Celebrating Motherhood — and Reproductive Freedom

mother babyTwo months ago, a single mother’s ordeal was grabbing headlines. Shanesha Taylor, homeless and desperate for a job, landed an interview at a Scottsdale insurance office. But the 35-year-old mother of two faced a difficult dilemma when she went to her interview on March 21. She couldn’t find child care, but she also couldn’t afford to cancel.

Short on options, Taylor let her two boys, ages 6 months and 2 years, wait alone in her car for 45 minutes while she tried to secure a source of income for her family. Taylor was subsequently arrested for child abuse for leaving her sons unattended in a hot car. Her children were examined at an area hospital and released as uninjured, but Taylor nevertheless faced two felony counts.


The best gift to mothers would be the ability to choose motherhood without suffering tremendous financial blows.


Taylor endangered her children, but she did it because she faced a tough dilemma — a choice between what was best for them in the short term and what was best for them in the long term. She faced this dilemma in the richest nation in the world — a nation that is nonetheless the worst among rich nations in terms of family-friendly policies. Taylor’s unemployment didn’t help matters, but even for the employed, social programs are lacking. As Stephanie Coontz summarized in her interview with us last year, “We are the only rich, industrial country in the world that doesn’t have subsidized parental leave, limits on the work week, some form of national health insurance, and/or strong investments in child care and preschool.”

Consequently, parenting is an almost insurmountable expense for many. In the last 20 years, the cost of maternity care and delivery has swelled in the United States — in fact, tripling in the case of delivery. Pregnancy, delivery, and newborn care now come to $30,000 on average. Add another $20,000 if the delivery is by C-section. It’s far more than what people in other developed nations pay. Americans pay more than twice what people in Switzerland pay for childbirth, and more than three time what people in Britain pay. Continue reading

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

  • saguaroArizona Republicans do a stellar job of making our beloved state seem like a haven for bigots. The current target? Members of the LGBT community. (AZ Central)
  • Here’s another shining example of this … (Raw Story)
  • And again! Can’t even give birth to your own baby the way you want to! Dammit, Arizona! (Care2)
  • If you are married to a person with genitalia that is the opposite of yours, I have some good news for you — Mike Huckabee approves of your intercourse. Congratulations. (Slate)
  • A mother who helped her 16-year-old daughter terminate an unwanted pregnancy could become a convicted felon for doing so … and remember, this is a world where others can kill unarmed born children and get off scot-free. (Care2)
  • After having had to abort her very wanted child at the end of the second trimester, Phoebe Day Danziger tells her sad story. (Slate)
  • We’re familiar with Plan B, but is there a Plan C on the horizon? (RH Reality Check)
  • The 10 suckiest anti-abortion bills of 2014 — and we’re not even in the third month of the damn year. (Think Progress)
  • Lack of Knowledge on Long-Term Contraception Is A Real Danger for Women (HuffPo)
  • The inventor of the HPV vaccine is working on a similar vaccine for herpes. Yay science! (Sydney Morning Herald)
  • Like everything else in medicine, the value of mammograms is being debated. Wouldn’t it be nice if doctors could be on the same page? (NY Times)