Pro-Life vs. Anti-Choice: What are abortion restrictions really all about?

A piece at RH Reality Check begins, "Restrictions on abortions just don’t work in that they don’t result in the desired outcome.  This is the predictable, yet bold, conclusion of a report to be presented at the United Nations on Monday, October 24th by Anand Grover, a UN-appointed independent expert on health."  The article goes on to discuss such restrictions in a global context, adding in quotes from the author's friends about women who have "too many" abortions.

I have to take issue, however, with the lack of discussion regarding what, exactly, abortion restrictions are really all about.

To be sure, a large portion of mainstream anti-abortion people probably do just want abortion rates to fall.  While these people still don't seem to want to hear arguments for better access to contraception and sexuality education, they do indeed just see abortion as an evil procedure that should be stopped.  I know this because I have a handful of anti-abortion ("pro-life") friends with whom I have been able to have civil, intelligent conversations.  Neither party has ever come away from these conversations with a total change of opinion, but I'd like to think we have - at the very least - obtained a slightly better understanding of why the other person thinks the way they do.  Such an outcome is hardly going to turn the tides of "The Abortion War" any time soon, but I can't help but think it's a step in the right direction.

Thing is, these "pro-life" friends of mine aren't exactly at the forefront of the anti-choice movement.  They don't set the agendas, and they certainly aren't in the driver's seat.  Many don't even follow the larger anti-choice movement: they're simply anti-abortion in their own right, which is why I am able to call them friends.

The anti-choice movement, on the other hand, has never been and never will be about simply reducing the number of abortions.  These people lead the way, set the tone for how all anti-abortion arguments will be made.  They are increasingly radical and dangerous, pulling more "moderately" anti-abortion people with them.  They use violence, threats, and harassment.  They spin bad research to make pseudo-scientific arguments poised as fact, exploit the vulnerability of people who have had abortions, and write large checks to make sure lawmakers put their desires first.

For these people, the agenda is far more dangerous: relegating female-bodied individuals to hapless incubators, reinforcing a culture of male dominance, enforcing social injustice that intersects every aspect of humanity (race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc)... this is their game.  And as leaders of everything anti-abortion, they have the weight to pull more moderate "pro-lifers" with them.  We see their militant tactics infiltrate the mainstream political climate as "personhood amendments" and funding cuts to preventative health care become the norm. 

Make no mistakes: it is true that abortion restrictions do absolutely nothing to reduce the number of abortions in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world.  But we need to be constantly critiquing the motives behind most of these restrictions.  Far from some sort of altruistic ideology, the anti-choice movement is not-so-gently reshaping the way women (and all female-bodied individuals) are seen, heard, and allowed to live.