Abortion and the Mythic Mother

“They do not realize good mothering comes from fearlessness. Few things promote more fear than being deprived of control of one’s own body.”

When my children were young, I spent two weeks in the hospital. My husband brought the kids to see me, and much to my shock at the time, my five-year-old boy turned his head away, yelled, and wanted nothing to do with me. My daughter, three, shot me a baleful look, and asked about “the doctor you live with now.” Only the oldest, then eight, seemed concerned—but about a splinter in his foot and when I would be able to pull it out. I should not have felt surprised! Children have no mercy for a mother with her own needs. Of course not. Their survival is at stake. A mother is never supposed to get sick. She is supposed to get up from that bed and make breakfast. A child’s worst fear is abandonment. Their natural narcissism is self-defense.

My children’s reactions help me understand tweets sent by anti-abortionists.

At first, I found their comments heartless: “Take the consequences,” “should have kept her legs shut,” and “Why is the woman’s life more important than the baby’s life?” Pro-choice advocates often interpret such remarks as anti-feminist, sex-avoidant, puritanical, or righteous religious indignation, but something far more fundamental is going on.

Behind the rage lie the fears—and the reasoning—of a child: What if my mommy does not want me? What if she did not want to give birth to me? Take care of me? From childish fears, irrational thoughts arise: What if the mommies stopped giving birth? It is the giving that matters. Mommies are givers, never takers. What if there were no babies? No more mommies? The meaner the tweet, the greater the fear: Mom does not want me. Me! For children, this means the end of the world. Their sadness, followed by their rage, is not softened by the stories of women who suffered and died or gave birth to unwanted children and struggled through poverty or miserable marriages. Pain in a mother is an original sin. Literally. The very first mother, Eve, is told she will bring forth children “in sorrow” because she disobeyed God, listened to that snake, and ate that fruit. That is, she thought of herself and her own needs and wishes. From the point of view of a child needing attention, that is enough to condemn her.