Thinking about the Texas abortion law brought me back to something I learned while researching my book. In 1918, within months of coming to power, the Bolsheviks passed a new Family Code, which, among other things, made it easier for women to get child support. 1/
A woman could compel a man to pay child support even if she was not married to him. Moreover, the man had to start paying child support months *before* the baby was born. 2/
Though the Soviet government ultimately changed this law, there was an understanding, created in part by early Bolshevik feminist writers, that child bearing was a public good, rather than a private one. As such, the public has to share the burdens it placed on women. 3/
If you don’t know me and where I stand on the Soviet Union, let me repeat: I am no fan and my family fled the place as refugees. I happen to be working on a book about the Bolshevik feminist experiment, which is why this tidbit came to mind when thinking about Texas. 4/
The Soviet Union, btw, was the first country in the world to legalize abortion. They did so in 1920. One of the founding mothers of the USSR, Inessa Armand, wrote that women cannot be forced to carry a child against their will. 5/
Anyway. My point is this: a lot of women in America have abortions because they cannot afford to raise a child in the most expensive country in the world to raise a child. Others are worried about economic opportunity it would cost them. 6/
If you are anti-choice and you want to make sure women carry every pregnancy to term, why not make the person who created the pregnancy contribute? Why not have men pay child support to the women they impregnate? Surely, it is not the woman’s responsibility alone? /end
P.S. I recognize that there will be limitations and exceptions to this, including whether a woman wants to have this man—perhaps her rapist—in her life forever. But I just wanted to share this idea of burden sharing, at least economically.
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