While the intersection of banning abortion and capitalism is not well known, this knowledge is essential when advocating for reproductive rights as well as against all forms of the patriarchal order. In our capitalist economy, the abortion ban is not just a difference of opinion – the overturning of Roe v Wade is just one of many moves in the capitalist agenda playbook to accumulate labourers.
For capitalism to “thrive” it requires the emphasis of a two-gendered hierarchy, a gendered division of labor, along with forcing the female body into the service of capitalism. Furthermore, it characterizes “feminine” work as unproductive and valueless to avoid acknowledgement or compensation as it would threaten its system of profit, hierarchy and domination.
This overturning is a tool of oppression used to breed a vulnerable and suppressed population who are then pushed into the role as a wage laborer. Creating barriers to families and single parents who are pregnant and unable to access an abortion when needed not only possibly creates financial instability but can also create time poverty, especially for the mother. This ultimately reduces social mobility, where access to education and employment becomes harder to obtain due to a lack of money and time, on top of lost potential earnings.
Moreover, in our current society, the race for profits, efficiency and endless growth ignores unpaid labor and focuses on GDP and other economic measures of growth and productivity; while ignoring the fact that household production is one of, if not the largest and most productive sector in the world. And while the caregiving and domestic work many provide in the home today is still devalued, domestic and caregiving work outside the home in care sectors such as nursing, teaching, and child care, is also devalued, and that devaluation is extended to the men who also participate in these roles. Especially compared to sectors built on competition such as industry, politics and business.
In an alternative world caregiving and domestic labor and other types of productive roles, which produce and sustain the current and future generations, would be valued, recognized and supported by the government and society. Instead, we are still dealing with the tools of punishment and domination – cornerstones of the capitalist patriarchy. In reality, humans did not evolve because of competition, they evolved because of altruism and reciprocity.
In addition to the overturning of Roe v Wade, on this same day it has also been announced that the U.S. may overturn Griswold v. Connecticut (right for married couples to buy and use contraceptives / 1965), Lawrence v. Texas (right of same sex adults to engage in mutually consenting intimacy / 2003), and Obergefell v Hodges (right for same-sex couples to be married / 2015). While this is extremely concerning it is unfortunately not unexpected.
The main agenda being pumped out by the supreme court revolves around productivity. And no, not just the productivity of our labor, but of being “reproductively productive”. It seems that those in favour of overturning these rulings see same sex intimacy and sex with any form of contraceptive as unproductive to their efforts of accumulating labourers.
With all of this in mind, I firmly believe the ban on abortion is a poor and uninformed way to accumulate labor. While the reality is sadly that abortions will still occur, now just in unsafe conditions.