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NEWS & LETTERS, May 2002
Economy of choice
The word that feminist writer
Rickie Solinger finds the most politically damaging is "choice." Her
new book BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS: HOW THE POLITICS OF CHOICE SHAPES ADOPTION,
ABORTION, AND WELFARE IN THE UNITED STATES (Hill &Wang 2001) is about how
public policy defines poor, young women and Third-World women as makers of bad
"choices." People who cannot pay the monetary price make bad
"choices" to become pregnant, to carry to term, to keep their babies. Historically, the U.S. (even
the 13 original colonies) always regarded family living as a privilege for those
who met church or government determined qualifications. In the 1600s and 1700s
authorities could separate families that didn't meet community standards of
dress, conduct or learning. The Massachusetts Assembly passed a law that removed
children from their families if they were over six and couldn't recite the
alphabet. So it is nothing new that reproduction is not a right but a choice (or
an obligation) of culturally approved homes; and in the present consumer culture
societal approval means having money. The Hyde Amendment, which reserved
"choice" for those who could afford it, was a foregone conclusion. Solinger also takes up how
"market forces" remove from young and poor women the choice, ignoring
the right, to raise already-born children. In one particularly poignant case, a
15-year-old California girl was removed from her home because she was in poor
health and the family could not afford a car to take her to school.
"Truancy" placed her among strangers despite her human-family
connections. This foster family received $105 per month, whereas her mother on
welfare had received only about $36. Also, the exercise of choice by
U.S. couples who long for children was often dependent on the lack of choice for
Romanian, Vietnamese, Russian, Chinese, and Latin American mothers. Put another
way, for poor Third World families, keeping the child would have been a poor
choice; but for the affluent European or American family, adoption was a good
choice. Solinger believes that the
empowerment that came out of the late 1960s helped U.S. women who experienced
shame and powerlessness as teenagers. They recognized that they were coerced
into paying for their "mistake" with a lifetime of guilt and longing
for the company of a lost child. They have organized "Concerned United
Birthparents." These women were able to alter the categories of their
thinking about the events of their early lives. They no longer accept "bad
girl" as a designation. They no longer accept their lack of choice and the
coercion that forced them to relinquish. Some of them became politically
radical. I liked BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS a
lot. It shows that a different world is possible. When men and women are
sensitized by experience with inhuman policies and systems, with an increased
understanding of what it means to be cheated out of the right to make
life-determining choices, they stand up and demand a society that puts human
needs first. –January |
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