How Abortion has Impacted Womens Position in Society - Essay Example

Taking the perspectives of Margaret Fuller, Horatio Storer, and Caroll Smith-Rosenberg, who have expressed their views on gender differences, and the impact of abortion on the social order in 19th century America, this essay will chronicle the opposing views on women and how the women’s rights movement was borne out of such controversies.  This essay will argue for the illegality and immorality of abortion while explaining how such a fact has been exploited to debase women and uplift men and how the woman’s movement has struggled to fight for gender balance.

Body

• the development of gender consciousness,

“It is well known that of every strong woman they say she has a masculine mind.” – Margaret Fuller

• the recognition of women’s subordination to men in American society,

"Is it not enough," cries the sorrowful trader, "that you have done all you could to break up the national Union, and thus destroy the prosperity of our country, but now you must be trying to break up the family union, to take my wife away from the cradle, and the kitchen hearth, to vote at polls and preach from a pulpit! Of course, if she does such things, she cannot attend to those of her own sphere. She is happy enough as she is. She has more leisure than I have, every means of improvement, every indulgence.

"Have you asked her whether she was satisfied with these indulgences!"

"No, but I know she is. She is too amiable to wish what would make me unhappy, and too judicious to wish to step beyond the sphere of her sex. I will never consent to have our peace disturbed by any such discussions.”

  -Margaret Fuller

• the articulation of an alternate vision of the future for women,

“It having now been shown, directly and by temporary assumption, that the law and public sentiment, both by their theory and their practice, alike deny to unjustifiable abortion the imputation of crime, it remains for us to discuss this question abstractly, and to prove, not merely that they are wrong, but the offense is one of the deepest guilt, a crime SECOND TO NONE” (64)

• and the development of an agenda for the improvement of women’s status.

“Women... must develop their own sexual power within the home, control the frequency of intercourse, dominate the sexual act. Significantly, these women condemned abortion as bitterly as the AMA had. For the women, however, the husband who forced unwanted pregnancies upon his wife, and not the willful and fashionable matron, constituted the dangerous and disorderly figure.” (Smith-Rosenberg: 243)

Conclusion

          It would be hypocritical to accept that abortion is wrong and aborting mothers are just forced to do it, mitigating their sin. When women step into a facility that they know conduct abortions, there is at least an ounce of intention to be rid of their fetus for some reason. However, looking at a larger picture would reveal that the men involved in impregnating them could likewise, or more likely to be responsible for such abortion.   During the Victorian era, abortions were blamed on irresponsible women who choose pleasure over duty, not seeing what is beyond the surface.