motherhood is a choice

the story of utahgirlOkay, so there's this girl in Utah, from a nice Christian family and it's coming up to her final exams and she definitely shouldn't go out partying, but she does. There's lemonade, but she drinks beer. And there's this football player with a bad reputation who she shouldn't even talk to, but she goes up and flirts with him. And so on. Up until the point where she really needs to insist he wears a condom. But she doesn't.Such a bad bad girl. And when you pull it all out, so many bad decisions. We can say she chose to get pregnant, according to Pro. I'm trying to get inside his thinking here.Because we all know, and she knows, what she should have done, what the right behavior would have been at every decision point in the story. When we talk about her choices, we are talking in particular about how she deviated from the moral standard.I'm guessing now, that my opponent believes the standards are absolute, set by God, and so that we all - like utahgirl - are choosing to comply or deviate from the right path.But the way I see it, the moral standards belong to society rather than God, and you can see this because societies differ so much from each other. So I see social expectation as a powerful, but finite influence on utahgirl. There's also habit, sexual instinct, and her restless, angry mood. These influences, the situation, her mental associations interact and vary in strength. On the night in question, for whatever reason, the reckless impulse dominated and she had no choice but to follow it. Her values and self-control just weren't that strongly developed. Can you really say her weak, impulsive character is a choice?Everyone takes on the values and standards of the society they live in, just as they do its language and customs. The conformity instinct is very powerful and is rehearsed and strengthened all the time through observation, reward and punishment, and story-telling. Everything that happens, such as the utahgirl story, can be used to strengthen the social standards.This is one of the strengths of organized religion - you can rehearse morality. It's like learning CPR. Just once is not enough, you have to keep practising it so that in an emergency it's automatic. Telling stories can be part of the rehearsal.Every time the idea of choice comes up in the utahgirl story, we're helping the listeners rehearse the exit points from her downward trajectory. Every instance of gossip about her, every sneer, every "well, she chose to get pregnant," helps cement the pathways of "good" behavior, most usefully in other young women.It has another purpose too. It blames utahgirl for everything that the pregnancy does to her. She might drop out of college, or get an abortion, or drudge about the house for a few years. But she can only blame herself, according to the theory of choice. This means that every piece of help she gets from her family or from society puts her in their debt.Imagine if her pregnancy is not her choice, though. Imagine if it's just a blessing or misfortune that falls on almost all women at some point. People would react as if it were a medical diagnosis (in terms of blame - obviously a pregnancy is less horrible) or a natural weather event. There might be fundraisers for her, or child-minding rosters. And if there weren't, people would feel slightly guilty because they would feel obliged to help a neighbor in need. They would praise her, smile in the street, and her employers would extend themselves to give her the shifts she wants.subjective realityPro says: "just because someone feels like they have to doesn't mean they actually do."Of course it does. In a bank robbery, it matters whether the victims believe the gun is real, rather than whether it really is or not. If someone believes she has to have sex with her husband, and there he is ready to go, she will have sex with him. If someone believes she has to be a mother, she will try to get pregnant or adopt. What else could make her do those things other than feelings of obligation, compulsion or desire? And if the feeling of having to is dominant, what could stop her other than some physical or situational force? summaryHere are the statements of this debate. The first is mine, the second is my opponent's.1. Eighty percent of women become mothers.2. Eighty percent of women choose to become mothers.The difference is subtle but clear. In the first, motherhood is the default. In the second, it is not. Childlessness is the status quo, and women are making a positive action to remove themselves from the standard. This second statement is untrue and sexist. Childlessness is only the status quo if we are using men as the standard. For women, motherhood norm and it is ubiquitous. Despite the obvious personal and financial advantages of childlessness, despite drastic differences in lifestyle between societies, despite widespread contraception, most women become mothers, and this happens everywhere. It's unavoidable.For employers, motherhood is neither normal nor helpful. Like that bad bad Utah girl, workers who become mothers have stepped away from best practice. They have "chosen to" neglect their work and their careers and are therefore responsible for the consequences. But, if we take out that judgmental "choose to" then the pressure is right back on the system itself. If we want equality, and we see motherhood as inevitable, then the system needs to change so that women don't lose power and status by bearing children.Humans love the idea of choice. If only I had more space, I would talk more about choice's seductive by illusory nature. The phrase "motherhood is a choice" sounds like it might be a good thing. But it's not. It's pernicious, sexist and subjective.Motherhood is not a choice.