Like every other middle class family in Pakistan, my house had maids — someone who cooked and cleaned, helped out with the household chores, and took care of us. My sibling and I developed strong bonds with these women, until they had to leave our house, and we said goodbye. We moved on.
When I was 13 years old, I had a maid named Parvati. She was named after the Hindu goddess who is considered to be the “ultimate source of power” by many practicing Hindus. I remember her fondly: chiefly for the fact that she was my very first student, instilling in me a passion for teaching that I have always held on to strongly. Every day after she had finished working, she would sit down with me, my star pupil, blissfully happy and eager to learn the alphabet.
One day, Parvati quit her job unexpectedly; her parents found out that she had engaged in premarital sex with her fiancé and gotten pregnant.
She stood at our doorstep one day, her childlike eyes filled with fear and sadness, as her aunt narrated what had happened, not letting go of a single opportunity to humiliate her or declare how the family’s reputation was now tarnished.
At first, my mother wasn’t sure how to react to the situation around me, torn between whether she should discuss it openly, or silently suppress the taboo my society had confirmed it to be. Meanwhile, I spent the following weeks asking myself: “Why didn’t she just abort it secretly and be done with it?” The answer, as I’ve learned seven years later, was never that simple.
What exactly is abortion? I remember my very first law class back in Pakistan, where my pro-choice, liberal, and exceptionally brilliant teacher had asked us the same question. “Killing of a child!” I replied instantly. She looked me in the eyes, saying nothing.
“So,” she finally replied, “Are you absolutely sure that it’s a child?”
Always an advocate for women’s rights and equality, I’d been stunned at my choice of words. It was an ironic, yet enlightening experience. If I, the pro-choice, liberal, yet naïve 17-year old feminist had just blurted out those words without a second thought, how much stronger could the responses be from those who were strictly anti-abortion, or “pro-life?”
No one has any right to deny a woman their right to choose.
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“A medical procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the death of the fetus.” This is, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the objective definition of an abortion. Naturally, our next question must be, what is a fetus? The same source defines a fetus as, “an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind; specifically: a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth.”
Most of us will recognize these definitions, but they do little to answer the key moral debate surrounding abortion: does a fetus count as a living “person?” This has been the drive behind discussions and arguments by pro-choicers and pro-lifers for centuries.
Judith Jarvis, in her article, “A Defense of Abortion” starts of with a compelling argument that the fetus has become a “person” before birth, but the right to life for the fetus is ultimately outweighed by the mother’s right to her own body.
Jarvis proposes a hypothetical situation. You wake up in your bed one day to find a famous, unconscious violinist lying next to you. He has been plugged to your body because he was found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and only your blood type can help him survive — if he stays plugged into you for nine months.
Are you compelled to agree to those terms? Of course not. However, if you say no, do you kill someone? Yes. Jarvis argues that, “You are not morally required to spend nine months in bed, sustaining the life of that violinist, but to say this is by no means to say that if, when you unplug yourself, there is a miracle and he survives, you then have a right to turn round and slit his throat.”
In this example, she illustrates a potential distinction between abortion and murder — one should be permissible, she says, while the other should not. Her argument is unique in that it recognizes the personhood of a fetus, but still argues that, morally, a pregnant woman has a right to choose.
Jarvis’ argument is reflected in an image macro I saw circulating on the Internet a while ago. It asked the reader to imagine a scenario where he/she has a baby in one hand, and a petri dish with an embryo in the other. If the reader was forced to drop one of these two, which would they choose? I think this puts things into perspective, and eventually forces a person to acknowledge the difference between the two — after all, which would you choose?
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Since abortion was not a common practice in the time when the Holy Qu’ran was introduced, Islam offers no specific instructions forbidding the act as a whole. However, most Islamic scholars agree that abortion is impermissible after four months of pregnancy, as they believe that it is then when the fetus starts possessing a “soul,” and a life is blown into the fetus.
Seyed al-Sabiq, in his book Fiqh al-Sunnah, summarizes the differing views on abortion held by Muslim scholars. He cites the theologian Al-Ghazali, who argues that “when the sperm enters the ovaries, mixes with the ovum and acquires potential of life, its removal would be a sin [. . .] the graveness of the sin increases very much if one does so after the stage when the spirit is blown into the fetus and it acquires human form and faculties.”
Even in the case of rape, many Muslim scholars believe that abortion is not permissible after a period of four months, arguing that a child conceived in this way is still “legitimate.” While Islam does provide women rights when it comes to many other things, such as education, property, and marriage, it overwhelmingly restricts a woman’s right to choose when it comes to abortion, imposing rules and regulations at every turn.
Pakistan is a country where women are still fighting for basic rights, a country where women are burnt, tortured, and killed in the name of honour, a country where the Hudood Ordinances — proposed under the dictatorial rule of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq — demand that for a woman to be considered a victim of sexual assault, she must bring in four eyewitnesses.
Pakistani women are constantly placed in submissive roles, and their ability to take control over their own bodies is an inevitable consequence of these conditions.
According to the Guttmacher report, out of every 100 pregnancies in Pakistan, 14 result in abortions. The report concludes by saying that “under current circumstances, many Pakistani women are paying with their health — and even their lives — to avoid births that they cannot afford or do not want.”
However, there is another side to this story. On a trip back home, I asked some of my Muslim friends what they thought of abortion. “I honestly don’t have much religious knowledge on the topic,” one began. “However, I believe that it’s something that should be exercised as [little] as possible. It truly is a sin. It’s hard to imagine legalizing it fully, as that probably means ending so many lives that one day could grow and prosper.”
I was surprised to see how different my friends’ views on the subject were from my own.
I set up an interview with Humza Khan, the president of the Simon Fraser Student Society, in order to ask him for his thoughts on abortion. Being raised in Pakistan and having his roots traced back to the Pashtun culture — a culture whose people are known for their warriors, hospitality, and sportsmanship — I was eager to see if his experiences, as a Muslim living in Canada, would match mine.
“I believe that a person, whether man or woman, possesses the right to do whatever they want to do with their body,” Humza told me during our interview. “It’s not for me to decide what a woman should or shouldn’t be doing with her body. We need to destigmatize it.”
I asked him how he reconciles these views with his Muslim faith. “The basic argument for anyone who is pro-life would be that you are basically destroying a life,” he began. “However, at the same time, is it fair for us to bring a life into this world, knowing fully well that they may not have the resources to survive?”
I breathed a sigh of relief as I walked out of his office that day. I now believe in my heart that many of my schoolmates — be they Pakistani Muslim, or otherwise — actively accept and support a woman’s right to choose, no matter what their social, cultural, or religious background may be.
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A much less tolerant society than ours at SFU exists in India, the second most populated nation in the world. Eighty per cent of Indian women disapprove of abortion, and 56 per cent consider it to be a heinous crime — the sacred texts of Hinduism, and therefore those who practice it, forbid abortion at any stage. Unlike Islam, this doesn’t leave much room for discussion.
Many Indian women live in fear of torture and rape from the minute they step into the public sphere. For those living in a country defined by its harsh stances against a woman’s right to choose, the fear of violence and sexual assault pervades all aspects of daily life.
The 2012 Delhi gang rape case — in which a 23-year old student was raped by a bus driver and five other men, later dying from her injuries — resulted in widespread protests, both in India and abroad, against a perceived lack of women’s rights in India. In the aftermath of this traumatic case, I discussed abortion with an Indian student at SFU. “My religion considers it to be a sin,” she told me. “I believe that if a woman has the money and the resources to look after the kid she’s going to have, she should never abort.
Even though I wouldn’t get an abortion personally, I still strongly believe in others’ right to have one.
“On the other hand, I’ve witnessed the poverty in India, which is why I’d say that if she cannot take care of it, she should abort it. It’s better for the child.”
In the United States, the nation with the second largest Christian population of the world, Roe v. Wade (a milestone decision reached by the Supreme Court in 1973) established that abortion should be legal in all the states early in pregnancy, and should be prohibited later on according to the states’ discretion. According to a 2011 poll conducted by Gallup, 45 per cent of Americans were pro-life, 49 per cent pro-choice, and the rest were undecided.
I googled the word “abortion” and found a wide range of viewpoints, most of which were expressed in the realm of social media. The anti-abortion pictures and images that I came across were truly surprising.
One of them read, “Last year Obama supported the “right” to murder 1.2 million unborn children.” Another featured a picture of baby and the text at the bottom said, “Baby saved from late-term abortion when car dies on the way to the clinic.” Another read, “My baby is not a tumour or a toenail to be removed, a baby is a person.”
If a country with women like Wendy Davis and Hillary Clinton has people whose mindsets dictate thoughts like these, how can my staunchly religious republic hold onto any hope for women’s rights?
Even Pope Francis, whose liberal viewpoints have gained him widespread acclaim, recently spoke against abortion, saying: “It is horrific even to think that there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day.”
This is the same Pope who recently argued that it’s time for the Catholic Church to get rid of its “obsession” with homosexuality, premarital sex and contraception. However, after being pressured by the Church, Pope Francis exposed the limits of his progressive views: he may be tolerant of the LGBT community and the poor, but he’s not yet ready to take a stand for a woman’s right to choose.
No matter how liberal the Pope may seem, and no matter how beloved he is by his followers, we must be critical of the fact that he was not even willing to clarify whether abortion may not be immoral in the cases of sexual assault, or when a pregnancy endangers a woman’s life — something Islamic scholars have openly discussed and debated, with most reaching the conclusion that the woman’s life is worth more than that of the fetus.
It’s interesting to note that Islam, a religion that’s often misunderstood when it comes to the rights of women, and often considered oppressive and patriarchal, is significantly more tolerant of abortion than Catholicism or Hinduism. Still, from a religious perspective, it seems there’s little room for pro-choice arguments.
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So, what does it mean to be pro-choice? I once had an open discussion with a few friends in order to undermine the social taboo of talking about abortions in public. We asked each other, “would you ever do it?” in order to question our beliefs and put our presuppositions to the test.
Would I ever get an abortion done? I’d been asked this question before, but I’d never really considered it. After weighing the options, I decided I would probably never do so myself.
“I believe that a person, whether man or woman, possesses the right to do whatever they want to do with their body.” – Humza Khan, SFSS President
Do I still believe in a woman’s right to choose? Of course! I feel everyone has as much a right to their own personal choices as I do to my own. Even if I wouldn’t get an abortion personally, I still strongly believe in others’ right to have one — whatever the reason. Pro-choice doesn’t mean pro-abortion, but it does support the idea that we all should be able to make our own choices about our own bodies.
Another poll conducted by Gallup suggests that only 35 per cent of the American people believe that a woman should abort if she or her family cannot afford to raise the child. Here comes the concept of abortion actually being ‘pro-child.’ I come from a country where abortion is not even an option for thousands of women in poverty, as they have no access to the proper medical care.
Do you know where their kids end up? Madrassas, fundamentalist religious schools where they’re clothed and fed, but taught to hate anything remotely un-Islamic. If they don’t end up there, these kids end up on the street, sold as prostitutes or used as drug mules for people too cruel and uncaring for you and I to ever understand.
I believe that there are children who should never have been brought into this world, because they are living a life full of suffering. This is one of the reasons I identify as pro-choice. Hopefully one day we will live in a world where children don’t face this adversity — but time and again, this proves to be more fiction than reality. Our world is still plagued by poverty, disease, and famine. How can one be expected to bring a child into such a world?
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Canada is one of the few nations in this world that has laws that place no legal restrictions on abortions. According to Statistics Canada, the ratio of live births to abortions is 100 to 30.
The main decision that defined abortion laws in Canada was made by the Supreme Court in 1998 in the historic R. v. Morgentaler case, where the court stated, “The decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision and in a free and democratic society, the conscience of the individual must be paramount to that of the state.” Since then, abortion has been a right guaranteed to all Canadian citizens, and procedures performed here are among the safest in the world.
Still, there isn’t much difference between us and our neighbours to the south when it comes to public opinion. In a Léger poll conducted in September 2001, 46.6 per cent of the respondents said that they were personally for abortion, while 37.6 per cent said that they were personally against it.
However, that same poll dictates that 54.5 per cent of those respondents agreed that it’s a woman’s choice when it comes to her fetus and her body — regardless of their own personal views. This is a defining factor of our view in Canada, as opposed to the rest of the world. Even if you don’t personally agree with abortion, no one has any right to deny a woman her right to choose. Oh, Canada.
Finally, the Guttmacher report, last conducted in 2009, effectively subverts many myths we often hear about abortion, and proves to be a fitting conclusion to my argument.
The report states that a woman’s likelihood of having an abortion is statistically similar whether she lives in a developed or a developing region. In addition, once legalized or criminalized, abortion rates on national and state levels do not change. Legalizing abortion will not, as some argued, encourage more people to have them — it will, however, make sure that those who do are given the option to do so safely.
No matter where you stand on the ethics of abortion, consider this. Once we deprive certain people of the opportunity to make their own choices about their bodies, how can we claim to extend all people fair and equal rights? There is a difference between opposing abortion and opposing a person’s right to have one. In the end, the person whose body it concerns should have the final say, and no one else. We should all have the right to make our own choices.
