The Right to Choose
Illustration by Katheryne Menendez
I was born to an undocumented woman in Los Angeles 18 years ago. My mother had only been in the country for two years at that point. Despite the hardships that came with being undocumented, she was also expected to be a stay-at-home mom. My grandmother came to the United States from El Salvador in 1979. She was an undocumented single mother of six, and to sustain both herself and her kids back home, she had to work as a cleaning lady for various families in Los Angeles.
At the core of their American experience was not only poverty and xenophobia but also the misogynistic limitations that were put on them as women. They were expected to be the primary caregivers of the family while the men were the breadwinners. But as low-income mothers, they had to be breadwinners as well.
Motherhood is perhaps one of the most difficult things someone could ever experience in their lifetime. From the excruciating process of labor to the emotional, mental, physical, and economic cost of raising another human being, motherhood is a serious decision that everyone is entitled to make for themselves. Even though motherhood was nowhere near an easy feat as immigrant mothers, my mother and grandmother had the luxury of being able to choose to have children from consensual relationships, having healthy pregnancies, and getting support and resources from family. This is not a luxury that is afforded to everyone.
According to the National Institute of Health, about 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. Besides dealing with the emotional and physical trauma of the incident, victims who become pregnant and who would potentially raise their rapist’s child could also face the difficulties of motherhood, as well as the added emotional turmoil that affects many victims.
Pregnancies of all kinds, including those resulting from consensual sex and those resulting from rape, also have the potential of being extremely detrimental to the health of the pregnant person, as well as the fetus. Medical complications such as the placenta separating from the uterus or the premature rupture of the amniotic sac, also known as someone’s water breaking, can be fatal to pregnant people. The fetus can also have complications, including defects and medical conditions that make death likely and guaranteed.
Raising a child is also expensive, requiring about $233,610 per child in the span of childhood, ages 0 to 17, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Around 49.3 percent of women who have chosen to have an abortion fall under the American poverty line, a threshold of $31,661 per family, with income being one of the leading factors for choosing an abortion according to the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
In all these cases, there is an inherent and dire need for abortion access. But at its core, pregnancy, and motherhood should be a decision purely dictated by choice, regardless of whether it be because of life-threatening factors or someone simply not wanting to have a child. As consequential and life-changing as motherhood is, no one should be coerced to sustain another human being at the cost of their livelihoods, lives, or discomfort, regardless of any outdated dogmas.
Like my mother and her mother before her, I hope that my potential experience as a mother is fulfilling and beautiful. But my biggest wish for motherhood is that it is a choice that I make for myself, not a choice that I am forced to make by politicians who will never have to deal with the ramifications of their policies.
