There Was a Time When Men Didn’t Trust Women With Home Pregnancy Tests
This past weekend’s New York Times gave credit where credit is due to American hero Margaret Crane, the woman who not only invented the home pregnancy test — thus enabling women to glean essential information about their own bodies without any outside interference or intermediaries — but also did so in historic patriarchy-disrupting fashion.
Crane — then an illustrator and product designer employed by Organon Pharmaceuticals — presented her prototype to her managers, who quickly shot down her idea, saying not only would their primary customers, (male) doctors hate it (for taking business away from them), but it would be dangerous to empower women with this kind of independence. After all, they insisted, some poor young woman might “jump off a bridge” if she found out that she was pregnant on her own.
Of course, a year later the company tried to move forward with the idea of producing a home pregnancy kit on its own — without looping Crane in to the conversation. So Crane went and crashed the meeting that execs at the company were having with the advertising exec meant to market it, slipped her own prototype into the line-up that was heavy on bedazzled pink packaging, and not only convinced all present to go with her prototype, but ended up forming a 41-year long personal and professional relationship with the aforementioned ad man. (They never married, never had children, and happily lived in sin until her partner’s death at the age of 84.)
What Happens When Countries Without Abortion Advise Against Pregnancy?
While Crane’s story is clearly primed for apotheosis in the realm of feminist folklore, the underlying problem she faced in her tale is still an unfortunate reality for American women when it comes to being able to make decisions about their own bodies and their own health. The inherent belief by many that women cannot be trusted to make their own decisions according to what’s best for them, their families, and their health and security is, in fact, what is driving the bulk of the anti-choice legislation being introduced at a fever pitch in state legislatures nationwide.
Take, for example, what Republican Vice Presidential nominee and Indiana Governor Mike Pence has tried to do in Indiana. In late June, a federal judge blocked a law signed by Pence in March that would have made it illegal to have an abortion based solely on a fetus having a disability or genetic anomaly. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Indiana filed the suit against the Indiana State Department of Health that ultimately led to the law being blocked. As ACLU of Indiana Legal Director Ken Falk said at the time of filing, “The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly stressed that a woman, not the state, is to determine whether or not to obtain an abortion. The State of Indiana’s attempt to invade a woman’s privacy and to control her decision in this regard is unprecedented and unconstitutional.” Louisiana also adopted a similar law, banning abortions at or after 20 weeks post-fertilization in cases of diagnoses genetic anomaly, or the gestational age at which most developmental abnormalities can actually be detected by healthcare providers.
The Guttmacher Institute notes that thus far in 2016 alone, legislators have introduced 1256 provisions relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights, 35 percent of these seeking to introduce new restrictions on access to abortion services. As of last month, they report, 17 states have passed 46 new abortion restrictions. Another trope gaining traction among these state-led efforts is a provision being pushed by the anti-choice lobbying group Americans United for Life is the drafting of laws requiring women to ensure that burials or cremations are secured for the fetal tissue resulting from abortion. Such a practice takes the fear of women’s independence one step further, trying to shame them for engaging in behavior that, effectively, men cannot control.
The fears described by Crane from men worried about what it would mean if women could determine for themselves whether they are pregnant or not echo loudly in legislation like the now-blocked Indiana law and countless others like it. Such laws inherently operate on the assumption that a woman cannot be trusted to make decisions about her own body and own well-being. And just as the culture of male pharmaceutical executives in the 60’s tried to stop the advent of the at-home pregnancy test, partially out of fear that with knowledge of a perhaps undesired pregnancy a woman might elect for an abortion – then still mainly illegal – today’s conservative lawmakers seem likewise terrified of a world where a woman has the power and ability to choose her own future. Because abortion isn’t simply a social issue, but a critical economic one. A pregnancy — and later, child — has a huge impact on a woman’s pursuit of education and career, and has substantial effects on a woman’s financial situation.
This is why so many believe that a pregnancy must never be forced upon a woman without her consent. And 1974’s landmark ruling in the case of Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court ensured a woman’s constitutional right to abortion under the right to privacy outlined in the 14th amendment; that is, a woman is entitled to do just what men like Pence (and the executives of Organon) feared: Make decisions on her own, in private, without (male) intervention.
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