Healthy relationships: This Mother’s Day, respect the right to decide when, if to become a mother

The days leading up to Mother’s Day are an odd time to be reflecting on abortion and the draft of what will apparently be the ruling of the Supreme Court in a few months. Becoming a mother is a deeply personal decision and sadly, not a decision that is available to everyone for a variety of reasons. Conversations about abortion and reproductive health care are often fraught because for those who want to bear children and cannot or those who struggle to bear children, the thought of someone choosing not to bear a child is incredibly painful. I have enormous compassion for those who want to be mothers and have been unable to do so.

But for those of us who work with victims of sexual or domestic violence, this is not an issue about which we can be silent. The right to bodily autonomy and integrity for everyone – regardless of gender identity – is the bedrock of the work we do every day with survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Control of one’s own body is a critical part of the freedom necessary for leaving an abusive relationship or healing from sexual assault.

Sexual assault and domestic violence typically involve the abuser’s control of a victim’s body. When a person is physically or sexually assaulted, part of what is taken from them is their bodily integrity. The harm done to a victim through physical or sexual abuse is not only physical damage but includes profound psychic and emotional damage as the victim’s ability to determine what happens to their own body has been stripped away.

Experiencing the trauma of knowing that your body is no longer your own, that you no longer have the ability to determine who will touch you and how, that someone has forced you to do something with your body that you do not intend or desire, is a significant part of the trauma of domestic and sexual violence. We see it every day in reproductive coercion (forced pregnancy or forced abortion), the restricting of access to birth control and other types of health care, and outright physical and sexual assault. All of these are tactics abusers use to control victims and strip them of any sense of autonomy, any sense of self.

Physical and psychological autonomy, the right to control one’s own body, are vital to the health and safety of survivors of sexual and domestic violence. Reproductive health care, including access to safe, legal abortion, is a critical part of that autonomy. Survivors of domestic and sexual violence have experienced the stripping away of bodily autonomy and integrity at an interpersonal level, by the very people who were supposed to care for them. How horrific to discover that legislatures and the courts are willing and eager to participate in that abuse.

Perhaps the best way to honor the mothers among us is to respect their right to determine when and if they will be mothers and to honor their wisdom as they make those choices. Perhaps the best way to honor mothers and all people is to respect and fight for their right to control their own bodies. And to all those survivors of domestic and sexual violence, those who are mothers and those who are not, we stand with you and for you as you reclaim your body as your own.