By Joyce McCauley-Benner
Honorable Mention, Visual (2D), Create | Encounter 2021
Artist Statement:
I first created this piece after having my son (the baby in the pic is him) as a college student. The abortion pill was just becoming more widely available in the US at that time (1999/2000) and it was seemingly the “better” option for women versus surgical abortion.
However, abortion has always been a capitalistic venture, hence the dollar bill reflected behind the image of the bill. I wanted this reality to be juxtaposed against the reality of the child in the womb--so I pasted in an image from a doctor working on a child within the womb--you can see that baby’s arm reaching out...that baby will grow to become the child outside of the womb. Yet, many fail to see the humanity of the child within the womb. I wanted that connection to be more evident.
Finally, there is the agony of the mother, who is carrying stress, and any number of emotions and expectations.
This is the complexity of the abortion “Battle.”