Posted on 06/19/2002 12:10:49 PM PDT by gordgekko
Abortion. The word alone causes civil conversation to flee the room. This is largely because the pro-choice and pro-life positions are being defined by their extremes, by those who scream accusations in lieu of arguments.
More reasonable voices and concerns, on both sides of the fence, are given short shrift.
For example, pro-life extremists seem unwilling to draw distinctions between some abortions and others, such as those resulting from rape or incest with an underage child. They would make no exception in the recent real-life case of a woman who discovered in her fifth month that her baby would be born dead due to severe disabilities.
On the other hand, pro-choice extremists within feminism insist on holding inconsistent positions. The pregnant woman has an unquestionable right to abort, they claim. Yet if the biological father has no say whatsoever over the woman's choice, is it reasonable to impose legal obligations upon him for child support? Can absolute legal obligation adhere without some sort of corresponding legal rights?
The only hope for progress in the abortion dialogue lies in the great excluded middle, in the voices of average people who see something wrong with a young girl forced to bear the baby of a rapist.
Any commentary on abortion should include a statement of the writer's position. I represent what seems to be a growing "middle ground" in pro-choice opinion. Legally, I believe in the right of every human being to medically control everything under his or her own skin. Many things people have a legal right to do, however, seem clearly wrong to me: adultery, lying to friends, walking past someone who is bleeding on the street. Some forms of abortion fall into that category. Morally speaking, my doubts have become so extreme that I could not undergo the procedure past the first trimester and I would attempt to dissuade friends from doing so.
Partial-birth abortion has thrown many pro-choice advocates into moral mayhem. I find it impossible to view photos of late-term abortion — the fetus' contorted features, the tiny fully formed hands, the limbs ripped apart — without experiencing nausea. This reaction makes me ineffectual in advocating the absolute right to abortion. I stand by the principle, "a woman's body, a woman's right" but I don't always like myself for doing so.
It is difficult to remember how many times other feminists have urged me not to express moral reservations. "Abortion requires solidarity" is the general line of argument. Such voices do as much damage to the pro-choice position as the anti-abortion zealots who harass women as they enter clinics do to the pro-life one.
Fanatics on both sides are using reprehensible and deceitful tactics. An honest dialogue on abortion must start by re-setting the stage, by denouncing the approaches that block communication.
What are those approaches?
Many pro-choice advocates approve of using tax money to fund abortion. For example, starting in July, abortion training — formerly elective — will be required training for obstetrics and gynecology residents in New York City's 11 public hospitals. Those wishing to avoid the required training must provide religious or moral justification. The furor created by this use of tax money has been phrased as a battle over abortion when, in reality, it is about whether government should finance women's personal choices with the taxes of those who strenuously object. Government support of abortion must cease.
Pro-life extremists threaten the lives and safety of both those who provide and those who undergo the procedure. The murder of "abortion" doctors is in the news with the current trial of anti-abortion militant James Kopp, accused of murdering Dr. Barnett Slepian in New York and wanted for attacks on two doctors in Canada.
Recent concerns have been raised for the safety of the women involved. Anti-abortion zealots are photographing women as they enter clinics and, then, posting the photographs on the Internet. The women are identified as "baby killers." The pro-life movement must lead in denunciating this violence or no discussion can occur.
Pro-choice advocates should stop the attempt to silence those with doubts and cease their hypocrisy on issues surrounding abortion. Consider the National Organization for Women. NOW decries the anti-abortion stand as violence against women's reproductive rights. Yet it is mute (or much worse) on the greatest reproductive atrocity against women in the world — China's one-child policy.
Pro-life leaders should start being candid about how they plan to enforce a ban on abortion. For example, if they believe abortion is premeditated murder, then they seem logically constrained to impose first-degree murder penalties — including the death penalty, if applicable — upon women who abort and those who assist her. Are they willing to do this while remembering that murder has no statute of limitations?
Those who shove posters depicting an aborted fetus into the faces of pro-choice advocates have an equal responsibility to confront the consequences of their own policies. How, short of totalitarian government agencies, can they control what is in a woman's womb, and when?
I don't know if good will is possible on this highly charged and divisive issue. Both sides may find themselves able to work together on measures that improve the situation, for example, by making adoption far easier. What I do know is that the extremes cannot be allowed to dominate debate. The stakes in abortion are too high.
Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the forthcoming anthology Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.
Wait! Three rights make a left, but three rightists don't make a leftist.
At least, I think that's how it goes.
Shalom.
Well, then, why do women really have abortions?
75% say having a baby would interfere with work, school, or other responsibilities.
66% (about) say they cannot afford to have another child.
50% say they do not want to be a single parent, or have relationship problems with husband or partner.
Less than 2% have abortions because they became pregnant as a result of rape or incest.
Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute [research arm of Planned Parenthood], Facts in Brief: Abortion in the United States, 2000
Except that you don't know if a child is present or not. So technically, it's not an abortion.
What about the rest?
Shalom.
Abortions have always been available to women. Yes, doctors and the mothers were running the risk of being prosecuted, but they happened nonetheless. These were not the 'coathanger in a back alley' horrors we hear from the pro-abortionists. They just were not encouraged and funded (through organizations) by the federal government, therefore, they happened much less frequently. Since they were not sanctioned by the government, the rest of the people in the country did not share in the guilt - now we do.
Ditto. So often it seems conservatives (not to mention libertarians) are all-or-nothing types. The opposition, meanwhile, is patient, and perfectly content to work incrementally.
In the case of abortion, it is completely reasonable to point out that 97% of abortions are performed basically for the sake of convenience.
We already know that most people oppose abortions performed for the sake of convenience, so it's not a matter of popular opposition, so much as it is getting past the political and media power of the pro-abortion side.
In that regard it is helpful to look at the Palestinian suicide bombers -- the intellectuals still wring their hands at the plight of the poor Palestinians, but most people see them for what they are: murderers.
Likewise, the pro-aborts always look really bad when they stake out their extreme position. Unfortunately, the pro-life stalwarts always give them a lifeline by refusing to accept what most people would call (wrongly, IMHO) reasonable hard-case exceptions.
Not quite. If I ask you to push a button, and tell you that when you push a button, either nothing will happen, or you will shoot someone in the head with a large calibre bullet, would you do it?
You will never know which happened.
SD
Very tough call, either way. I'd pray that prayer could even keep a single such instance from happening.
I'm not willing to take that risk. If there is a child, you are killing it, whether or not you "know" that child is there. You "know" that there is a chance that a child has been conceived, and you are therefore willing to kill the child regardless of your knowledge. I suppose it's easier for some people to lie to themselves than to admit they are killing their child.
Hmmm, so if it was dark out and someone starting shooting into the darkness, it ``technically'' wouldn't be murder, if we didn't know if someone was hit or not?
Well said. I'm always surprised by how many supposedly rational people seem willing to add murder to the crime of rape without compunction.
Amen.
And we must never content ourselves with thinking these lives are expendable if we can save the other 97% of the aborted babies. There is a tighrope to walk, where we can save some, but must never, ever, do it at the sacrifice of principle.
A temporary truce is fine, but never one that upholds the "right" to abort, in any fashion whatsoever.
SD
If you believe that a woman should have to go through the pain of giving birth to a rapist's baby then every claim you make about valuing human freedom and dignity is a lie. Not only are you forcing her to give him a child, you're forcing her to pay out of her wallet for 18+ years for his evil. I have a better idea. Why don't people like you register your names with the government saying you support making women give birth to than who raped them's baby. Then the government when the government completely outlaws abortion it can sieze all of your assets and levy a 100% income tax on you to pay for the cost of supporting rape victims who are legally forced to have the baby. If you are going to demand that they have the child, you have to help them pay for it.
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