Freedom of Choice

 

The statue on top of this building is called "Freedom." 

Buckle up. You're in for a history lesson!

In 1854, Sculptor Thomas Crawford, originally from New York, was commissioned to design and complete a full-size plaster model of the statue "Freedom" in his studio in Rome, Italy. All nineteen and one-half feet of her. 

Jefferson Davis (yes, indeed, that Jefferson Davis) was in charge of the then ongoing construction of the Capitol building and all it decorations. There was a kerfuffle between the New Yorker and slave-holding Mississippian. Crawford had originally crowned Freedom with the liberty cap, a symbol of an emancipated slave. Needless to say, Davis being the boss, won the tussle. 

Crawford died in 1857 before the full-size plaster model could be shipped to the United States. In the spring of 1858, divided into six crates, she set sail for New York. During her voyage the ship began taking on water and put in at Gibraltar for repairs. The ship left Gibraltar only to begin leaking again and ending up in Bermuda. After stopping there in storage for a while, Freedom, or at least half of her, arrived in New York City in December, 1858. Finally all parts of the plaster model arrived in Washington, D.C. in late March 1859.

Casting of Freedom in bronze at the Mills Foundry outside Washington, D.C., began in 1860. The work was interrupted in 1861 by the Civil War and again when the foreman in charge of the casting went on strike. Instead of paying him higher wages, Mills turned the project over to Philip Reid, one of his slaves working at the foundry. Reid presided over the rest of the casting and assembly of the figure. Freedom was finished by the end of 1862. On December 2, 1863, a year and a half before the end of the Civil War and eleven months after the Emancipation Proclamation, former slaves completed the installation of this bronze woman called Freedom to her pedestal atop the Capitol of the United States. 

I find it ironic that "Freedom" a.) is personified as a woman; b.) that her design had to be approved by a slave-holding man; and c.) that she was finished and raised to her pedestal by slaves and newly-freed slaves.

Just like that beautiful statue standing high above Washington, D. C., women's rights, indeed almost everyone's rights, have followed a long and torturous path from that grand Declaration of Independence and the nascent days of The Constitution. And it looks like we've still got a ways to go.

With apologies to Arlo Guthrie and his Alice's Restaurant, "Freedom" is what I come here to talk about. Not a statue, or a symbol, but the real freedom for American citizens to make life-changing (even life-or-death) decisions about their own medical care -- specifically women citizens and anyone with a uterus. The Freedom of Choice. And that is exactly what I mean Freedom of Choice. NOT pro-abortion. And having only one choice, is no choice at all.

There are as many experiences of pregnancy as there are people who have been or are pregnant. 

I have a friend whose mother was advised by her doctor to terminate her pregnancy, but she exercised her freedom of choice and carried my friend to term. And I'm glad she did. That instance, however, did not in any way involve a "law" or a court's decision.

What about governmental regulations? 

In 1970 when Air Force Capt. Susan Struck, a career officer serving as a nurse in Vietnam got pregnant, she was transferred to a base in Washington, one of the few states where abortion was then legal. Not only was pregnancy a reason to discharge her, albeit honorably, but the regulation extended beyond that "The commission of any woman officer will be terminated with the least practicable delay when it is established that she...has given birth to a living child while in commissioned officer status."

Despite Struck's plan to give the child up for adoption (which she did) and the fact that she had 60 days of accrued leave for recovery time, a disposition board gave her a choice: Have an abortion on base or leave the military. An abortion or the end of her career? There is no choice here.

Struck's case was brought to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972. Her attorney in the case was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Although the Supreme Court ultimately declined to hear Struck v. Secretary of Defense, Ginsburg's legal wrangling led to the Air Force's decision to reverse its policy.

                             

Where was Liberty for women among these symbols? And it wasn't just the Air Force. It was the Department of Defense.

And it wasn't just the Federal Government who treated pregnant women differently from men although their pregnancy would not affect their ability to do their job. Until the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, women teachers could be required to take enforced, unpaid leave. Private companies could use pregnancy as a reason to deny disability benefits otherwise available to all employees. (I know, I know. pregnancy is not in and of itself a disability. But sometimes pregnancies do not follow a normal course, and mothers-to-be are put on bedrest or have other restrictions to avoid premature birth or miscarriage.) Businesses could refuse to hire someone because they might become pregnant. (I suppose they still can, but they can't say out loud that is the reason.)

Probably the most important thing about the Pregnancy Discrimination Act is that it was passed after the Supreme Court, in 1976, upheld the General Electric Company's right to treat pregnancy-based disability differently than any other nonwork related disability for insurance purposes on the basis that pregnancy-discrimination is not sex discrimination. That 1978 amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by Congress.

"Passed by Congress" to correct what many thought was a wrong decision by the Supreme Court.

The current Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. They said they were returning decisions relating to abortion to the States. Many of us think the current Supreme Court's decision to turn our decisions regarding our own reproductive health over to the various and sundry States was a wrong decision. It's already limiting our Freedom of Choice and endangering not just our reproductive lives but our actual living-and-breathing-free lives. 

Pro Choice is NOT Pro Abortion. It is just what it says. Pro Choice. The Constitution does not give us Freedom. It prohibits government from taking our Freedom away from us.

You and I cannot decide who sits on the Supreme Court of the United States. And we cannot change the fact that it has now given our Freedom of Choice to the State governments to do with as they will.

But we can, together, decide who sits in our State Houses and in our Congress with our votes. It's up to us to protect our Freedom. Our choices this fall will have real life effects on our mothers and sisters, our daughters and granddaughters, on all the men in their lives, and anyone whose lives are directly affected.

It's time to stand up for Freedom.

Advertis