Unpacking Kourtney Kardashian’s Statement on Carrying Her Unplanned Pregnancy to Term
August 19, 2009
Earlier today, I agreed with Feministing’s Jessica Valenti in calling Kourtney Kardashian’s remarks surrounding her decision to carry her unplanned pregnancy to term, “cringe worthy.”
A lot of people, both on Facebook and on Twitter have disagreed with me, and it’s hard to explain myself in short form - so I’m unpacking my reaction a bit more here.
In her interview with People, Kardashian makes four statements that really, really bothered me.
Number one:
I looked online, and I was sitting on bed hysterically crying, reading these stories of people who felt so guilty from having an abortion,” she recalls. “I was reading these things of how many people are traumatized by it afterwards.
The information she found is most likely propaganda from the anti-choice right describing a fictitious mental illness they call “post abortion syndrome.” Scientific research has demonstrated that post abortion syndrome isn’t real. If this was the reason why Kardashian decided not to have an abortion, then she made her decision based on false information.
Number two:
For me, all the reasons why I wouldn’t keep the baby were so selfish: It wasn’t like I was raped, it’s not like I’m 16. I’m 30 years old, I make my own money, I support myself, I can afford to have a baby. And I am with someone who I love, and have been with for a long time.
There is a lot of propaganda out there about women choosing abortion for “selfish” reasons. If a woman doesn’t want to be a mother, or she isn’t ready, she’s being selfish. Double selfish if she has the means to care for a child, if she got pregnant because she was having sex for pleasure rather than being forced, etc.
This idea is part of a larger agenda that is supposed to keep women “in our place.” It’s fine to choose to keep your pregnancy, but if you’re doing it because you think it’s selfish not to - even if you’re legitimately not ready to be a parent - then you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.
Number three:
My doctor told me there is nothing you will ever regret about having the baby, but he was like, ‘You may regret not having the baby.
What kind of doctor was this? It sounds like the kind of thing women are told at anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers that try to persuade women into keeping their pregnancies through any means necessary.
And finally:
Scott he was so excited. But I think if I had said I’m not going to keep it, I really think he would have pushed me into keeping it.
This last statement says so much. Her boyfriend wants her to keep the pregnancy, and even if she didn’t he would have pushed her into having the baby.
Doesn’t sound like much of a choice if you ask me.
Well cousin, you may not like this, but here’s an opinion for you to ponder: If I had an abortion I would be completely traumatized afterwards. I don’t need a “syndrome” to label those feelings, but I know for a fact that would be my experience. I bet some feelings of guilt would even creep in there too. After all, pregnancy is really, really easy to prevent.
Kourtney said “all the reasons why I wouldn’t keep the baby were so selfish.” There wasn’t a “because” in there. She probably didn’t have much control over the way CNN chose to write that. Who knows. I’m just saying that it didn’t make me cringe at all. This is a very real account of what went through her mind.
For anyone still reading, for the record, I align myself with the pro-choice camp. Yes, even though I’m a Christian. That’s called thinking outside the box.
selfish: concerned chiefly or only with yourself and your advantage to the exclusion of others.
If she decided solely on her own feelings, not taking into consideration the feelings of the father, and the best interest of the child within her, it would have been selfish, by definition.
As for number one, I personally know five women who have had abortions (that I know about - obviously there may be others who just haven’tdecided to share that info with me!) - and all five have a long-standing sadness about it. Not that it has overtaken their lives or sent them into depression, but for all of them, it’s a regret. Of course, that’s a tiny number of people, but it’s still there. Every now and then they will think back, and they get sad. Some to the point of tears, even of it has been over a decade. In all cases, it was their decision to go through with that procedure. Now, I’m sure there a plenty of women who may not have any of these feelings, and that’s fine too. Everyone takes things differently. And that’s okay. I actually know a few men that are still saddened to the point of tears too, over a girlfriend they were with who decided to get abortions. So, for some, it can hurt down the line without them realizing that it might.
So even if there is no syndrome or whatever, it’s not right to ASSUME what kind of info she came across to make that decision. We don’t know where she got that information, so why be judgmental about it?
On point two, again, we have no idea how the conversation went, or who she talked to, or what she asked. What if she talked with a doctor at length for an hour, and asked for an honest personal opinion? Who knows? Again, why judge?
On three, she said she THINKS he would have pushed her to keep it. Sounds to me like she is saying that because of his current excitement level about becoming a father. She is saying that he is really excited. Should he just keep his feelings to himself, or if she said “I think I’m gonna get an abortion”, just say “Alright!” or not voice his opinion?
Again, why judge? We don’t know any of these people personally, and frankly, it’s none of my business. I can only wish the two of them, an in the future, the three of them, the absolute best and hope they are happy and have a healthy baby.
Nicely said Andru. Who’s to say what is a right or wrong reason to keep a child? That is SUCH a personal decision and even if a woman decides to keep it for a specific reason she might completely change her outlook after the child is born. It doesn’t mean the original reason was wrong.
Just to clarify, when I said that pregnancy is really easy to prevent, I was thinking about women in Kardashian’s shoes. Certainly, I am not referring to a situation of rape or one where there is not access to education or birth control.
Karlie:
Just because pregnancy is preventable doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen when you don’t want it to. Women who are using reliable birth control methods get unexpectedly pregnant all the time, and when that happens, they shouldn’t beat themselves or be “completely traumatized” if they still want an abortion.
That kind of thinking smacks of the “consequences” argument that says if you have sex for pleasure - as opposed to being raped - you should have to pay the price if you get pregnant rather than feeling okay with your inalienable right to control your own reproductivity and decide when the time is right for you to become a parent.
That’s not to say that your likely reaction - or Ms. Kardashian’s - is not a valid one. Everyone has a right to their feelings and their own personal reasons for their decisions. I’m just saying that the thinking that often goes into those kinds of arguments is a distinctly anti-woman one and for that reason, it raises my eyebrows when I hear it used.
Andru:
I guess that depends on whether you think the personal feelings of a guy whose body is not involved in sustaining the pregnancy and feeding the baby when it’s born and the “best interests” of a clump of cells outweigh the rights of an adult human being to control what happens with her body.
The vast majority of women who have abortions make that decision at least partly out of concern for their current or future children.
Perhaps making the decision to have an abortion is a self-focused one, but women need to have social permission to make more self-focused decisions. We are socialized to put everyone else before ourselves or else we’re being “selfish.” If a person doesn’t look out for her own needs and put them first, who else will?
Because there is a lot of information out there making outrageous claims about post abortion syndrome and similar feelings of crippling guilt and sadness.
I know people who have had abortions, too. Some of them feel a little wistful about the experience, others were just relieved to have the whole pregnancy thing behind them so they can continue on with their lives.
Again, I don’t know for sure. But as with Karlie’s argument above, whenever I hear statements that sound exactly like the anti-woman claptrap the anti-choice right puts out, it raises my eyebrows.
There’s a difference between voicing your opinion and pushing someone into something they don’t want to do, especially when that thing involves a life-changing and deeply personal decision.
This is an intensely personal decision. I’m not saying that I think Ms. Kardashian should have an abortion. I’m simply saying that the reasoning articulated in the article I read smacks of all kinds of double standards for women’s bodies and reproductivity that are really dangerous.
1. Just because women, in your opinion, should feel no guilt about getting an abortion doesn’t mean that none will, and it doesn’t mean that the possibility of feeling guilt later should not enter into someone’s decision about whether to get an abortion. Post-meat-eating syndrome may not exist either, but I don’t cringe when vegetarians tell me that the reason they don’t eat meat is that they feel guilty when they do.
2. Just because someone believes that the opinions of the child’s father and the interests of the child should be taken into account when the woman makes HER DECISION (once more, for emphasis: HER decision) about whether to abort does not mean that they think the father’s opinions and the child’s interests outweigh the woman’s rights. If I decide not to curse around young children and state that it would be selfish for me to do so, have I decided that their interests outweigh my right to free speech?
(As an aside, do you seriously believe that the major problem with society today is that people are TOO selfless, and that they need to be encouraged to think of themselves more, or else they’ll all just throw themselves to the wolves to serve those around them? I haven’t encountered that particular problem very much.)
3. It’s a bit unclear what she meant by the phrase “he would have pushed me into keeping it.” It could mean that:
-he would have forced her against her will into keeping the baby.
-he would have pushed her “to keep it,” rather than “into keeping it”–she just misspoke, and all she thinks he would have done was voice his opinion.
-he would have tried to convince her, and that he would have succeeded because her decision to abort would have been so half-hearted.
Personally, I think that from the interview it’s pretty clear that it was NOT the first option. The entire interview is about her personal thought process, her personal beliefs, her very personal decision about whether to have an abortion. If he would have more-or-less forced her into keeping the baby, it seems unlikely that her decision-making process would ever have occurred on such a personal level, focused entirely on what she thought was right. The second and the third options just involve him voicing his opinion, and either failing or succeeding in convincing her. I don’t see a big problem there.
John: A woman gets to feel however she’s going to feel about sex, pregnancy, abortion and motherhood. I’m just saying that our society tends to punish women an awful lot for those feelings and choices. If we are sexual, the punishment is pregnancy, if we abort, the punishment is guilt.
Is it possible that a woman can have an abortion and not feel ashamed of it? I think so.
Also:
Frankly, sir, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Women are shamed every day for being “selfish” simply for behavior that men get a pass for. Sex before marriage? He’s a stud. She’s a slut.
Scared of the idea of unplanned parenthood? He’s just dealing with the loss of his freedom and the need to grow up, but he’ll come around by the time she’s almost ready to give birth. She’s an unnatural freak who can’t possibly be nurturing at any point in the future.
Working after the baby is born? He’s a good provider. She’s a bad mother.
Out for a night on the town drinking with friends? He’s a fun loving party guy. She’s just asking to be date raped.
The list goes on, and on, and on.
Teresa, you claim that “a woman gets to feel however she’s going to feel about sex, pregnancy, abortion and motherhood.” But the point of your original post and these follow-ups seems to be the condemnation of this particular woman for her feelings on sex, pregnancy, abortion, and motherhood. You justify this by arguing that if a woman happens to feel guilty about an abortion (or to fear that she would, or feels the need to take the father’s ideas into account, or feels selfish about the decision to abort), then that guilt is not truly “personal” but caused by a sexist society, and is thus illegitimate. It appears that the tolerance you advocate in the first statement is tempered quite a bit by the exception you carve out.
It seems to me that, if you wish to prevent society from deluding women into feeling things you’ve decided are illegitimate, you could criticize society without personally attacking the women you think have been duped.
John: I never personally attacked Ms. Kardashian. I’m not condemning her feelings, I’m questioning the reasoning behind them based on her own words - which reek of anti-choice propaganda.
I respect Ms. Kardashian’s right to her choice, and I trust her to make the choice that is best for her - I respect all people to make the choices best for them. What I do not respect is this paternalistic society that does not trust women and systemically sends out messages and puts up outposts in women’s heads about what we should and should not be.
I suspect - though I don’t know - that the strong resemblance in Ms. Kardashian’s thinking to that of the anti-woman right wing represents a causal effect. But obviously, I can’t be sure by the standards of science.
That doesn’t mean I can’t point out the truly cringe-inducing similarities in the statement of a public figure to the sexist propaganda of the anti-choice right..
Teresa, you sound bitter about a choice you might have made was right and every women should feel as less guilty for making that choice. There are many women including myself that had an abortion 13 years ago, and not a day goes by that I don’t think about what that child would have been. So I regret it, and asked God to forgive. For that reason I vowed NEVER to do something as “selfish” as that again. I’ve had 3 children there after that were not planned and I could not imagine my life without them.
So every women in the world does not have a cold heart like yours that knows it was wrong to take a life in hope that their own life is better off. If Kourtney decided to keep her child, it’s for her own reason and not for what you call “prolife” influence. No matter how much pro-choice if you will think abortion is okay, It is not. One day you will meet your maker and find out for yourself.
That is if you do believe in a higher power that spared your own life to be in this world. So get over it, her choice is hers alone, at the end of the day, she will look at her baby in the eye and understand the meaning of life when this child stares into her face with loving gaze. So much I can say for the babies you returned to God. If you think what she did was for the wrong reasons, then you need to questions your own personal morals. I saw nothing wrong with what she did as much as an air head Kourtney is, She made the best decision to bring life into this world and to love it no matter where she is in life.
Renee: Why is it that anti-choicers like you always assume that women who support reproductive rights have all had an abortion? Thanks to obsessive use of birth control, I’m grateful to report that I’ve never been in a situation where I had to make that difficult and deeply personal choice.
Renee -
I’ll add to Teresa’s answer this thought:
You state that ” If Kourtney decided to keep her child, it’s for her own reason and not for what you call “prolife” influence”
1. Her own reasons became a subject for everyone else to debate the moment she chose to use the bullhorn and tell everyone her reasons. The reasons behind deeply personal choices are not anyone else’s business. She gave that up by talking about them in an interview - she could have chosen to say “My reasons are my own and I won’t air them in public.”
2. Your statement seems to say you believe her choices were categorically NOT related to “prolife” influence. I’m wondering how you can make that statement with such confidence.
It seems to me that Teresa’s post started by using Ms. Kardashian’s interview as a jumping-off point to discuss the fallacies in pro-life arguments, not debate Kardashian’s choices.
And I happen to agree with Teresa 100% on this subject. The idea of punishing women for owning their sexuality is so endemic to our culture that it’s extremely difficult for most people to even being to realize which of their opinions it is affecting.
The one place I’ll disagree with Teresa is here, in one of her comments in this thread:
*”Out for a night on the town drinking with friends? He’s a fun loving party guy. She’s just asking to be date raped.”*
I find it just as… questionable… for guys to live that life as I think it is for women. It’s one of those behaviors that has always smacked of irresponsibility to me, regardless of gender. Then again, never having *enjoyed* being drunk in public, I could be wrong…