NARAL reminds us that not only women get pregnant and abortion rights are for all

Brett T. | 9:45 PM on March 09, 2019

This isn’t necessarily a new thing for NARAL to say, but it’s rare when they post a link to a piece backing up their claim that not only women get pregnant, so the fight for abortion rights really does apply to all people.

Women aren’t the only people who get pregnant or the only people who need to access abortion. The fight for reproductive freedom is a fight for ALL. https://t.co/iJq1qKHFjh @sesmith

— NARAL (@NARAL) March 10, 2019

We’re going to have to ask that you imagine you’re in a university gender studies class as you read this excerpt so your mind is in the right state to process what you’re about to absorb:

… attempts at social control affect others who are not straight, cis, nondisabled white men from middle class or affluent backgrounds—including trans and gender-nonconforming people, disabled people, and people of color. But there is a peculiar form of weaponization applied specifically to cis women that must be called out. In the case of women of color, especially Black, Latina, and Indigenous women, it is particularly amplified; slavery, for example, has left a marked legacy on Black bodies, and that history has been used in racist anti-choice rhetoric in an attempt to influence Black women.

Most people who will need abortions are cis women, and the long history of opposition to abortion has been deeply intertwined with sexism and misogyny. It is critical to recognize that cis women are the target here; when people talk about “sluts” who should have kept their legs closed, they’re tapping into a social consciousness that says cis women’s desire to control their own bodies is transgressive and wrong.

But the second critical truth is that women are not the only people who need abortions: People across the gender spectrum receive abortion care. While their numbers are relatively small—so small that it is difficult to get statistics, for example, on how many men receive abortions each year—they are not insignificant. That they are unintended victims of the war on women does not negate the fact that they, too, are fighting for their lives and autonomy.