(RCH) Most people would say that I was doing everything right.
I was forging through medical school despite the COVID-19 pandemic. My husband and I had plans to grow our family a few years down the road. Our timeline was turned upside down when I became pregnant just one semester into medical school.
Rather than joy, I felt uncertainty, fear, and even shame. I was unsure what this would mean for my career and our financial stability. I didn’t know the first thing about caring for an infant; I’d never changed a diaper.
Our plates were full between my education, his job, and our newly purchased fixer-upper home. I was lucky to find the support I needed from family, friends, and my medical school, but even with a village, it was immensely difficult. We lived in a childcare desert, which left me as the primary caretaker for my infant son for 10 months. A single income wasn’t enough to cover both cost of living and childcare, so I had to max out my student loans.
Navigating new motherhood as a medical student gave me firsthand understanding of some of the challenges women face when they unexpectedly become pregnant. Many women are not as fortunate to find the support I did, and our society is sadly often unaccommodating to families, parents and children.
Until it was my problem, I never knew how many restaurants and other public places don’t have a changing table in the men’s restroom, or at all. A 2023 survey of 4,000 couples with 2024 wedding dates found that 80 percent were in favor of child-free weddings. Only 13 percent of private employers offer paternity leave, leaving many mothers alone in the postpartum period. Forty percent of women do not qualify for the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which grants employees 12 weeks of unpaid leave, and only 12 percent of women in private employment have access to any paid maternity leave.
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The effects of motherhood on a woman’s earning potential are so great that the term “the motherhood penalty” was coined to describe “the phenomenon by which women’s pay decreases once they become mothers.” This augments gender pay gaps and has the strongest effect on female-breadwinner families. Additionally, childcare consumes nearly one-fifth of the income of the families who pay for it.
Compounding these challenges is the fact that more than 40 percent of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. When a woman becomes pregnant unintentionally, a common assumption is that she was “irresponsible” and therefore should bear the consequences to her life and career. This ignores the average failure rates of contraception—1-4 per 1,000 women per year using IUDs, 7 in 100 on birth control pills, and 13 in 100 using condoms.
Many women considering abortion are overwhelmed. Over half of women who get abortions are already mothers. In 2022, 40 percent of children were born to unmarried mothers and one quarter of American children were living in single-parent households. Fathers may be absent, unsupportive, or even abusive. Some pregnant women are suffering in great poverty and struggling with mental health and addictions. Others are amid a professional career inflexible to the demands of being a parent, especially a mother.
Abortion is a tragic response to structural pressures in our society. It is often chosen in the context of prioritizing children already in the home or a career that stands to serve many other people, such as medicine. But it need not be the primary “solution” if our society does more to alleviate the longstanding challenges facing American families.
Tweet This: Abortion need not be the primary “solution” if our society does more to alleviate the longstanding challenges facing American families.
Just as light is both a particle and a wave, motherhood is both a blessing and a burden. The love and fulfillment are inextricably linked to years of sacrifices of time, money, energy, and self. Despite the challenges, I’m so thankful I became a mother when I did. I found strength and purpose I couldn’t fathom before. As a mother of two young children and a physician, my plea to those advocating for both mothers and children is to zoom out. Ask why women find themselves in unintended pregnancies in the first place. Try to understand the impending years of challenges women face when considering the prospect of becoming a mother.
Every individual can work toward building a culture of life. Doctors and parents can promote sexual education that is scientifically accurate and speaks to the joy and responsibility of intimacy. Lawmakers and citizens can advocate for paid parental leave, lactation protections for workers in all occupations, and safe, affordable childcare. Friends or neighbors could offer to babysit to provide moms protected time for themselves. When we all do what we can to become part of the village most mothers lack, but so desperately need, abortion will cease to make sense.
Editor's note: Alexandra Davidson, MD, is a mother of two and family medicine resident in Wyoming with special interests in women’s health and breastfeeding medicine. She is a member of the American Academy of Pro-Life OB/GYNs (AAPLOG) and an ambassador for FACTS About Fertility. This article was published by Real Clear Health and is reprinted with permission.
