From a feminist point of view, what does it mean to be Jig in "Hills Like White Elephants"?

Jig is faced with a choice - have an abortion or keep a
baby conceived out of wedlock (even though the word abortion is never used, it is clear
that this is the crux of the situation. When this piece was published in 1927, women
were beginning to have "rights" but the right to an abortion was still not really one of
them. In fact, womwn had only been granted the right to vote a mere seven years earlier.
Abortions happened, of course, because an unmarried pregnant woman was subject to scorn.
But, they happened in silence, and they often ended in death or permanent damage to the
women who sought them.English law allowed abortions in the 1920's only when medically
needed to protect the mother. In America at the time, abortion was illegal. Yet the man
is clearly willing to violate the law to impose his will (to be rid of the baby) on the
body of the woman he "owns" by virture of his status as
boyfriend.

From a feminist perspective, the aspect of
choice is what matters the most in this piece. Does she control her own body? If so,
does she have a right to abort a child or, more to the point, to choose to carry that
child to term and raise that child with or without the man's involvement. The right for
a woman to own her own body is a common theme of feminist literature. Jog clearly is
torn, but the American boyfriend seems ti have made the decision for her. He is
responsible, at least in part, for the life growing inside of her, yet he wants to
decide for her that she will abort the baby. She does not, in society's eyes, own her
own life or the life of her baby.

Interestingly enough,
abortion was a theme that Hemingway was intrigued by. His six word short story says it
all :

For
sale: Baby shoes, never
worn

While this could mean
the baby died, it could also be a child lost to abortion. The woman must make a choice -
do as the man tells her to do (and keeping him happy and, presumably, with her in the
bargain) or do as she wants and keep the baby. The ability to choose, often taken away
from women during this time period, but less so than in prior decades, is a main
argument posed by feminist criticism.