is. However, they are often seen as places that use scare tactics, guilt, and false information to prevent a woman for going for an abortion. The clinics of course state that they do not do this, in fact, they given women much information about how to have their baby and provide it with a good life through adoption. [10] This may very well not be the kind of information that these women need. The clinics believe they only encourage women to make their own choices but realistically, the women feel they are being badgered as they get information on how not to have an abortion but they do not get any information on how to live with the infant they do not want until the adoption occurs. There does not seem to be a thorough understanding of how severe the problem is for many of these women. Inside a prolife crisis pregnancy center can be intimidating for these women facing an unwanted pregnancy in the fact that questions are ask that are difficult to deal with and there is pressure to make a choice other than abortion. Clinic personnel have noted, that on the average there are no men involved in this decision. Boyfriends and husbands are not supportive on the average in any way. Mothers on the average pressure unmarried pregnant women to have abortions. Many of the younger girls and women believe that the father will marry them until he no longer shows up once she is pregnant and she begins to realize her fate. [11] Alternatives In making a decision, there are three alternatives that need to be considered. Those are single parenting, adoption, and abortion. Women with a crisis pregnancy need to be able to determine what the best alternative is for them and not be forced into any of these decisions without canceling meant to help them make the right decision, keeping in mind their right to make this decision. In Ireland, the typical family has two parents and children but it appears from statistics that the number of single parent families is increasing. Nonmarital births in 2000 approached 31.8% of births. [12] The average age of nonmarried mothers in Ireland is 25 and many of these are widows and their families. There has been much criticism over the funding provided for single parent benefits. There is the feeling that the government provides these benefits and then does not study to see if there is any influence on well the children do. This kind of controversy encourages the single mother to not keep her child or consider the third alternative which is abortion. These laws appear to be changing and the government has some reform ideas in mind that may encourage young women but at this time those have not taken place.[12] Without help, however, the single parent family could not survive. The census results in 2006 show the long parent or single parent numbers recorded at 189,213. This group of people is more likely to live in poverty than any other group. Data from the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions in 2008 shows that 17.8% of lone parents are living in consistent poverty compared to the whole population which has a rate of 4.2%. These parents are more likely to be poor because of lower levels of education, the poverty trap, and low paid employment. There is also the fact that an unwanted pregnancy is likely to place a mother in this poverty level because she is now unable to work. Lone parents often have difficulty accessing work based on the fact that they have a lack of access to affordable and quality childcare after school which limits their job choices. This lack of choices from the fact that there are children in the family ranges to housing, jobs, and other commodities. [13] Adoption is a second alternative for these mothers with crisis pregnancy. In Ireland, there have been over 42,000 domestic adoption orders since 1952. There has been a slow decline over the last few years. There are family adoptions and non-family adoptions. The family adoption may actually be made by members of the family such as the grandparents. The non-family adoptions are set up so that the child will go to another chosen family. Adoptions may be made by married couples living together, a married person alone, family of the child or a widow or widower. Those children that may be adopted are children born outside marriage or those children in which the courts have determined have neglected their children. Though adoption may be difficult, it is a good alternative. Unfortunately, adoption is usually considered too late as abortion occurs and in having an abortion, the mother in crisis does not have to carry this baby to full term. Abortion In Ireland at this time, over 2000 women per year travel to England for abortion due to the laws in Ireland. These laws are very confusing at this time and for women who having a great deal of difficulty making this decision anyway, the confusion makes it even more difficult so the travel to England becomes the easiest way to accomplish what they believe their need. There is the movement to improve the abortion laws in Ireland. However, of course, the anti-abortion campaigns are fierce which again make it very difficult for a woman to make this decision is she feels that she needs to and again drives her out of her country to have her abortion alone. [14] Historically abortion has always been a problem in Ireland. It was totally illegal until the Supreme Court judgment in a case defined in 1992 which allows or seems to allow abortion in the case of the woman that has threatened suicide. A life sentence in prison has been the punishment for earlier abortions. They do, in the government, seem to understand that women are going to assert their right to terminate a pregnancy whether or not it is legal. Back street abortion in Ireland has existed just like in most countries. This kind of abortion decreased in numbers as England legalized abortion and women began to travel to England to have their abortions. [15] Anarchists are supposed to be committed to true equality between the sexes and recognize the fact that it is impossible for women to be equal if they cannot control their fertility and decide themselves and when they will enter motherhood. Ireland has very little provision for nurseries and child rearing is expensive. Cut backs in health and welfare have occurred and there is massive unemployment at this time. It is noted that abortion is also a class issue as unwanted pregnancy happens many times to women living in poverty who cannot afford the contraceptives and who cannot afford to go to England for an abortion. In not being able to afford the abortion and adding another child to a poverty situation, poverty is only increased. Parents are struggling right now with the children they have and if any of the children they have are handicapped, it is even harder. Women make this difficult decision for several reasons including rape or incest, because they already have too many children, because their health would be damaged, because they could not cope with rearing a handicapped child, or simply because they do not want a child. All of these are valid reasons for making this choice and the decision must belong to the woman alone not to a government or religious body. [15] The Argument Throughout this paper it has been discussed that women have the right to their own body. There are those that would have you think that this is incorrect and that the fetus that she is carrying has the right. This body is this woman, the infant borrows her womb to grow but in the end the body still belongs to the woman. Women, if they are to be equal to men in all things must be able to make decisions about something as basic as her fertility and her body. She must also be able to make decisions as to whether she will carry a baby or not. Only a woman can become pregnant and no one else can really determine what that means. Crisis pregnancy causes the complete change in a woman's life. Should she not have the right to determine if that change was right for her? Many would say she should have made that decision before she got pregnant. To that the answer has to be, would you ask a man not to have a passionate moment in which he did not think of contraception? The answer is no, you would not, it happens all the time. The times that it happens with a woman is only different because only she can get pregnant. There are many other reasons to consider here as well. For example, a man may be abused but he will not get pregnant. Violence and sexual violence against women has increased drastically over the last few years. Women are often treated like belongings and in the war zones are abused and raped frequently. Women in every town and city in the world are and have been raped. Should they carry the child of this rape? Is it not true that once a woman is forced to carry a child from rape, she has only been abused again? Men are allowed to take advantage of women under many circumstances and under many of those circumstances the woman becomes pregnant. Pregnancy is also a way for men to gain control of their wives. Those men who choose not to have their wives work and who separate them from society are often successful at doing so by keeping their wives pregnant. This prevents them from escaping. [16] It is said, "Yes, but these women could be allowing these fetuses to live and putting their baby up for adoption." To this end one must realize that the trauma of carrying a baby to full term and then giving it up is much more difficult than it seems. As stated before, once the mother hits the second or third trimester, she becomes much more attached and in that attachment, has a great deal of difficulty giving this baby up. This creates some of the situations, as does single parenthood, that have been discussed earlier. Women who kill their babies or children do it because they do not see that child or infant as real or human and sometimes totally neglect it denying that it is even there. These are the horrible situations that in the papers all the time. Is this better than an abortion? The answer has to be no. Lastly, the legal ramifications of an abortion have to be removed all over the world. This is not a discussion in whether women have been negligent or whether they have been in some way murderous. It is really very interesting when you contemplate the fact that society takes it easy on women who kill their children right after birth, wondering why they would do such a thing and what kind of victim they are but would imprison the woman who makes that same choice before the child is born. This is a control issue, an issue of lack of equality, and an issue of stepping backward. Women have the right to make their own decisions whether it be about whether they are going to work and where to what happens to their bodies and whether they are going to be mothers. Women over many years have been told when they would have children, at what age they would marry, what kind of birth control they would use, what kind of jobs they would hold and many other things. They have more recently even been expected to work full time, take care of a home, bear the children, take care of the children and all of the other things needed in a home. All of this without having a say as to how many children they will have if any. The law says that women are equal. This does not seem to bear out in fact as women make less money, do more jobs, move up the ladder slower, and are told what to do much more often than men. More women care for children alone and live in poverty as well. The more children they have the deeper the poverty. [16] The poverty is also increased because statistics show that children who are raised in poverty are likely to continue to be impoverished. Conclusion The world continues to silence women who do not want to be pregnant with their loud opinions which make them feel guilty or inadequate. There is nowhere to go if a woman does not feel happy in her pregnancy and does not dare talk to the wrong person about it. A greater ability to give voice to this experience, including a vocabulary that works needs to be developed and used as these women do have a choice and this is their body. The world cannot assume in the legal or religious tenure that they know what the right thing to do for every woman is . In fact the right thing for each will be different. There are many opportunities for and many decisions that can be made. Women must be able to talk to non-biased people about this situation in order to make the best decision for herself and her baby. This does not mean right to life clinics or abortion clinics. This means with open minded personnel that understand the need to make an appropriate decision, will not force an opinion, and have a thorough understanding of the issues as well as the fact that women have the right to make this decision. This is not just a problem in Ireland but all over the world. When this is no longer an issue and women have the right to make these decisions without coercion or the law and society trying to be involved in the situation, women and children will be better off. Works Citied 1. Mahon E, Conlon C & Dillon C 1990. Women and Pregnancy. Chap. 1. pg 15. 2. Ronver J Irish abortion-debate protagonists sit and talk. The Lancet. 352. 1998. 1130. 3. Lundquist C 2008. Being torn: Toward a phenomenology of unwanted pregnancy. Hypatia. 23(3) 4. Lester EP and Malkah TN. 1986. Pregnancy, developmental crisis and object relations. Psychoanalytic considerations. International Journal of Psychoanalysis (67): 357-66 5. Young IM. 2005. Pregnant embodiment: subjectivity and alienation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 6. Birchard K 1998. Irish abortion-debate protagonists sit and talk. The Lancet. 352. 7. Reed S, Prager S, & Schiff M 2010. Factors associated with contraceptive nonuse among US women ages 35-44 years at risk of unwanted pregnancy. Contraception. 81(5). 427-434. 8. Mahon E, Conlon D & Dillon L. 1998. Women and Crisis Pregnancy. The Stationary Office 9. Crisis Pregnancies in Ireland. 1998. Lancet. 351:892. 10. Carbin RJ 2000. Speaking up for crisis pregnancy centers. RN. 63(12). 11. Tushnet E 2003. Inside a crisis pregnancy center. Lancet. 382:776. 12. Vital Statistics 2000. Ireland 13. http://www.combatpoverty.ie/povertyinireland/oneparentfamilies.htm 14. Ireland and abortion. Abortion in Ireland. 2001. fpaNI granted leave for judicial review at http://www.prochoiceforum.org.uk/comm75.php 15. McCarthy P 1992. Abortion in Ireland-historical perspective and current campaign. A talk by McCarthy at the Solidarity Movement in Dublin. 16. WHO, World Health Organization. Violence against women and children. Read More