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In this op-ed, Isabella Morales Oliva explains why we need to fight for better abortion access for detained immigrant women.
I don’t know how to say zygote in Spanish. Instead, I grasp for a word I know is not there. I don’t know how to say the word zygote, so instead the woman in front of me says the “baby” is not well formed.
I had this conversation, and several like it, at The South Texas Family Residential Center, in Dilley, Texas. I was there providing free legal counsel to detained persons seeking asylum in the United States.
I rarely talk about abortion apart from snarky remarks about the latest anti-abortion legislation in some seemingly far-off state (often, coincidentally, Texas). I’m no expert. Still, when I'm asked by an overworked volunteer at the detention center to talk to the women about their “options,” I know exactly what that means. I spoke to three women about the possibility of abortion. Three women who are already mothers, one with a babbling baby on her lap, the second with a bright pink rosary hanging around her neck, and the last a sweet woman about my mother's age, endearing smile lines and all.
Many of the families in detention are from the Northern Triangle: Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Abortion is illegal in all three countries. Guatemala, the most progressive of the three, allows abortion only if the mother's life is at risk. In Honduras the criminalization of abortion is firm. The same is true for El Salvador, where strict laws surrounding abortion were put on international display recently with the case of Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez. Hernandez was convicted with homicide after suffering a 3rd trimester miscarriage, facing up to 40 years in prison. She was acquitted in a retrial on August 19th, but the lengthy battle for her freedom demonstrates just how harsh El Salvador’s anti-abortion laws can be. Hernandez’s battle in the supreme court comes only four years after that of Beatriz Garcia. Garcia, known publicly as “Beatriz,” was denied the termination of her second pregnancy by the Salvadoran Supreme Court, despite doctors’ claim that her pregnancy was potentially fatal because she also had lupus and that the fetus itself was unviable.
The impact of discussing abortion with women who face prison time for an accidental miscarriage in their home countries was not lost on me. Especially since we were having that discussion in a place where many women are jailed for seeking a better life for their children.
These women are fundamentally excluded from the pro-choice conversation. I imagined my first conversation about abortion, my first real conversation about abortion, to be with a friend. One my age, who perhaps did not have a partner, and certainly did not already have a child. The reality is that in the United States, 59% of women who seek abortions are already mothers. We often leave these women out of the conversation, and we most certainly leave out immigrant women, particularly those who already have children. These women are often reduced to nothing more than mothers, even if they don’t yet have children.
The conversation around immigrant women in the U.S. so often returns to motherhood. “They came here for their children” we hear in one ear, “anchor babies” in another. This is the context with which I sat down with each mother to discuss their options.
The net of advocacy in place for families seeking asylum can fail to recognize these women as valuable and worthwhile in their own right. We see it all the time in the way news articles cover immigration detention. The emphasis always on the mothers and their children: the family. In doing so, we police the immigrant family. The mothers are reduced to just that: mothers. Fundamentally, however, they are women and deserve to be taken care of and to take care of themselves.
But as with abortion at large, it's not always that simple. Women being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have limited access to abortion, and ICE will only pay for the abortion in cases of rape, incest, or when the woman's life is in danger. Given the high rates of sexual assault of immigrant women, it's not uncommon that they might be eligible. If the woman can pay for the abortion herself, ICE's rules indicate the agency will transport her to a clinic for the service. Even if that is the case, language barriers and other obstacles might prevent these women from being able to make that choice of their own accord.
These women are not the mothers of a movement. They are not vessels for the next generation of U.S. born children. They are often women fleeing violence in their home country. We hide behind the oft told tale of a mother seeking a better life for her children because it is comforting and it makes a certain kind of sense, and in some cases it is true. We always want better for children but we don’t dare to want better for the women who birth them.
When a woman is presented with full control over her reproductive health, including the option to terminate a pregnancy, they are empowered. An abortion can act as a way of wanting more for her children, for her family, and for that family’s future, but ultimately, the decision to terminate or not is for her wellbeing. In restoring the woman's option to decide, we demonstrate that we stand in solidarity with their choices, all of their choices, not just those pertaining to their children. We dare to want better for the woman she is, rather than the mother she could be.
Cigoto. That’s how you say Zygote in Spanish.
