Across the Atlantic, where most of the world’s media attention is focused, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, issued a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries, and held hands with UK Prime Minister Theresa May. And that is just the highlights reel.
In this hurricane of news, it is unfortunate that an anniversary of a quietly revolutionary act has gone by largely unnoticed. Twenty years ago on February 1, the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act (1996) came into effect in SA. Hailed as one of the most liberal abortion laws in the world, the act allows all women access to medical abortions — at their request and irrespective of their age — up to the 12th week of pregnancy.
To say that this single act has done more for women’s social and economic development in SA than any other act would not be an understatement.
Yet it is alarming that while South Africans can celebrate 20 years of access to safe and legal abortions, the US is still using reproductive rights to bait voters who are not in the middle of the political spectrum. It did not make it into my list of this week’s news highlights, but last week, Trump reinstated the controversial "global gag rule".
If you are not familiar with it, the rule — or Mexico City Policy as it is correctly known — is a governmental policy that blocks US federal funding to nongovernmental organisations that perform abortions or even discuss them in family planning.
What has been largely ignored in the media frenzy around Trump is that the global gag rule has been rescinded and reinstituted four times since Ronald Reagan enacted it in 1984. What this suggests is that rather than being evaluated on the basis of their contribution to economic growth or gender equality, reproductive rights remain a political "bone" that politicians throw to their non-centrist voters.
The advancement of gender equality is a legitimate policy goal in itself, but it is also desirable in that it increases opportunities for women, which in turn leads to improvements in human development outcomes and economic growth.
According to research by the World Bank, a lack of access to family planning limits women’s participation in key markets such as labour, credit, land and agricultural technology. These lower participation rates inhibit productivity and income growth.
Numerous studies have also shown an interrelationship between poverty and reproductive rights. It makes sense that being able to control the number and spacing of children plays a crucial role in women’s autonomy and, consequently, their capacity to fulfil their potential as productive members of society and the economy.
Similarly, access to safe and reliable contraceptives has a huge effect on women’s health. According to the Guttmacher Institute, modern contraceptives help prevent more than 215,000 pregnancy-related deaths and 2.7-million infant deaths. This frees up public health spending that could instead be used on education or other productive public infrastructure.
Guaranteeing access to reproductive health services has a myriad of social and economic benefits that translate into healthier, more productive lives for women. And more productive women mean more productive economies.
Abortion and reproductive rights are likely to remain highly politicised, but I wish that the effect they have on social mobility, poverty and economic growth were considered more important than they are.
If the rising tide of populism has shown us anything, it is that politicians should be focusing more on economic growth than identity politics.
My husband posed an interesting rhetorical question the other day: "What happens when the media no longer represent the conversations people are having?" You can imagine that in a household with two journalists, news and media trends are a constant source of conversation, but the past six months have been truly baffling to us.
In response to populist views on immigration, women’s rights and race, many commentators have responded with eloquent and powerful arguments for why bigotry and prejudice are fundamentally wrong, but this misses the point.
Anyone who is capable of reasonably rigorous thought can understand why discriminating against someone on the basis of their race or gender is fundamentally wrong. But when you give someone a specific, real-world example, their evaluation of the situation is likely to be based on a whole host of factors — some of which may or may not include race or gender.
The trouble is that unless you are a researcher who is able to control for race, gender, age and wealth, this sort of nuance is difficult to untangle. It is far easier to pick the dominant factor and label someone "racist" or "sexist" — or, worse, a "terrorist" or "refugee". So does this mean the media is no longer representing the conversations people are having? Sort of.
The conversations the media are having only tell half the story, and not the half that matters to the average Joe.
The average Joe does not care if you are black, white or brown. He cares about whether his rent is paid, his kids are in school, and whether he has enough money to put food on the table for his family at the end of the month.
So, rather than telling people the race of the guy who robbed the convenience store, the media should tell us whether he had a job. "Unemployed man robs convenience store" tells the reader far more about the world than "Black man robs convenience store".
It is unlikely to happen, but if it did, we would probably find that we all have more in common than we think.
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