No Real Choice: How Culture and Politics Matter for Reproductive Autonomy

Why would a pregnant woman consider but not obtain an abortion? In the contemporary United States, most would assume she wants to have a baby. Increasing policy regulation and cultural stigmatization of abortion, however, challenge this as a universal explanation. What if some women continue their pregnancies after considering abortion not because they want to have a baby but, instead, because they can’t get an abortion?

In No Real Choice, Katrina Kimport uses in-depth interviews with pregnant women who considered but did not obtain an abortion to argue that not everyone who continues a pregnancy wants to have a baby. Some are doing so because abortion was not a real option. Illustrating how policies, the organization of abortion care, anti-abortion cultural narratives, and negative prior experiences of reproductive healthcare can make abortion unavailable for some women, Kimport challenges assumptions that all women have real pregnancy choice. Further, by centering the experiences of low-income Black women, she demonstrates that none of these factors operates in isolation: each leverages existing race and class inequality to construct insurmountable barriers to choosing abortion. When abortion is not a real option, reproductive autonomy is denied. The concern, Kimport argues, is not what outcome pregnant women choose, but whether they are able to make a real choice.

Focusing attention on the process of pregnancy decision making-and not just pregnancy outcomes-Kimport provides a nuanced, accessible, and theoretically-grounded framework for understanding how reproductive autonomy is denied, for whom, and at what cost.