Feminism has failed and continues to fail pregnant women. So much feminism dances around pregnancy, maternal care, and maternal discrimination or glibly treats pregnancy as not that big of a deal due to its temporary nature as a 9 month 'condition'. Such epistemological reluctance has further and further isolated the many women who will go through these processes and states and left us in a situation where quite often the only people talking about pregnancy regularly are the Rad Fems, Right-wingers, and free birthers (who we should note are often overlapping groups). Pregnancy is quite simply not being given the proper consideration, analysis, and activism that it needs, resulting in a culture of intense misogyny around pregnancy that is going uncritiqued, unconsidered, and unaddressed to the detriment of a majority of women.
As a feminist you should be reading about the process of pregnancy, the types of pre and post natal care offered in your country, and what types of treatment and processes for birthing are offered for expecting mothers. You should read about issues in these sectors too: are maternity wards underfunded? What is the infant mortality rate? How consistent are pre and post natal follow ups? Are C-sections being forced in cases where not needed? or denied in the name of ~natural births~ being preferred to a detriment? How do these points intersect with race or class? Additionally, you also should familiarise yourself with the basics of fertility care such as IVF, IUI, laparoscopies, egg and sperm banks etc. This is especially important when many countries are working to demonise and criminalise theses treatments (or work heavily to artificially limit access to them) as a part of the tightening grip on women's bodily autonomy in increasingly misogynistic political landscapes.
It is not enough for your pregnancy related advocacy to begin and end with abortion. To shy away from pregnancy and maternal care and the issues that arise from it within patriarchal societies, to fear the pregnant women, to marginalise her, to only focus on the questions that indirectly surround her and never on her herself leaves a gaping hole within your advocacy that other far worse people will rush to fill and exploit.
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