When Pro-Choice Means Not Only "Right to Choose" but also "Think of the Children"
Because children are people, too
I think it’s natural that people will see this post’s featured image and assume, “This chick’s just trying to sell her book.”
Yes, just this once, but please let me tell you why.
I put a year+ into writing The Age of the Child following years of thinking about how to do it effectively for a reason beyond entertaining readers.
“I would never want a book’s autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books.” — Kanye West
Wait. Wrong quote.
“...[F]iction is a valuable socializing influence.” — Scientific American
FICTION IS A VALUABLE SOCIALIZING INFLUENCE.
I'm a childfree woman, obviously, and I’ve been writing and talking about being a childfree woman for over a decade. When I started, it was from the perspective of someone who for years and through two marriages had felt pressured to be a mother. When you live in a society in which having children is a foregone conclusion, suddenly realizing you have no desire to be a parent can make you feel odd-ball enough, but add to it a husband who, surprise!, wants kids and then a second husband who lies about being fine without children because he assumes your not wanting them is a phase and that you’ll “come around,” and maybe you get a little indignant.
After a while of coming at it from that perspective, though, I started thinking about ALL of the people who are pressured to be parents, and all of the people who take for granted that, want it or not, they will produce children, and I started writing on their behalf rather than to share my own experiences.
Some readers sent me private messages to thank me. They’d actually had no idea they could choose not to have kids.
Imagine that, for a minute. Some people still have no idea they can opt out of being parents. Today. In 2023.
And then, after learning a little later that an average of five kids a day die in this country of neglect or abuse, I began thinking about all of the children who are born into inhospitable environments.
My focus shifted completely and irreversibly.
The Age of the Child is so-named because, in the world inhabited by the characters in the novel, “Think of the children” isn’t an empty demand drooled out by politicians or hand-wringers who are really only interested in a) protecting their own children, or b) somehow suppressing someone else’s rights (“Two women in wedding dresses? Please. Think of the children.”).
Instead, it’s a world in which the government is genuinely trying to protect the children, in all the ways they define “children.”
Emma Klein writes in this succinct delineation of the pro-creation movement in Becoming a Mother Reinforced Why I’m Pro-Choice:
"The preciousness of babies is a constant refrain in anti-abortion rhetoric — but the focus is almost entirely on making sure they’re born. [...] For the anti-abortion movement, the quality of the life they purport to hold sacred is a non-issue.”
It’s the quality of life vs pro-life issue that informed The Age of the Child; that created Katherine, who never wanted children but is legally compelled to give birth; that inspired the complicated, unwanted child Millie; and that lies at the heart of the story’s central message: what it means when we don’t accept that babies are human beings simply because, well, it’s so dreadfully inconvenient to do so.
The focus of the protest was children. A sign reading BABIES AREN’T TRASH bounced in rhythm with steps taken in a tight circle. IF YOU CAN’T DO THE TIME, DON’T DO THE CRIME, read one side of a large poster. It spun to flash CLOSE YOUR DAMN LEGS on the other. A woman jumped out of a car stopped at the red light and plopped a baby at the feet of a protester carrying a sign reading THINK OF THE CHILDREN. By the time she returned to her car and the driver sped around the corner, the protest group had managed to shuffle ten or fifteen feet away from the baby left squirming and crying on the warm asphalt. —The Age of the Child
An article I read years ago, a particularly horrifying story about a little girl’s abuse, won’t leave my memory. It was something I’d immediately regretted reading—sometimes, the details of a story are so terrible they find you at three in the morning. At first I tried to forget it, but then it occurred to me how privileged it is of me to have that option. I thought, “If I were a child being treated X kind of way at this very moment by my parent(s), how would it feel to see another adult, one who could possibly help me, barely glancing at me before walking away because, ‘Not my kid’?”
Avoiding looking at the abandoned child flailing on the sidewalk doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
I didn’t want to forget about that little girl, anymore, or about the thousands and thousands of brand new innocent lives brought thoughtlessly and carelessly into the world, too many of them forced to live in misery at the hands of the same people from whom they’re biologically predisposed to expect love and protection.
The issue of "Do you feel pressured to conceive?" became secondary to what “Everyone: have kids!” says about how much we actually care about the quality of these children's lives.
The Age of the Child addresses that concern while also addressing the notion of reproductive control—who has it, and who suffers under it. After the disastrous consequences of an abortion ban, the government amends their policy on reproductive rights to include a licensing protocol for reproductive parents that somewhat mimics the expectations we have of adoptive parents.
We’re all so accustomed to the same old pro-life/pro-choice debate that those who are pro-life probably can’t conceive of their rights to reproduce being restricted in the interest of guaranteeing children a decent quality of life - a policy that walks the “think of the children” walk.
“There are medical risks to the carrier pre-childbirth, Ms. Oxford,” the evaluator named Maxine said. “Ectopic pregnancy. Placental abruption. Gestational diabetes. And despite all your best efforts—and I’m sure you’d put forth your best efforts—your child could be born with special needs. The demands on you could be…demanding, and for all the years of your life. Yet, here you sit, hoping you’ll be granted a license to have a child. What we want to know, Ms. Oxford, is why.”
Is it possible that, given an opportunity to imagine the devastation to parents and children that is caused by coerced parenthood, pro-lifers will reconsider their position?
Will imagining themselves being denied the right to have a child help them see the tragedy that is being forced to have a child?
Will they - will even ONE - develop empathy they didn’t have before?
I don’t know. Maybe not? But shouldn’t an effort be made, either way?
That was one of many hopes of possible outcomes I had when writing The Age of the Child. It’s why I think it’s more critical now than ever to introduce people to the novel. Pronatalism was thriving before the overturn and will live on if the decision is reversed, so what I think of as the importance of its message isn’t necessarily isolated to this period; however, we are seeing an increasing number of people having children they don’t want or aren’t prepared for, thanks to Roe’s repeal, and it’s too easy to have a wide-angle view of the situation and fail to see the individual lives being affected.
I hope you’ll forgive my actively trying to draw your attention to my book. And I know it’s fiction, but as John Waters writes in Role Models, “[D]on't let me ever hear you say, ‘I can't read fiction. I only have time for the truth.’ Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of ‘literature’? That means fiction, too, stupid.’”
(I’m not calling anyone stupid. That’s just part of the quote.)
Thanks for reading this and any other installment of this newsletter, and thank you so much to subscribers for your interest in the ongoing conversation of the damage caused by pronatalism.
If you’re interested in the book, some links are below. If you’re not, don’t click the links. ;)
Warmly,
Kristen
“Something interesting and endlessly thought-provoking that The Age of the Child captures are the multiple sides of pregnancy — wanting to be pregnant, not wanting to be pregnant, and what right the government has in controlling pregnancy. This isn’t the first piece of dystopian fiction to consider these questions. The Handmaid’s Tale and The Farm, to name a couple, have opened the dystopian genre to questions about reproduction; however, The Age of the Child is one of the first I’ve read to really consider the issue of reproductive rights and attitudes so deeply.” — Rebecca Maye Holiday, author of The Beaches
“Important social commentary in a moving story.” — Readers’ Favorite