“Of my many sorrows, this is without doubt the worst”
Norma (Jane Roe) McCorvey
Americans and their media continue to define most of our complex social controversies in ways which reduce their respective antagonists and their positions to little more that simplistic and uncompromising incarnations of good and evil. This irresponsibility is no where more conspicuous than in the debate over abortion.
“Pro Choice” and “Pro Life” labels have become the defining camps into which all person are seemingly pigeon-holed. Lost in this national phobia to reduce all differences of opinion to visible controversies, complete with snappy headlines or catchy sound bite, is the reality that concepts of morality most often spring from deep-seeded personal convictions. Whether grounded in political, social or religious values, such personal beliefs frequently lead such individuals to believe they must impose their standards for universal absolutes of right or wrong on those who may disagree with them.
Whatever the law, no one has the right to insist or force any woman undergo an abortion. At the same time, it needs to acknowledged that many pro-choice proponents are not necessarily in favor of abortion but do believe the state should not be the arbitrator in such highly personal decisions.
Still, the debate over whether women should be permitted to have legal abortions rages on!
The anti-abortion movement’s primary argument rests on a belief life begins at conception. Herein lies the first point of both arguments with and departure from those who advocate protecting the legal status of abortion. While few of even the most ardent abortion activists would deny that the physical result of conception is more than a simple mass of tissue, they quickly part on whether the resultant cells are really yet human.
If the pro-life theory is accepted, it is incumbent our laws are immediately amended to give inheritance, burial and all forms of citizenship rights to individuals prior to birth. Additionally, for consistency, expectant mothers should become criminally and civilly liable for any actions during their pregnancy which might be deemed to have an adverse affect on the child they are carrying. Fortunately, the courts, in their wisdom, have employed a level-headed approach in ruling a fetus is not an independent, functioning human being, and thus have protected all pregnant women from what could become grounds for an endless succession of suits from one’s children, whether or not they carry their fetus to term, together with legal access abortion services.
Meantime, the core of the anti-abortion lobby predictably professes outrage at the taking of another human life as being an anathema of their fundamental Christian values. To the credit of a small minority within this camp, opposition to the death penalty lends credibility to their moral position.
However, for the pro-life mainstream, life and death appear to take a backset to the furtherance of narrow religions and social agendas. Polls consistently indicate a willingness by the majority of pro-life advocates to impose the death penalty which, by any objective standard is state-sanctioned killing.
A third plank in the pro-life platform is their claim abortion is being used as an after-the-fact means of contraception. While this charge makes good press, and may be credible in China, there is simply no hard evidence to support this assertion. What makes this charge more disingenuous is the fact large numbers of anti-abortion advocates concurrently support programs which restrict the dissemination of birth control information and devices to not only Americans but women in countries which receive U.S. foreign aid. In fact, according to one study, some 50% of all abortions are performed on women who were using other birth control methods at the time they became pregnant.
Finally, even if abortion is made illegal, abortions will not cease. Rather, they would simply be driven “underground” or across international borders where they remain legal. Tragically, in either venue, the health and lives of many thousands of women will be needlessly placed at risk. These perils will fall most heavily on poor women who can not afford the costs to travel to countries with a more enlightened ethos.
Comparisons between the U.S. and Brazil, for example, indicate ~4.1 million abortions occur in each country each year. In American, however, where access to abortion services are legal, fewer than 11,000 women must be subsequently hospitalized for complications. In Brazil, by contrast, where the Catholic Church has been successful in keeping abortion illegal, more than 400,000 women are hospitalized after having abortions with thousand more suspected of suffering and dying from untreated complications.
Our government should not and must not capitulate to the anti-abortion forces. Such attempts to regulate this most personal of human behavior is itself immoral and doomed to failure.
If the pro-lifers are truly concerned over the number of pregnancies terminated by abortions, they must rethink their opposition to the types of educational programs which will teach individuals, young and old, to think before they act … and make better decisions where there is a risk of an unwanted pregnancy. Improved health education together with accurate information on, and access to, universal, safe and reliable methods of contraception are also an imperative.
Despite emotional claims to the contrary, most women seeking abortions go through a gut-wrenching decision process. Further, as with all choices all people make in their lives, women who undergo an abortion must live with the consequences of their actions … absent government interference in their initial decisions.
Abortion is a terrible choice! However, the ultimate decision on whether to undergo such a procedure must not be left in the hands of the government or the hordes of social do-gooders who are constantly trying to convince the rest of society their way is the only way to live.
The decision to end a pregnancy must be left in the hands of the woman concerned … hopefully with the loving advice, counsel and support of the man who impregnated her, her doctor, her clergy, her family and her closest friends. However, whatever advice she receives, the final decision must ultimately be left in her hands.
