How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Entry #1

For my outside reading book, I chose to read How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex by Cristina Page. Although I identify as being a supporter of the pro-choice movement, I have been somewhat disappointed by Page's representation of the opposing pro-life movement. Since I am only about sixty pages into the book, I understand that she may continue on to explore more facets of the pro-life argument, but at this point it appears that she has obviously chosen to only share the more archaeic, extreme, and religious views that some pro-lifers hold. The topic of my book convienently coincides with what we are currently discussing in class, so I know that every she is writing in the book is not true. For example, Page writes, "The pro-life movement may, through repetition, hope to convince us that contraception is abortion. Where are the facts? Is there really no difference between abortion and contraception?" (21). After reading articles and watching films in class that discuss viewpoints of the pro-life movement, I know the idea that contraceptives are a form of abortion is a view held by mostly radical pro-life activists. For example, one of the films had interviews with employees at a crisis pregnancy center, a place for women to go who are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and would like to be educated on their options. At these centers, run by less forceful and radical pro-life advocates, the women are educated on forms of birth control as a means to avoid having another unplanned pregnancy. If anti-contraceptive idea was held by all of those who object to abortion, their argument would not have much power. How are they to realistically say that women should not be able to terminate a pregnancy if they also object to all methods aimed at protecting against pregnancy?

Despite her partial misrepresentation of the pro-life movement, Page does make an interesting argument in the second chapter of the book, titled "Love (and Life) American Style." After citing statistics taken in the mid-1950s along with the same statistics taken from the late 1970s- when birth control became legal and available to unmarried individuals- it became apparent that the couples from the 1970s overwhelmingly reported more happiness in their marriage than the couples from the 1950s. Although it is impossible to solely attribute this to the legalization of abortion and birth control, Page brings up a unique argument. She writes, "Part of the reason for unhappiness in fifties marriages was that many couples didn't really want to be married in the first place. They were trapped into marriage by unintended pregnancy. With no sex ed, no birth control, no legal abortion..." I had never heard the point brought up before, and it was refreshing to hear a new argument on a more of a larger, holistic scale.