Work to provide women with non-violent choices

Every year in the United States, countless women face unplanned pregnancies, abusive partners, and coercive parents.

These women are justifiably concerned about pregnancy discrimination in the workplace and a lack of practical support at schools. They have children who are already hungry, who already lack adequate health care, who already struggle with financial insecurity as a result of the feminization of poverty and growing economic inequality in this country. Despite our claims of caring about children, families, and opportunities for every person, we have failed when a million of these women have no better choice than abortion.

Women do not seek abortion the same way we seek international travel, concert tickets, or even our favorite hot meal. Women seek abortion because it is the only way out of a broken system, a system of hierarchies in which some classes of people have more power, rights, and privileges than others. Women seek abortion because they can't pay for rent, because they can't afford child care, because their landlords will remove them from the home for having another child.

The National Network of Abortion Funds raises money every year to 'help” families. But do they help them afford child care? Do they help parents put food on the table? Do they pay for educational opportunities? Do they even send a check for the winter heating bill? No. All funding goes solely to providing abortions, indicating support not for choice but for abortion itself.

And when many of the funds are organized by abortion providers who stand to directly benefit financially from these enormous and often frivolous fundraisers, it is hard to believe that the motivation is anything but greed.

Meanwhile, people who identify as pro-life are hosting diaper drives, setting up maternity homes for those who are kicked out, hosting pregnancy support panels at college campuses, advocating for enforcement of anti-pregnancy-discrimination laws, personally taking in families, and volunteering countless hours to connect pregnant women with community resources.

Abortion is a symptom of oppression. It is a demonstration that the needs of humans are not being met. Paying for an abortion does not solve poverty. It doesn't solve abuse or discrimination or health concerns. Paying for an abortion is a callous gesture that fails to address the core problems that women face. We should all, across the political spectrum, come together to create a society in which all people have the resources and support available to make non-violent, non-coerced choices.

' Rachel Peller is a board member of Feminists for Nonviolent Choices, an organization that believes all people deserve to live without violence, including abortion, war and the death penalty. Comments: FFNVCoutreach@gmail.com