This mothers day lets get something straight- having abortions doesn’t reduce your chances of being a mother, it doesn’t make you less of a mother, you don’t have to be a mother, women are not born to be mothers- Being a mother is a matter of choice!

Read Here- Debunking Abortion Myths About Mothers For Mother’s Day

Having cleared that lets now reflect on why we celebrate Mothers Day is it about gifts and flowers and stigmatizing those women who choose not to be mothers or is there a larger more rational reason to celebrate this day?

Not much people are aware of the radical feminist history behind ‘Mother’s Day’; “The American incarnation of Mother’s Day is the result of years of women’s activism that coincided with other women’s movements — like women’s suffrage and labor movements — around the turn of the 20th century. In the years leading up to the Civil War, West Virginian Ann Reeves Jarvis began organizing ‘Mothers’ Day Work Clubs’ to help improve health and sanitation through women’s education.”[1]

Mother’s Day was founded by Jarvis, as a celebration of motherhood, honoring the role women play as Mother’s in shaping the society both at a personal and political level. It in no way reinforces the stereotype of Women as Mothers and natural caregivers- it only celebrates one of the many roles that women perform. Mothers’ Day should therefore be about empowerment and celebrating the maternal bonds, between women and family. No, not all women have maternal instincts, and they don’t have to be mothers some day.

Motherhood should be about choice; raising a child is an all-encompassing phenomenon, therefore motherhood needs to come as a choice for those who are willing to take on to that role. Whether a woman wants to be a mother or not is a private decision and women who obtain abortion to end an unwanted pregnancy should be respected for that decision and not stigmatized and shamed; for at least they acknowledge that “they’re unwilling or unable to parent (at that particular time or possibly ever), and they know children deserve to be loved and cherished. We should give them the same respect they’ve shown the institution of motherhood by doing so—conception is a biological function, but parenting is not.”[2]

Having the freedom to choose I was able to decide when I wanted to be a mother and have a child that I know was wanted, so I am able to provide for all the love and care that the child rightly deserves. But is it true for women who are forced into motherhood everyday?

This Mother’s Day lets Resolve that no women or girl should have to go through pregnancy against her will!

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mothers-day-history_n_5280493.html?section=india

[2] https://rewire.news/article/2016/05/02/becoming-mother-made-even-pro-choice/