WHAT INSPIRED OUR GAME?
In her article, "Crossing the Line: The Political and Moral Battle over Late-Term Abortion," Rigel C. Oliveri examines the discursive strategies of the pro-choice movement during the congressional "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban" in 1996 and 1997. In order to do so, she first clarifies terminology by pointing out that the term "partial-birth" is a misnomer. This misleading and inflammatory term is used by conservative politicians and is not accepted by the medical community. The actual term, according to Oliveri, is the Dilation and Extraction (D&X) procedure.
Oliveri then highlights that the prominent narrative pushed by the pro-choice movement was of women seeking medically necessary late-term abortions to terminate a wanted pregnancy. However this description only captures the stories of roughly 10% of the 4,000 women seeking the D&X procedure in the US annually. Clearly, the movement's strategy heavily relied on the narratives of a small group of women to represent the interests of a considerably larger group. Rigel C. Oliveri argues that women who have late-stage, legally obtained, elective abortions are not the desired face of the pro-choice movement.
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What is lost when we focus on the narrative of the 10%? We make invisible the impoverished, tragically young, traumatized women and girls whose disadvantages delay their access to abortion. Impoverished women have geographic and economic constraints in accessing the procedure because abortion clinics are sparse and often require travel. It also takes time to acquire funding. As for youth, young people don't often recognize the first signs of pregnancy because they are inexperienced or have irregular menstrual cycles. Teens are more likely than adults to experience fear, denial or confusion over an unwanted pregnancy.
However, in attempt to prevent the passage of the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban” in 1996, pro-choice advocates crafted a representation of the women getting the D&X procedure as older married women whose pregnancies are wanted but enganger their lives. Although this narrative doesn’t reflect the reality of the vast majority of women seeking this procedure, this normative representation was intended to appeal to the republican-majority congress. It was because of the maternal health exception therefore that Clinton vetoed the bill. Had the bill passed, the 90% of women getting the D&X abortion, whose pregnancy doesn’t endanger their lives but who have this procedure electively as a result of all of the aforementioned factors, would not be protected by this legislation.
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At the time when 89% of counties don't have abortion clinics and countless pieces of legislation restricting abortion access are considered by government, it is understandable that the pro-choice movement would adopt these strategies with the hope of expanding access. However, it is dangerous to use this approach because it sets up a narrative of who is deserving of abortion and who is not. Abortion is not the be-all and end-all of reproductive justice; there are so many other issues that need to be considered in order to develop a comprehensive reproductive justice politic. For that reason, our trivia cards allow to players to engage with a variety of issues often overlooked with such political strategy. For instance, the geographic and financial restrictions on abortion access, government manipulation of funds for the advancement of the pro-life agenda, and the practices of Crisis Pregnancy Centers.
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