Why support abortion rights? That's the question at the heart of Katha Pollitt's . Pollitt, a feminist writer, essayist, and poet, has been covering reproductive rights, gender equality, and poverty for decades, and in this book she takes on the complicated and thorny questions of whether women could ever be equal without abortion rights, if the abortion debates are really just about sex, and whether anyone truly believe life begins at conception. She talked to Cosmopolitan.com about why she casts a critical eye on rape and incest exceptions for abortion, the men who should be yelling in the streets for birth control of their own, and how she's trying to talk to people in the "mushy middle" about one of the most contentious topics in American society.

You've been a pro-choice writer for decades. Why this book now?

It was surprising to me that this book wasn't already out there. There are some books of reporting about abortion, where people go and interview a lot of people or they write about the political struggle, but there isn't a book that actually lays out the more philosophical arguments around abortion rights. I have a friend who is a brilliant, very important social theorist who said to me at a dinner party, "I'm only telling you this because we're friends, but I oppose abortion except for rape. The only reason I think it's OK is because women would die if it were illegal. But for myself, the only reason I think women should have them is because of rape." I said, "So someone should have a baby because they have sex?" And he said, "They made their bed, they should lie in it." This man proved to me that you can be really smart, you can think you're thinking, but you're not — you're repeating a lot of reactionary platitudes that have been handed down to you. I thought, what about a book where I try to talk about that, to the people in the mushy middle?

What is wrong with thinking abortion should be generally illegal with exceptions for rape and incest?

We have to ask, "OK, why do you think that?" [An embryo] is a person when you have voluntary sex, but it's dispensable when sex isn't voluntary? That shows you right there that the person who makes that argument doesn't really believe it when they say that the fetus or fertilized egg is a person. It shows you that something else is going on. That something else is an idea about sex: That if you have sex, even if you use birth control and you get pregnant, you should have to risk your life in pregnancy and childbirth and probably raise that child. You're probably not going to give that child up for adoption, which itself is a very emotionally serious things to do, although the people who propose adoption never talk about it that way — they make it seem like abortion is a big, emotional, terrible thing while adoption is win-win. You're supposed to have this baby, carry it for nine months, take all the physical and emotional risks, and there often is a bonding thing that happens. Women who give up their children for adoption are years and years later talking about how painful it was, much more than women who have abortions. One of the central points I wanted to make in my book is that the way we talk about abortion shows tremendous disrespect to motherhood, because it says there's nothing to being a mother — there's nothing to childbirth, nothing to pregnancy, just give it up for adoption, you'll manage.

The basic question is what do you want society to look like? Do you want it to look like a place where people have children when they're ready to have them and take care of them and love them? A society where women and of course men can be their fullest, best selves? You can't have either of those things if you say, "Sorry, you had sex after the prom and you're 17 years old. Now you have to have a baby." It just doesn't work that way.

In the book, you make the argument that we don't require parents to give up their kidneys for their born children, but anti-abortion groups do think women should have to use their bodies against their will to carry pregnancies. The kidney argument rarely gets made publicly. Does it sound crass? Should pro-choice groups use it more?

I think you can point out that we demand of women things with regard to the fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus that we don't demand of either parent once the child is born. People can say, "Well, they should" — maybe it should be compulsory that you would give your kidney to your daughter. But that will never happen because of a long history of constitutional rulings and interpretations about your body. You can't even force nurses to have flu vaccines in New York state in the middle of a flu epidemic. How likely is it that [the courts] would say, "Yes, if you give birth to this child and he's 15 and needs a kidney transplant, you're going on the table"? There is a sense that pregnant women owe something to the fertilized egg, embryo, and fetus that no one else owes to anybody.

Why is that?

I think it's because that is the moment when you can really sandbag women for life. You can say, "You had sex. Now we're punishing you."

Your book is called Pro and unabashedly embraces the term "pro-choice" just as reproductive rights groups have been moving away from the "pro-choice" label to take on a broader reproductive justice framework. What do you think of that move?

I wasn't so thrilled when Planned Parenthood decided to retire the "pro-choice" message, although I'm sure they did a lot of focus grouping that told them that was a great idea. If I remember correctly, they said, "Our focus groups are telling us it's not black and white, it's shades of gray." But what does that mean? I approve of some abortions but not of others? Even if you have enough money to have a baby and you don't want to have a baby, you shouldn't have to have a baby. It's not just about "we're going to give you more welfare" or "we're going to throw in some daycare." Any number of reasons why you might not want to have a baby, including "I don't want to be connected with this man for years and years and years," that's important. Reproductive justice is an important concept, because it says you should have the choice both to not have a baby right now and to have a baby right now, but I think for all its limitations and its slightly abstract-sounding vibe, I wouldn't be as quick to throw over "pro-choice" as some people are.

What about the term "pro-life"? Is that accurate?

I think there are a very few pro-lifers who would say that a zygote in a petri dish is the equivalent of you or me, it's just younger. If you can say that without laughing, maybe you are a true pro-lifer. But I think most people are able or willing to make distinctions that show they maybe don't quite believe that. For example, most pro-lifers would not say, "Yes, if a woman is going to die, that's just the way it is."

Take miscarriage as another example. If you really believe that a six-week fertilized egg is a human being, you would have to investigate every miscarriage, because maybe there's something that woman did wrong that's negligent homicide or manslaughter or neglect. You would have to restrict women's rights and mobility, and men's also, because there are things men do that produce defective sperm and that produces vulnerable zygotes. You would have to regulate women's behavior during pregnancy in a very dramatic way, and unfortunately our nation is moving toward that, with women being arrested for using illegal drugs even when there's no drug treatment for them, and even when it's known that using those drugs does not have such bad outcomes on babies.

Another example is child support. Right now there's child support once the baby is born — maybe, good luck with that. We have an idea that the man should help pay for the child. But we don't have a law that says a man has to support any woman he gets pregnant. Why is that? Because she doesn't have the baby yet. But if we're going to say it's a human being, then he should be supporting her during pregnancy. There are pregnant women living in homeless shelters or in the most drastic situations, and their partners have abandoned them — why don't pro-lifers care about that?

The only time we're interested in the future baby is when its condition reflects badly on the pregnant woman. It's only when it's like, "Oh, she's a bad woman," then everyone swings into action. That's it.

If you ask them, "What should happen to women who have abortions?" they never say, "It's murder, so she should go to jail for 20 years." But when Susan Smith killed her children, people were outraged. People do distinguish between parents who murder their children and women who have abortions.

Are pro-choicers winning?

If you had asked me this question a couple of years ago, I would have said no. But now maybe the tide is turning. Abortion opponents have gone so far that even the most complacent women who say, "Oh, there's nothing to worry about, I don't live in North Dakota," are waking up and seeing that this is a national issue. And we are one Supreme Court justice from overturning Roe.

Social media has allowed these news stories to get out a lot more than they would have 10 years ago. Who follows North Dakota politics? Who would know how many abortion clinics are left in Mississippi without the Internet? The successes of the anti-abortion movement have generated a backlash. And all the stuff around Obamacare and birth control really did wake people up and see it's not just abortion. Women think, I'm never going to need one. What do I care? But birth control is every day. Now, as pro-choicers predicted long ago and were laughed at, we are seeing that pro-lifers are not down with birth control either.

What about men's rights and obligations in the context of reproductive rights?

I know there are men who argue that they should have some rights in whether the woman they've impregnated should have an abortion, and that's not possible — it has to go one way or the other, and only one person can make that choice, and it's her. They should be mounting a big campaign for male birth control. Think about what women have gone through to get birth control: hundreds of years, marches, demonstrations, Margaret Sanger and Katharine McCormick putting up the money to invent the Pill. I don't remember seeing any demonstration of men down Broadway saying, "We want birth control." I think men are still getting a disproportionate share of the benefits of sexual freedom and less of the responsibilities that women have. I can remember reading in women's magazine when AIDS was a little more high profile, "You should always carry condoms." And I'm thinking, Can't men? Men used to carry condoms in their wallet, and if they hadn't used it in a while, you could see the outline in the leather. Now women have to do everything.

I don't mean to say men are the criminals and women are the victims — it's not like that at all — but men can be quite disengaged with this issue. I've been to a lot of conferences about reproductive rights. And the only men you ever see there are gay. Why is that? You don't see a lot of activism on the part of men.

Why is that?

Because it affects them less directly. It's not their body. I put out a call for abortion stories when I was beginning to write this book. There were so many that said, "I told him I was pregnant and I never heard from him again," or, "He said it wasn't his," or, "He wouldn't come with me to the clinic," or, "I came home and he wanted to show me the clothes he bought that day." That's one thing I liked about [the film] Obvious Child — he's taking care of her and being nice and they're going through this experience together.

What about the women who advocate against abortion rights?

I think it's just really, really easy to condemn other women without ever thinking, Hmm, that could be me. I would urge women to be more compassionate toward each other, to help each other, to tell each other about unwanted pregnancy. If someone needs money to pay for an abortion, give it to them. If someone just needs a cup of tea and conversation, do that. The whole "oh, you slut" discourse is so damaging to women at every level.

Can you be a pro-life feminist?

You can be a pro-life feminist for yourself. You can say, "I would never have an abortion," and then when you got pregnant, you never would have an abortion — because a lot of people who say, "I would never have an abortion" actually have abortions. But I don't think you can restrict freedom for women in such a fundamental way and be a feminist.

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Jill Filipovic senior political writer Jill Filipovic is a contributing writer for cosmopolitan.com.

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