Part 3 LOOKING AT THE SITUATION A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY
3.1 SO WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE OF THE OVERTURNING OF ROE v WADE?
3.2 WHAT IS THE FALL-OUT FROM OVERTURNING ROE v WADE?
3.3 IF THERE ARE NO CLEAR BENEFITS TO THE OVERTURNING OF ROE v WADE, WHY BOTHER?
3.4 WHAT’S REALLY DRIVING THE ANTI-ABORTION ZEAL?
3.5 WHAT GIVES ONE THE RIGHT TO
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
3.12 In the case where an abortion is denied, both mother and child risk being handicapped in the long-term. DO WE REALLY WANT TO HANDICAP BOTH MOTHER AND CHILD BEFORE IT’S ‘GO-TIME’ WHEN THERE MIGHT BE A BETTER ALTERNATIVE?
3.12 IN THE CASE WHERE AN ABORTION IS DENIED, 3.12.1 WHO WILL PAY FOR THE UNWANTED BABIES?
3.12.2 WHO WILL CARE FOR THE UNABLE-TO-BE-PROPERLYCARED-FOR CHILDREN?
3.12.3 WHO WILL PAY FOR THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE FOR YEARS TO COME?
3.13 WHO BENEFITS FROM THE FORCING OF PREGNANT WOMEN, UNWILLING OR UNPREPARED TO GIVE BIRTH, TO DO SO?
3.14 WHAT DOES THE ABORTION ISSUE TELL US ABOUT OUR DEMOCRACY?
3.15 HOW MIGHT THE ANTI-ABORTION MOVEMENT BE A RELIGION?
3.16 WHAT ABORTION SCENARIO WOULD YIELD THE MOST BENEFITS
5.5 Excerpt from IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE MORALLY PRO-LIFE AND POLITICALLY PRO-CHOICE AT THE SAME TIME.
5.7 Excerpt from HOW TO HAVE EFFECTIVE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ABORTION AT FAMILY GATHERINGS
5.8 Excerpt from NEED A SAFE, PRIVATE ABORTION? ASK CHARLEY. 325
5.9 Excerpt from AN OPEN LETTER TO WOMEN’S MAGAZINE EDITORS: IT’S TIME TO SAVE REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS 326
5.10 Excerpt from PRO-CHOICER GETS CALLED A 'MURDERER,' RESPONDS WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE 'PRO-LIFE' 327
5.11 Excerpt from “YOUR BODY, OUR CHOICE” 329
CROSS-REFERENCING
Simply click on the page numbers to move quickly to specific sections of the document.
FORWARD
Now look what you’ve done!
Since the shocking overturning of Roe v. Wade - America’s national protection of abortion rights for 50 years - abortion discourse has become even more divisive, often careening between staunchly pro-choice and the complete stripping away of reproductive rights. It is - still - among the loudest and most contentious subjects in the American political and cultural landscape.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade raises a whole lot of questions and solves….. well….. nothing.
It says that the U S , as a country, will not protect the reproductive rights of women and furthermore, will cowardly throw the issue to 50 different jurisdictions to fight it out, opening the door to a whole slew of scenarios and options, and worse yet, leaving needy women, not to mention healthcare professionals and lawyers, scrambling. The result is much uncertainty surrounding reproductive health laws and the emergence of a litany of horror stories (such as doctors denying life saving care for fear of retribution, confusion, fear and chaos in the medical community making it nearly impossible for medical professionals to provide obstetric care, women trapped with their abusers or killed for accessing abortion care, children already subjected to unspeakable violence — forced to seek the procedure in the shadows lest they bear children of their own), making the prospect of offering abortion services in many places risky at best.
And, to add insult to injury, the ripple effects of red-state abortion bans are taking their toll. Women have been forced to continue pregnancies that have almost killed them, and given birth to children they can’t afford to care for, children conceived by rape, and children they are simply not ready to have.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade made it more likely that fetal personhood, contraception bans, and other previously unimagined constraints on women’s autonomy and equality could be enacted into law. Moreover, it offered a warning that courts could and should come for contraception, marriage equality, and whatever else had been protected under the long line of substantive due process cases. It was never self-limiting to abortion—it was a save-the-date card for the religious right’s plan to come for the rest of reproductive freedoms.
Moreover, since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the fight to establish that the word “person” in the 14th Amendment of the U S Constitution applies to fetuses has escalated. Leading groups from the Alliance Defending Freedom to Students for Life have called for personhood for “preborn children.” Lawmakers have introduced fetal-personhood bills in at least 14 states. Some states have already used personhood language to prosecute pregnant women for actions considered harmful to fetuses, such as using recreational drugs.
Overall, the push for fetal personhood under the 14th Amendment represents an escalation of efforts to restrict abortion access and women’s reproductive rights.
Are there any real winners here?
I am dubious. Ultimately, the decision to disallow abortions is sadly, not only an attack on women’s rights, but a broader failure to understand the adverse affects of this position.
Given this turn of events, I felt a need to investigate further to try to glean a better of understanding of the issue, why we continue to have trouble with it and what’s really at stake. More importantly, I try to make some sense of the matter and work to ask – and answer –some hard and, frankly, telling questions which are getting little, if any, air time.
I call my study:
MISSION ABORTED
I must admit that this is not a wholly original document, but rather a curation of numerous bits of texts cobbled together with a variety of personal thoughts on a very complex topic. It is also not intended to be read cover to cover, but rather selectively, depending on your interests and concerns. As such, there is a certain amount of repetition throughout the document so that the various sections can hang together on their own. If nothing else, I encourage you to read the Forward and the Conclusion.
1. To carry out or undergo the abortion of (a fetus): "the decision to abort the fetus" · "many doctors assume that women who undergo testing would choose to abort"
2. To bring to a premature end because of a problem or fault: "the pilot aborted his landing"
ABORT THE MISSION*
Sometimes, it makes sense to take the difficult decision to abort a mission in order to avoid downstream disaster.
Sometimes remedial measures are required in the short-term to address unplanned events that can have serious longer-term impacts.
One such case is the matter of abortion which is still – remarkably – a hot-button, polarizing topic in the 21st century, a subject so divisive that people are willing to snitch, threaten, terrorize, assault and even kill people for it.
Abortion has been, and continues to be, one of the most divisive and emotionally charged issues in American politics. At one end of the debate are those who regard abortion as murder, a despicable and heinous crime. At the other end of the spectrum are those who regard any attempt to restrict abortion as an egregious violation of women’s rights to make their own decisions about their bodies and what is best for them and their families.
Regardless, I must admit that I still do not understand the mania around the anti-abortion movement in America. For some reason, the issue rankles me. And as a white, cis-gendered male, I really have no skin in the game (at least not directly), but the principle of this seemingly endless debate gnaws at my belief in the importance of human rights and dignity, and my hope for societal progress.
America’s highest courts and top politicians – not to mention a slew of activists – continue to pull in opposing directions. There continues to be much protesting and posturing, legislating and appealing. Millions of dollars are being spent to promote or defend a position. It’s hard to tell sometimes if this is just a political football or a legitimate concern. Ultimately, I wonder if we’re losing sight of the big picture.
Even though I know what side of the fence I’m on, I’ve decided to try to better understand the issue – including weeding through much research, reporting and commentary – as I work to get to the essence of the matter. And hopefully, a conclusion on a desired and positive path forward.
The French have a wonderful expression for this: corriger le tir
The literal translation would be to correct the fire or to correct the shot (like in gunfire).
But it’s understood to mean to correct course or to make adjustments.
So let me start by asking:
.1 WHAT’S REALLY AT STAKE HERE?
We know that the abortion debate is a complex, longstanding, and ongoing controversy that touches on human rights as well as medical, socioeconomic, moral, religious, legal, political and racism-related aspects.
We know that different positions on abortion often reflect different values and beliefs, such as the sanctity of human life, the autonomy of women, the protection of vulnerable groups, and the common good.¹,³
The debate also involves different sources of authority, such as science, law, religion, and philosophy.³ And it is often polarized between two main camps: pro-life and pro-choice.
• Pro-life advocates, who seek to defend the unborn child, oppose abortion and argue that it is equivalent to murder.
• Pro-choice advocates, who consider it a personal issue to be decided by the woman, not the state, support abortion and argue that it is a matter of personal freedom.¹,³
Needless to say, the abortion debate has significant implications for individuals, families, communities, and societies at large. It affects women's access to reproductive health care, their opportunities for education and work, their relationships with their partners and families, and their mental and physical health.⁵ It also affects population size and structure, social norms and values, legislation, the political landscape, and the ethical standards and principles of a society.²,³
Some of the main questions that the debate raises include:
• What are the rights and responsibilities of the pregnant woman and the fetus?
• When does human life begin?
• What are the roles and limits of the state and society in regulating abortion?
• What are the effects of abortion on women's health and well-being?
• What are the effects of abortion on an unwanted child’s health and well-being?
• What are the effects of abortion on the society in general? ¹,⁴
Clearly, there is much at stake in this debate, most importantly:
• the legal status of discretionary abortions - those abortions performed when the mother’s life is not at risk
• the constitutionality of regulating abortion
• the right of all women to wield control over their bodies
• the potential success of a newborn to be a healthy, stable and positive contributing member of society
• the potential socio-economic success of women
• the potential societal impacts
Note bene
It’s important to recognize that no woman wants to be in a situation where she has to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. However, while it can be an agonizing decision to make, the women who choose this option often do so because they feel that the abortion pros outweigh the cons in their personal situation. Yet many others, not directly involved in the decision, seem to want to weigh in on the matter.
And so it goes………
But for me, the issue raises many more questions, not the least of which are:
• What’s really driving the anti-abortion zeal?
• What gives us the right to dictate what other people do with their bodies?
• Why are so many people concerned about killing unborn babies?
• Why are there still so many who are intent on putting the kibosh on the reproductive rights of others?
• Why are so many politicians and courts intent on anti-abortion legislation when there doesn’t appear to be an overwhelming appetite for it?
• Do Pro-Lifers really care about life?
• Why are so many women against abortion?
• What role might men play in the abortion debate and what are the limits of their responsibility?
• In the case where an abortion is denied, both mother and child risk being handicapped in the long-term. Do we really want to handicap both mother and child before it’s ‘go-time’?
• In the case where an abortion is denied,
o who will pay for the unwanted babies?
o who will care for the unable-to-be-properly-cared-for children?
o who will support the ill-prepared mothers (and fathers, assuming they’re still involved)?
o who will pay for the collateral damage for years to come?
• Why should we care if someone else wants an abortion? How might it affect those not directly involved in the decision?
• Who benefits from the forcing of pregnant women, unwilling or unprepared to give birth, to do so?
• What does the abortion issue tell us about our democracy?
• How might the abortion movement actually be a religion?
• What abortion scenario would yield the most benefits to society?
I’ll get to the questions later, but let’s first look at an overview of the issue…
.2
UNDERSTANDING THE ISSUE
Abortion: Some General Info
Close to one-quarter of American women have had an abortion by the time they’re 45 years old. 2
Many women are single at the time of their pregnancy, without intention to marry the conceiving partner. Most are young at the time of their abortion(s) in their teens or twenties. Many say they got pregnant despite being on a form of birth control (IUD, condom use, or the pill).
According to Verywell Health, women between the ages of 20 and 24 years old accounted for 27.6% of all abortions. Just over 29% of all abortions were to women between the ages of 25 and 29. The lowest percentages were found among women under the age of 15 and over the age of 40.3
As one might expect, the concerns of women considering abortion vary:
• Some feel unprepared or not yet ready to be a parent, whether financially, mentally, because they were still in school, unsupported, or otherwise.
• Some feel pressured (sometimes “forced”) to have an abortion by a parent, boyfriend, or husband, sometimes within the context of abuse.
• Some face daunting health prospects.
• Some express regret at their decision; others describe it as a difficult decision but right at the time.
• Some feel deeply ambivalent about it and, perhaps relatedly, rarely tell people in their lives about it.1-4
What did the Roe ruling say?
For the record, and for a debate on abortion policy (and even as stated in “THE BEST PRO-LIFE ARGUMENTS FOR SECULAR AUDIENCES”, p.9), the most important part of the ruling to understand is the new “law” it established:
The Court ruled that abortion must be permitted for any reason a woman chooses until the child becomes viable; after viability, an abortion must still be permitted if an abortion doctor deems the abortion necessary to protect a woman’s “health,” defined by the Court in another ruling issued the same day as “all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age relevant to the well-being of the patient.”
This means that even after fetal viability, a woman can still obtain an abortion if a doctor determines it is necessary for her overall health and well-being. The Court recognized that restricting abortion access after viability could pose risks to the woman's health in certain circumstances.
Source:
(1) Should I Get An Abortion? | Information to Help You Decide. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion/considering-abortion.
(2) Ghilarducci, Teresa. 59% Of Women Seeking Abortions Are Mothers Facing High Poverty Risk - Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/2021/12/24/59-of-women-seeking-abortions-are-mothersfacing-high-poverty-risk/
(3) Wilkinson, Katie. Abortion Facts and Statistics: What You Need to Know - Verywell Health. https://www.verywellhealth.com/facts-about-abortion-5324508
(4) Kertscher, Tom. More than 90% of women change their minds about having an abortion....- Politifact. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/jul/12/rachel-campos-duffy/more-90-women-change-theirminds-about-having-abor/.
Excerpt from
“THE BEST PRO-LIFE ARGUMENTS FOR SECULAR AUDIENCES”, p.13):
Understanding the issue also means understanding your position. If you’re pro-life, you might already be pro-choice
Public debate about abortion rights continues to be heated. So it seems appropriate to revisit the moral arguments used to defend both the pro-choice and pro-life positions.
As an ethicist who researches moral beliefs, I examine the moral justifications people give for the things they believe. You likely already know where you stand when it comes to the morality of abortion. But I think going over the arguments supporting long-held views can show an overlooked inconsistency in the pro-life view. It’s an inconsistency that I am hopeful can lead people who are pro-life to support a woman’s right to choose.
Rights and claims
Let’s remind ourselves of the basics.
Pro-choice arguments usually appeal to the mother’s right to bodily autonomy, and it is because of the mother’s right to bodily autonomy that abortion is generally morally permissible. Pro-life arguments usually appeal to the fetus’s right to life, and it is because of the fetus’s right to life that abortion is generally morally forbidden.
More sophisticated versions of these arguments appeal to different weighing claims. Someone who is pro-choice can accept that a fetus does indeed have a right to life but insist this right is outweighed by the mother’s right to bodily autonomy. Likewise, someone who is pro-life can accept that a mother does indeed have a right to bodily autonomy but insist that this right is outweighed by the fetus’s right to life.
But these two positions are not monoliths. Some people who are pro-life believe there are important exceptions regarding abortion. A moderate pro-life position says that abortion is generally morally forbidden, except in cases where the mother’s life is at risk, or when the pregnancy is caused by incest or rape. I’ll focus on the last of these exceptions here. Other prolife defenders, who are more extreme, reject such qualifiers.
This difference is evident among U.S. Republicans. In May 2019, a coalition of pro-life activists urged the Republican National Committee (RNC) to oppose any exceptions for rape within newly passed abortion laws, because “the value of human life is not determined by the circumstances of one’s conception or birth.”
But in the same month, Donald Trump tweeted: “… I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions — Rape, Incest and protecting the Life of the mother …,” echoing a belief held by Ronald Reagan.
Justifiable exceptions
The moderate pro-life position is also widely shared among the general public. Nearly 75 per cent of Americans think that abortion should be permissible in cases of rape. Since Americans are nearly equally split between pro-choice and pro-life positions, we can assume that many people who are pro-life are among those who think that rape exceptions are justified.
While the moderate pro-life position has broad support among the general public, it receives very little attention from moral philosophers. In a recent paper, I have suggested that one reason for this surprising oversight is because the popular view is actually incoherent. But it is not for the reason stated in the letter to the RNC. Rather, bringing out the incoherency requires us to unpack the underlying moral justification for the view.
There seem to be three underlying claims for the moderate pro-life position.
1. The 1st claim is: A FETUS IS A HUMAN BEING FROM THE MOMENT OF CONCEPTION, OR ELSE AT SOME POINT DURING GESTATION.
The moral point here is that human beings have a right to life, and because a fetus is a human being it too has a right to life. Many people who are pro-choice might deny this claim, but let’s accept it for the sake of argument.
2. The 2nd claim is: A RIGHT TO LIFE IS STRONGER THAN, OR OUTWEIGHS, A RIGHT TO BODILY AUTONOMY.
As we saw above, this is the weighing claim familiar to pro-life positions. It says that a right to life is morally weighty enough to tilt away from a right to bodily autonomy.
3. The 3rd claim is: ABORTION IS PERMISSIBLE FOR A PREGNANCY CAUSED BY RAPE.
With the three claims on the table, what we can notice is that the third claim is an excusing condition on the second claim. The idea here is that while a fetus’s right to life normally outweighs a mother’s right to bodily autonomy, when the fetus is conceived as result of rape, abortion becomes permissible. And that means that the moral justification for the moderate pro-life positions stems from the type of act that rape is. Rape is of course an extreme violation of someone’s autonomy.
Moral significance
But now the incoherency reveals itself. Consider the following gloss: The moderate pro-life position says that a right to life is stronger than, or outweighs, a right to bodily autonomy, except when the fetus that has the right to life is created by a violation of … bodily autonomy.
Once we put in the work to unpack the moderate pro-life position, we see that it makes an appeal to the moral significance of bodily autonomy. Crucially, it does this while attempting to explain why the act of rape excuses the ordinary weighting of life over autonomy. But this is incoherent. It says that life is more important than autonomy, except when autonomy is more important than life.
When someone allows for an exception to abortion in cases of rape, they are acknowledging that there are violations of autonomy that can justify abortion. And if some violations of autonomy are appropriate grounds, then it cannot be true that a right to life is morally weightier than a right to bodily autonomy.
Some might think that realizing this inconsistency should push moderate pro-lifers to a more extreme position. But I think that the hard part is convincing someone that autonomy considerations have any relevance regarding reproductive ethics. People who accept the moderate pro-life position are already sympathetic to this point. I believe they can come around to thinking that the law should respect the importance of autonomy more broadly.
No matter what you think about abortion access, it helps to understand the realities of someone facing the decision of whether to terminate a pregnancy.
Six Things You May Not Know About Abortion
Abortion is a very common procedure one in four U.S. women will have one yet most people still know so little about it.
Gallup measures Americans' attitudes on abortion each May as part of its Values and Beliefs poll
The full trend on this question among U.S. adults is available on the Gallup Abortion A-Z page
Explore Gallup's curated archive of data and analysis on abortion on the Abortion Topics page. https://news.gallup.com/poll/244709/pro-choice-pro-life-2018-demographic-tables.aspx
Poll: Majority Want To Keep Abortion Legal, But They Also Want Restrictions
The great comedian George Carlin was noted for his black comedy and thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. He spelled out the abortion issue brilliantly, almost 30 years ago. It’s hauntingly uncanny that this is the exact situation we’re in now. Tell me I’m wrong, after watching this clip: https://youtu.be/SgjGwOByays?si=wNFX1TmBRWhxbsO6
Roe v. Wade:
What the rollback of abortion rights in the U.S. means for marginalized communities and how you can offer support.
OVERVIEW: See https://hrx.tech/roe-v-wade/
What is an abortion?
Access to Abortion Isn’t Equal The Impact is Disproportionate What This Means for Our Workplaces
What’s Next
What Do We Can Do
Organizations & Further Resources
WEBINAR: See https://vimeo.com/733692667/c131d0ef94
A presentation by KONSTANTINA NIKOLAKIS and WYLE BAOWEEN
DEFINING PRIVILEGE
Part 1: Background
Part 2: An Overview of Abortion Access
Part 3: The Impact of Banning Abortion
Part 4: What’s Next / What Else is at Stake?
What abortion looks like in every state — right now
Abortion laws in the United States vary significantly by state, especially after the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Here’s a general overview of the current landscape:
• Expanded Access: Some states have expanded access to abortion services.
• Protected: In other states, abortion rights are protected under state law.
• Not Protected: There are states where abortion rights are not protected, which could lead to restrictions.
• Hostile: Several states have hostile laws towards abortion, with many restrictions in place.
• Illegal: Abortion is completely illegal in 14 states.
For detailed, real-time information on the abortion laws in each state, you can refer to resources like the Center for Reproductive Rights or The Guardian’s interactive tracker These sources provide comprehensive breakdowns of the laws, including types of bans, gestational limits, and other restrictions.
See also In what states is abortion legal, illegal, and in limbo?
Where American states stand on abortion care https://theweek.com/politics/abortion-legal-illegal-in-limbo
OPINION
The Supreme Court decision overturning Roev.Wadehas clarified the ground of public argument about abortion. As abortion-rights supporters have pressed their sudden political momentum, three pro-choice arguments have loomed particularly large.
Each merits its own analysis (Notably, none are really arguments about the question of when life, personhood or human rights begin; they all tend to present reasons that, even if the unborn child did have a moral claim on us, some other interest necessarily overrides it.)
Opinion columnist, Ross Douthat tries to address them on those terms rather than just rehashing the debate about whether unborn human beings are also human persons.
1. An argument about abortion in life-threatening circumstances
This first installment covers the argument over whether exceptions to abortion restrictions can fully protect the life of the pregnant woman when it’s threatened. In terms of what conflicted Americans might fear most from an abortion ban, the most immediately potent argument is this one, which focuses on pregnancies gone so terribly wrong that the mother’s life can only be saved at the expense of the unborn child.
See What Conflicted Americans Fear Most from an Abortion Ban
2. An argument about the unique physical costs of pregnancy in general
This essay picks up where the previous one left off with arguments which suggest that regardless of whether an unwanted pregnancy is life-threatening, it still constitutes a form of bondage, bodily torment, trauma or transformation that the law should not require a woman to endure.
See What Do the Physical Costs of Pregnancy Mean for the Abortion Debate?
3. An argument for the virtues of the Roe-era cultural status quo
This installment focuses more on economic and sociological issues, and particularly the belief that crucial elements in our current American way of life economic prosperity, female opportunity, social stability depend on the ready availability of abortion.
See also Fmr. Pro-Life Leader Rev. Schenck on Abortion Ruling
For more than 30 years I worked to overturn Roe v. Wade. As an evangelical minister, I was deeply engaged in the world of the religious right, beginning with my vote for Ronald Reagan for president in 1980. I believed he would appoint Supreme Court justices committed to protecting unborn children, and Antonin Scalia, appointed in 1986, fulfilled my expectations. Later, when President George Bush nominated to the court another strong pro-lifer, Clarence Thomas, I led a vigil at our church to pray for his confirmation.
During those years I also recruited, trained and directed thousands of protesters who blocked the doors to abortion clinics, marched in the streets to denounce “baby killing” and staged sitins at the offices of legislators. I was a leader of Operation Rescue, the activist pro-life group; I helped stage the epic 1992 anti-abortion demonstrations in Buffalo. I went to jail and paid exorbitant fines for my advocacy, and was even arrested by the Secret Service for my role in thrusting an aborted fetus at Gov. Bill Clinton during his 1992 presidential campaign. Eventually, I founded a national organization to advance the anti-abortion agenda.
Given my history, you might think I would be thrilled at the perilous threshold at which Roe now stands, following the passage of sweeping new abortion restrictions in such states as Alabama, Georgia and Missouri. I’m not.
Over the last decade, I have changed my view on Roe. I’ve come to believe that overturning Roe would not be “pro-life”; rather, it would be destructive of life. I have witnessed firsthand and now appreciate the full significance of the terrible poverty, social marginalization and baldfaced racism that persists in many of the states whose legislators are now essentially banning abortion. If Roe is overturned, middle- and upper-class white women will still secure access to abortions by traveling to states where abortion is not banned, but members of minorities and poor whites will too often find themselves forced to bear children for whom they cannot adequately care.
What is “pro-life” about putting a woman in a situation where she must risk pregnancy without proper medical, social and emotional support?
What is “pro-life” about forcing the birth of a child, if that child will enter a world of rejection, deprivation and insecurity, to say nothing of the fear, anxiety and danger that comes with poverty, crime and a lack of educational and employment opportunities?
Consider the situation in Alabama. The Alabama Senate approved a measure that would outlaw almost all abortions in the state. I know Alabama well. I was arrested and served jail time there for my activism in the early 2000s. While being processed and incarcerated, I met men and women primarily members of minorities and poor whites whose daily lives consisted of one crisis after the next.
Many of them lacked even the most rudimentary life skills, including what it takes to raise a child. They were in a state of perpetual panic about money, about the bewildering circumstances they found themselves in, feeling victimized by their very existence. Some spoke to me of their children, agonizing over how helpless they felt in providing anything for them.
The experience left me feeling hollow inside. Alabama does have a network of “crisis pregnancy centers,” which offer support for women and their babies. But that support is limited, and should Roe be overturned, those centers will be woefully insufficient to help these women and their families raise and care for their children.
I’d like to think that the churches and pro-life organizations I worked with for those 30 years would provide the necessary tens of millions of dollars, thousands of volunteer hours, extensive social services, medical and dental care, educational support, food, clothing and spiritual assistance. But I suspect frankly, I know that they cannot or will not.
No doubt, many of my former allies will call me a turncoat. I don’t see it that way.
I still believe that every abortion is a tragedy and that when a woman is pregnant, bringing the child into the world is always ideal. Reality, though, is different from fantasy. I wish every child could be fully nurtured and cared for, and could experience all the wonderful possibilities that life can offer.
But that is not how things turn out for every mother and child. As I’ve preached countless times, loving our neighbors means meeting them where they are, not where we want them to be.
I can no longer pretend that telling poor pregnant women they have just one option give birth and try your luck raising a child, even though the odds are stacked against you is “prolife” in any meaningful sense. And when this message is delivered to poor women by overwhelmingly middle- or upper-class white men (as most of the legislators passing these laws are), it adds insult to injury.
To my former allies who are cheering on the challenges to Roe, I say: Put your money where your mouth is. Devote yourself and your considerable resources to taking care of poor women and their children before you champion laws that hem them into impossible situations.
Otherwise, you are violating the Bible you purport to obey. In the New Testament’s Book of James we read, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
The admonition doesn’t end there. The Book of James goes on to call such a perpetrator of fake religion a “fool.”
Passing extreme anti-abortion laws and overturning Roe will leave poor women desperate and the children they bear bereft of what they need to flourish. This should not be anyone’s idea of victory. Anyone who thinks otherwise is indeed a fool.
Excerpt from A State Supreme Court Just Issued the Most Devastating Rebuke of DobbsYet
Activists protest during a Bans Off Our Bodies rally in support of abortion rights in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 29, 2022. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
The Supreme Court’s eradication of the constitutional right to abortion in 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization had an immediate and devastating impact on gender equality in the United States.
With a single ruling, five justices wiped out millions of women’s access to basic health care and handed control over their medical decisions to politicians and judges. It wasn’t just the court’s judgment, though, that relegated women to a lesser place in the constitutional order; it was also the court’s reasoning, which used the centuries long oppression of women to justify an ongoing oppression of women by way of a deprivation of their rights.
Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion rested largely on the views of dead white men who condoned the rape, beating, and murder of women to maintain female subjugation in every realm of life. And he dismissed his ruling’s ruinous impact on gender equality in a single conclusory paragraph asserting that abortion restrictions could not possibly discriminate against women.
At the end of January 2024, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court responded to that conclusion: No
The court issued a landmark opinion declaring that abortion restrictions do amount to sex-based discrimination and therefore are “presumptively unconstitutional” under the state constitution’s equal rights amendment.
The majority vehemently rejected Dobbs’ history-only analysis, noting that, until recently, “those interpreting the law” saw women “as not only having fewer legal rights than men but also as lesser human beings by design.”
Justice David Wecht went even further:
In an extraordinary concurrence, the justice recounted the historical use of abortion bans to repress women, condemned Alito’s error-ridden analysis, and repudiated the “antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision thus spurned Dobbs in two ways.
1. The majority held that laws regulating a woman’s body do discriminate on the basis of sex, a truth that has been widely understood by legal scholars for decades.
2. The majority explained that rooting women’s rights in the past is, itself, a form of sex discrimination, perpetuating misogynistic beliefs about gender inequality by judicial decree.
As it was leaked and then published with almost no corrections to its myriad errors, Dobbs set off a firestorm of real-time criticism within the public, the legal academy, and the media, and that criticism is now finally returning to the courts in the form of decisions that both defy and rebuke Dobbs’ chauvinistic logic.
The ruling in Allegheny Reproductive Health Center v. Pennsylvania Department of Human Services involves a challenge to the Pennsylvania law that generally prohibits the use of state Medicaid funds to cover abortion. The plaintiffs, a group of health care providers represented by the Women’s Law Project and Planned Parenthood, focused on the Pennsylvania constitution’s equal rights amendment, adopted in 1971, which bars the denial or abridgment of “equality of rights” because of “the sex of the individual.” Laws limiting access to abortion, the plaintiffs claimed, abridge this right of sex equality, because they have a near-exclusive impact on women. (While transgender men can also become pregnant, the plaintiffs noted that pregnancy requires reproductive organs typically classified as female, and most pregnant people identify as women.)
In an opinion by Justice Christine Donohue, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed: “To treat a woman differently based on a characteristic unique to her sex, is to treat her differently because of her sex, which triggers enforcement of our Equal Rights Amendment.”
The ability to become pregnant and obtain an abortion is “unique to one sex.”
By definition, then, any abortion restriction “withholds or diminishes the scope” of women’s rights, allowing them less freedom to make medical decisions than men. And so, under the equal rights amendment, these restrictions are unconstitutional unless the state can prove that they are narrowly tailored to promote a compelling government interest.
Pennsylvania’s equal rights amendment was adopted with the intent to abolish this “persistent relegation of women to subservient and dependent roles,” Donohue wrote. And handing the state a blank check to limit abortion access would contradict this purpose.
In his concurrence, Wecht explicitly linked Donohue’s equality-based argument to Dobbs’ flaws. “We cannot examine particular laws in their historical context without also examining the society in which those laws developed,” he wrote.
“The Dobbs majority relied upon the patriarchal notions of eminent authorities of old English common law, including Lord Matthew Hale,” whose “beliefs were driven by his goal of keeping women from encroaching upon the rights of men.”
Hale, “who presided over the hanging of two women accused of being witches,” thought that giving women “legally enforceable rights over their own bodies was a threat to the freedom of men.” He also insisted that marital rape “was never a crime because marriage amounted to the wife’s (but not the husband’s) irrevocable consent to sex.” Many of Hale’s views aligned with those of William Blackstone, another historical key player in Alito’s Dobbs analysis, who believed that “a married woman had no individual rights of her own.” Wecht went on:
The history represented by Hale and Blackstone is not, as the Dobbs Majority seemed to believe, a neutral survey of history. It was the continuation of centuries of misogyny and oppression that our society has since rejected. The historical limitations upon reproductive freedom that the Dobbs Majority found reveal the perpetuation of the subjugation of women throughout time, just as today’s abortion restrictions reveal the present unequal treatment of women.
The lesson to be gleaned from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s rejection of both Dobbs’ cramped methodology and tragic result is not merely that state constitutions will be more essential than ever to protect against the misogynistic and revanchist efforts to restore women to subordinate and indeed powerless vessels. That we already knew. The lesson is also that the conservative project of gluing a misshapen cutout of the past onto a blank canvas of the present is itself an exercise in perpetuating inequality. This is as it was expressly designed to be. So long as judges are capable of independent thought, they will continue to call BS on the very notion that Dobbs-style originalism holds any real utility in ordering a complex, pluralistic, multiracial modern society.
If constitutional values like equality are to endure, they will do so in spite of a structurally oppressive history, and not because of it.
.3 WHAT’S THE TRUE NATURE OF THE ISSUE?
Abortion presents a profound moral conundrum about which Americans hold sharply conflicting views.
Some believe fervently that a human person comes into being at conception and that abortion ends an innocent life.
Others feel just as strongly that any regulation of abortion invades a woman’s right to control her own body and prevents women from achieving full equality, compromising an existing life.
Still others in a third group think that abortion should be allowed under some, but not all circumstances, and those within this group hold a variety of views about the particular restrictions that should be imposed.
But, what really is the true nature of the abortion issue?
Is it:
a) A human rights issue?
Women’s rights, like having control over her own body and health decisions. Is what a woman chooses – and sometimes doesn’t – to do with her body a matter of public opinion?
b) A medical (physical and mental health) issue?
c) A socio-economic issue?
d) A moral issue?
e) A religious issue?
f) A legal issue?
g) A political issue?
h) A racism issue?
While I will work to address each of the above individually, I think we can safely say that it’s impossible to treat the abortion issues in silos. It’s really far more complex, with one issue bleeding into the other - a sort of crossfertilization - with a few of them leading the charge. This will be clear as I grapple with them one by one a little later in the document. Not surprisingly, you will notice numerous repetitive themes across the various issue silos.
Personally, though, I think we should be framing the debate a little differently and posing questions like the following (in addition to those noted on page 10), in an attempt to get a broader and more telling view of the matter:
1. Why is abortion not a private matter?
2. Why should we care if someone else wants an abortion? How might it affect us?
3. In the case where an abortion is denied, both mother and child (not to mention, father, if he’s still involved) risk being handicapped in the long-term. What are the benefits of pursuing or, worse yet, enforcing such an option?
4. In the case where an abortion is denied, who will pay for the collateral damage for years to come?
5. How might we best create the optimum conditions to ensure easily accessible sexual and reproductive healthcare for all?
6. What are the societal costs of having an abortion versus not? I, for one, am not convinced that as average citizens, we are not paying, at least in part, for the downstream impacts of unprepared mothers and unwanted children resulting from the denial of an abortion And they are far more onerous than the cost of the abortion.
We might also approach the matter as a member of the Canadian Cabinet who, as former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General Jody WilsonRaybould explains in her government exposé ’Indian in the Cabinet’, would typically approach issues with such questions as:
• Is this the best decision?
• Is it based on the best evidence?
• Who does it help?
• Who might get hurt?
• Is it just?
• Is it compassionate?
• Does it look ahead to building a better future while learning the lessons of the past?
To be fair, I’ll try to look at both sides from a variety of perspectives in an attempt to come to some reasonable, well-thought-out conclusion.
But for me, at the end of the day, I think we need to answer one question:
In the abortion debate, who really wins?
Or, more to the pointHow is society made better by virtue of the chosen path?
Ultimately, it shouldn’t be about winning or losing. It shouldn’t be a zero-sum game.
The question of abortion is not a simple one, nor is it a matter of who is right or wrong. Rather, it is a complex issue that involves the rights, values, and beliefs of different groups of people.
How can we find a solution that respects the dignity and autonomy of women, the sanctity and potential of life, and the common good of society?
There is no easy answer, but there may be a way to approach the problem that is more constructive and compassionate than the polarized and antagonistic debate we are seeing. Instead of focusing on winning or losing, we should try to understand the perspectives and experiences of those who disagree with us, and seek to find common ground and areas of cooperation.
We should also recognize that abortion is not an isolated issue, but one that is connected to many other social and economic factors that affect the well-being of women, children, and families. By addressing these root causes and providing more support and resources for those in need, we may be able to reduce the demand for abortion and promote a real culture of life and care.
LAYING THE GROUNDWORK
1.1 So, where do we start? Understanding the adversaries.
Abortion is among the most intractable issues dividing the parties, with little or no room for compromise.
Well, before we can have any kind of intelligent discussion about the matter, we first have to understand the basis of the debate and define our terms of reference.
On one side, opponents of the procedure argue that “at the moment of fusion of human sperm and egg, a new entity comes into existence which is distinctly human, alive, and an individual organism a living, and fully human, being,” as the Center for Human Dignity puts it in the pamphlet “The Best Pro-Life Arguments for Secular Audiences.”
On the other side, abortion rights proponents contend, in the words of the Center for Reproductive Rights: “Laws that restrict abortion have the effect and purpose of preventing a woman from exercising any of her human rights or fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men.”5
(Image credit: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images, Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images)
Excerpt from Abortion: What it is and why people disagree whether it should be legal
Political and theological conservatives are usually “anti-abortion” because they proclaim themselves to be “pro-life,” adopting the maximalist position that human life begins at the instant of conception. Alternatively, those who insist that all abortions must remain legal and accessible are “pro-choice,” maintaining that the autonomous, modern female possesses the right to choose how to deal with her body and specifically whether or not to carry her pregnancy to term.
The “pro-life” movement argues that even a nonviable, undeveloped human life is sacred and must be protected by the government (NOTE: Viability is the time at which the unborn human can live outside her mother’s womb 6). Abortion should be prohibited, according to this model, and not practiced on an illegal basis either. The “pro-choice” movement argues that the government should not prevent an individual from terminating a pregnancy, at least before the point of viability.7
Right off the bat, these definitions show the two opposing forces in play, with each side seemingly establishing their priority - mother or fetus – putting front and center one of the primary issues in the abortion debate: the moral status of the fetus.
So let’s start with that….
Source:
(5) Edsall, Thomas B., Abortion Has Never Been Just About Abortion https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/opinion/abortion-evangelicals-conservatives.html
(6) Beckwith, Francis J. Viability. “Is a Fetus a Person Once it Can Live Outside the Mother’s Womb?” https://www.equip.org/articles/viability-is-a-fetus-a-person-once-it-can-live-outside-the-mothers-womb/
(7) Head, Tom. “The Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice Debate: What does each side believe” https://www.thoughtco.com/pro-life-vs-pro-choice-721108
1.2 HUMAN RIGHTS
Abortion is a human rights issue.
Access to a safe and legal abortion is very much a matter of human rights, and its availability is critical to protecting reproductive health and bodily autonomy, not to mention reducing maternal mortality and morbidity.
Denying access to abortion jeopardizes a range of human rights including:
• the right to non-discrimination and equality;
• the right to privacy and bodily autonomy and integrity;
• the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health;
• the right to benefit from scientific progress;
• the right to decide freely and responsibly on the number, spacing and timing of children;
• the right to freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment;
• the right to freedom of conscience and religion.
Countries typically have obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights, including those concerning sexual and reproductive health and autonomy. Where safe and legal abortion services are unreasonably restricted or not fully available, many other internationally protected human rights may be at risk
But, oftentimes, these rights are set aside in favour of the rights of a fetus. Which begs the question:
In the matter of maternal autonomy versus fetal rights, which should take precedence?
In the U.S., it remains a conundrum.
In 1973, the landmark and controversial court case Roe v. Wade came to a close when the US Supreme Court ruled that a woman’s constitutional right to privacy negated abortion legislation. This court ruling enabled women to terminate pregnancies up to the point of fetal viability.
In a related case, Doe v. Bolton, the US Supreme Court supported abortion rights after the point of fetal viability in order to preserve women’s lives and continuing health. The concept of health, as defined by the Supreme Court in Doe v. Bolton, includes “all medical, psychological, social, familial and economic A factors that may potentially encourage a decision to obtain an abortion”. Thus, it was established that the mother’s life and health take precedence over the life of the fetus right up until birth.
Fifteen years later, in 1988, the Canadian Supreme Court abolished its abortion law in R. v. Morgentaler. The Supreme Court determined that restrictive abortion provisions violated women’s rights as set out in the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court ruled that the Criminal Code violated women’s rights because “forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman’s body and thus a violation of security of the person. ”8
A I draw your attention to the bold underlined words as these represent some of the various impacts that an unwanted pregnancy might have on a woman. Their potential effect and repercussions are investigated later in the document.
In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to abortion in its landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling, changing the legal landscape of abortion rights in the country, and throwing the whole kit and caboodle into question, not to mention disarray. As a result, the weighting of maternal rights versus fetal rights is still unresolved in America.
Moral Status of the Fetus
There are currently three ways of approaching this issue. The fetus can have the same rights as a child, have no rights, or have increasing rights with advancing gestation.8
1. Full Fetal Rights
If the fetus is considered to have the full rights of a person, then it should be treated as a separate entity from the mother. Thus, the pregnant woman and the fetus should be treated as two individual patients. A major problem with this concept is fetal dependence on the mother. This total dependence has the potential to cause serious conflict between maternal and fetal rights.8
The principles of autonomy and beneficence are viewed as the primary factors involved in the maternal-fetal conflict.8 The right to be free from unwanted bodily invasions and to control one’s own life is fundamental to the pregnant woman’s right to security of the person.6 Maternal right to privacy is also supported by other concepts and rights, specifically that of autonomy. The concept of a person’s autonomy is their right to choose how to live their own life.7 The pregnant woman should be allowed the freedom to decide upon alternative courses of therapeutic action based on her values and beliefs.4 The principle of beneficence requires an individual to act in such a way as to reliably produce more good than harm in the lives of others.3
2. No Fetal Rights
Some argue that the fetus has no moral status independent of the mother, but acquires moral status at birth. It is the emergence into the social world that is thought to transfer moral status This implies that a pregnant woman has the moral right to abort a viable fetus, but not to kill her newborn infant.8
In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundation of human rights and a common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations, the text and negotiating history of the "right to life" explicitly premises human rights on birth. Likewise, other international and regional human rights treaties, as drafted and/or subsequently interpreted, clearly reject claims that human rights should attach from conception or any time before birth. They also recognise that women's right to life and other human rights are at stake where restrictive abortion laws are in place.9
3. Fetal Rights Acquired with Advancing Gestation
Others argue that the fetus acquires increasing moral status as it advances in gestation. In this case, one might ask, ‘Are there ethical differences between aborting during early pregnancy versus during late pregnancy?’ Society perceives moral differences between an early abortion and termination of a viable full-term fetus. This suggests that the moral status of the fetus does increase with gestation.7
Source:
Fetal Rights Summary
So to summarize, the moral rights of a fetus might feasibly be viewed as follows:
1. If we assign the fetus full rights, then we are implying that society must guarantee those rights, as society does with a live baby. As already stated, however, the fetus’s rights might conflict with the mother’s autonomy to decide what happens to her own body.
2. If the fetus has no rights, then even a viable fetus is unprotected if the mother jeopardizes its existence.
3. If the moral status of the fetus increases with gestation, then a viable fetus has greater moral status than a newly fertilized ovum, and it might be reasonable to intervene if the mother’s behaviour jeopardizes the fetus near term.
It is clear from the relevant case-law that this issue is still very much under debate (at least in the U.S.). Regardless, I think it is fair to say that the fetus is not a separate biological entity. Rather, it is dependent on the mother’s body until near term. This would seem to give the mother important ‘rights’ in deciding what happens to the fetus if it also affects what happens to her body.8
In general, there is little conflict. The mother and fetus are involved in a symbiotic relationship in which the mother is the moral guardian. That said, if significant differences arise in the interests of the mother and fetus, would it not be reasonable to assume that the mother has the responsibility to consider the interests of both in making an informed decision regarding medical treatment? If a conflict arises, does it not make sense that the competent mother’s rights to personal autonomy should prevail over the lesser rights of the fetus early in gestation?
(NOTE: As the fetus matures and acquires greater moral status, the situation may become less clear.) Debate about abortion is often a debate about rights – but whose?
(8) Tran, Linda. Legal Rights and the Maternal-fetal conflict – The Science Creative Quarterly https://www.scq.ubc.ca/legal-rights-and-the-maternal-fetal-conflict/
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
1.3 MEDICAL IMPACTS
Abortion is a medical issue.
Abortion is definitely a medical issue as it involves a medical procedure that affects a person's physical health and well-being.
Abortion can indeed be necessary for a variety of medical reasons, such as when a pregnancy poses a threat to a woman's health or when a fetus has a serious medical condition that is not compatible with life.
Access to safe and legal abortion services is crucial for protecting the health and well-being of women, particularly in situations where a pregnancy may pose a risk to their health or life.
Anti-choice advocates, unfortunately, often use women’s health and maternal mortality as justifications for abortion restrictions. Although abortion has been proven to be one of the safest medical procedures, anti-choice policymakers at state and federal levels continue to use the guise of protecting women’s health to promote restrictions on abortion providers and procedures such as medication abortion, add requirements for women to fulfill in order to receive an abortion, and limit the procedure after an arbitrary number of weeks into a pregnancy. Research shows, however, an inverse relationship between abortion restrictions and both maternal and child health outcomes and the number of policies intended to support women and children’s wellbeing, including Medicaid expansion and protections for pregnant workers, among others. Additionally, persistent structural racism plays a significant role in the connection between abortion restrictions and maternal mortality.9
There are several different ways to perform abortions.
Medication abortion, as well as dilation and curettage (D&C), are typically performed during the first trimester of pregnancy. During a medication abortion, the patient takes two different pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, to pass the pregnancy from the uterus with some cramping. Dilation and curettage is a surgical procedure.
Note: According to 2018 CDC data, around 92.2% of abortions are performed during the first trimester, less than 13 weeks into a pregnancy, with about 7% taking place between 14-20 weeks and only 1% past 21 weeks.
Abortion is life-saving. Having access to abortion care is critical for people to exercise their reproductive autonomy. Pregnancy is dangerous, and much more likely to lead to mortality when compared to having a safe, early-trimester abortion.
Medical considerations play an important role in determining the appropriate timing and method of abortion. For example, the choice of abortion method may depend on factors such as the stage of pregnancy, the woman's health status, and her personal preferences. Medical professionals play a critical role in providing safe and effective abortion care, and ensuring that women receive appropriate counseling and support throughout the process.
Women who are denied access to safe and legal abortion services may face significant physical and psychological harm, such as complications from unsafe abortion procedures or emotional distress related to an unwanted pregnancy.
Furthermore, mental health considerations are an important aspect of providing abortion care, and providers may offer counseling and support services to women both before and after the procedure. This can help ensure that women receive appropriate care and support throughout the process, and can help minimize the potential physical and psychological effects of abortion.
Generally speaking, while abortion is a complex issue that intersects with a range of social, political, and moral concerns, it is clear that it is also very much a physical and mental health issue that can have important implications for the well-being of women. Moreover, it should be noted that while abortion is a medical issue, it is also subject to legal and political frameworks that may impact access to care and the quality of care provided. The regulation and provision of abortion services may be influenced by a range of factors, including medical guidelines, social norms, and legal considerations, all of which may vary widely between countries and jurisdictions.9,10,11,12
What are the overarching medical impacts of abortion?
Abortion is a physical and mental health issue, as it can have physical emotional, and psychological effects on the person undergoing the procedure. These impacts can vary depending on individual circumstances, the type of procedure used, and other factors. Additionally, access to safe and legal abortion services is an important aspect of reproductive healthcare that can have a significant impact on the health and well-being of individuals as well as society.
Here are some of the general medical impacts of abortion:
1. Physical risks: Abortion is a medical procedure that carries some physical risks that may include infection, cramping, bleeding, damage to the uterus or other organs, and anesthesia complications. These risks are generally low, but can vary depending on the stage of pregnancy, certain medical conditions and the type of abortion procedure used.13
2. Emotional impact: Abortion can be a complex and emotionally challenging decision for many people. Some individuals may experience feelings of guilt, sadness, grief, or anxiety after the procedure. The emotional impact of abortion may vary depending on a range of individual factors, including the woman's personal beliefs, values, and support systems.
3. Future fertility: In general, abortion does not have a significant impact on a person's future fertility. However, some types of abortion procedures, such as dilation and curettage (D&C), may increase the risk of scarring, which can affect future fertility.
4. Mental health: There is some research to suggest that abortion may be associated with an increased risk of mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, these findings are not conclusive, and many individuals who have had an abortion report no negative impact on their mental health.
5. Medical costs: Estimates from 2006 show that complications of unsafe abortions cost health systems in developing countries US$ 553 million per year for postabortion treatments. In addition, households experienced US$ 922 million in loss of income due to long-term disability related to unsafe abortion. Countries and health systems could gain substantial monetary savings by providing greater access to modern contraception and quality induced abortion.13
One of the key questions that the Turnaway Study14 (a landmark study examining the effects of unwanted pregnancy on women’s lives) attempts to answer is: Does abortion hurt women?
The investigation found that, in the long term, more women who gave birth reported fair or poor physical health, compared with women who had an abortion. Medical literature shows that carrying a pregnancy to term the many months of continued pregnancy and childbirth are associated with much greater risk than having an abortion, even a later abortion. Moreover, when it comes to the participants’ mental health, the study found no evidence of harm from having an abortion, with no emergent cases of depression, anxiety or suicidality, but rather a short-term decline in mental health among those who were denied an abortion, with increased self-reported anxiety symptoms and lower self-esteem and life satisfaction.15
That said, let’s look at this matter from a slightly different perspective:
What might be the medical impacts of a pro-life versus prochoice stance?
A pro-life stance, or being denied an abortion, can have significant medical impacts on a person's physical and mental health. Here are some of the potential consequences:
1. Increased risk to physical and mental wellness: Lack of access to safe, affordable, timely and respectful abortion care, and the stigma associated with abortion, pose risks to women’s physical and mental well-being throughout the life-course.
Women who are denied an abortion may experience higher rates of anxiety, depression, lower self-esteem, and PTSD. These mental health problems can have long-term consequences.
While unwanted pregnancy can produce feelings of distress, regardless of whether a woman has an abortion or not, landmark research known as the Turnaway Study found that women who were denied an abortion had more psychological problems in the short term than those who received one.
2. Increased risk of maternal mortality: Women who are denied an abortion are more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than those who are able to obtain an abortion.
3. Delayed or inadequate medical care: When women are denied an abortion, they may delay seeking medical care for the complications of an unwanted pregnancy, or they may not receive adequate care.
4. Increased risk of future infertility: If a woman experiences complications during an unwanted pregnancy and is unable to obtain an abortion, it may increase her risk of future infertility.
5. Increased risk of domestic violence: Women who are denied an abortion may be more likely to experience domestic violence from their partners or spouses, particularly if the pregnancy is unwanted.
6. Financial burden: Women who are denied an abortion may experience financial burden due to the costs associated with pregnancy and childbirth, particularly if they are unable to work during this time. Regulations that force women to travel to attain legal care, or require mandatory counselling or waiting periods, also lead to loss of income and other financial costs, and can make abortion inaccessible to women with low resources.
7. Impact on existing children: Women who are unable to obtain an abortion may struggle to care for their existing children, particularly if they are single mothers or have limited financial resources. This can impact the health and well-being of these children.
A pro-choice stance, which is based on the idea that individuals should have control over their own bodies and reproductive health may, on the other, offer some of the following potential medical impacts:
1. Access to safe and legal abortion: A pro-choice stance can help ensure that individuals have access to safe and legal abortion services, which can reduce the risk of complications and improve overall reproductive health.
2. Improved maternal health outcomes: When individuals have access to safe and legal abortion services, they are less likely to experience complications during pregnancy and childbirth, which can improve maternal health outcomes.
3. Reduced maternal mortality rates: Access to safe and legal abortion can also reduce maternal mortality rates, as women are less likely to resort to unsafe, illegal abortions.
4. Improved mental health outcomes: When individuals are able to make decisions about their own reproductive health, it can have positive impacts on their mental health, as they are less likely to experience feelings of powerlessness, anxiety, or depression.
5. Improved access to contraception: A pro-choice stance can also help improve access to contraception, which can reduce unintended pregnancies and improve overall reproductive health.
6. Reduced stigma around reproductive health: A pro-choice stance can help reduce stigma around reproductive health issues, which can make it easier for individuals to seek the care they need.13,14,16
Given the numerous critical factors in play, the decision to have an abortion should, ideally, be made by the individual in consultation with their healthcare provider and not be influenced by political or ideological beliefs.
Source:
(9) Ravi, Anusha. Limiting Abortion Access Contributes to Poor Maternal Health Outcomes https://www.americanprogress.org/article/limiting-abortion-access-contributes-poor-maternal-healthoutcomes/
(10) Major, B., Appelbaum, M., Beckman, L., Dutton, M. A., Russo, N. F., & West, C. (2009). Abortion and Mental Health: Evaluating the Evidence. American Psychologist, 64(9), 863-890. https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2009-17947-002.html
(11) World Health Organization. (2012). Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems (2nd ed.). https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/70914/9789241548434_eng.pdf;jsessionid=08C3A961F1F 217AFC50E92F8346CDA7A?sequence=1
(12) Foster, D. G., Biggs, M. A., Ralph, L., Gerdts, C., Roberts, S. C., Glymour, M. M., & Rocca, C. H. (2018). Socioeconomic Outcomes of Women Who Receive and Women Who Are Denied Wanted Abortions in the United States. American Journal of Public Health. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304247
(13) World Health Organization. Abortion Fact Sheet. https://www.who.int/news-room/factsheets/detail/abortion#:~:text=Physical%20health%20risks%20associated%20with%20unsafe%20abortion%2 0include%3A,inserting%20dangerous%20objects%20into%20the%20vagina%20or%20anus
(14) Green Foster, Diana; Biggs, M. Antonia; Gould, Heather; Kimport, Katrina; Raifman, Sarah; Ralph, Lauren; Roberts, Sarah; Rocca, Corinne; Sisson, Gretchen; Upadhyay, Ushma; Woodruff, Katie. “The Turnaway Study.” University of California, San Francisco. https://www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study
(15) Lenharo, Mariana. “Being Denied an Abortion Has Lasting Impacts on Health and Finances” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/being-denied-an-abortion-has-lasting-impacts-on-health-andfinances/
(16) Caron, Christina. Does Being Denied an Abortion Harm Mental Health? An examination of the most rigorous research to date.
Abortion-rights demonstrators rally outside the Supreme Court on June 24, 2023. Stephanie Scarbrough/AP
1.4 SOCIAL-ECONOMIC IMPACTS
Abortion is a socioeconomic issue.
Abortion can be considered a socio-economic issue because access to safe and legal abortion services is often influenced by a range of social and economic factors, such as poverty, discrimination, and lack of access to healthcare. It also has important socioeconomic impacts on the mother, child and society in general.
In many countries, women from low-income backgrounds or marginalized communities may face significant barriers to accessing safe and legal abortion services. This can be due to factors such as a lack of financial resources, geographic barriers to healthcare, or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or gender identity.
Additionally, the social and economic circumstances of a woman may influence her decision to have an abortion. For example, women who face financial hardship or lack social support may be more likely to seek abortion services, while women with greater financial stability or social support may be more likely to continue with a pregnancy.
The socio-economic implications of abortion can also extend beyond individual women to impact families, communities, and broader social and economic systems. For example, the decision to have an abortion may affect a family's financial stability or the labor force participation of women, and policies related to abortion may have broader implications for reproductive rights, healthcare access, and social welfare.
Clearly, abortion has significant socioeconomic implications, which may vary depending on a range of individual and societal factors. That said, we must acknowledge that abortion access can have economic impacts on the cost and quality of care, the educational and economic outcomes of women and children, the poverty and health status of women who are denied abortions, and the social welfare and public policies related to reproductive rights As a result, it is important for policymakers and society as a whole to recognize the socio-economic impacts of limiting access to abortion.17-20
What are the overarching socioeconomic impacts of abortion?
The socioeconomic impacts of abortion can be complex and multifaceted, and may vary depending on a number of factors, including the political, legal, economic and cultural context in which the procedure takes place, the availability of contraception and family planning resources, and the specific reasons why women seek abortions. Some of the potential overarching socioeconomic impacts of abortion include:
1. Public health and healthcare costs: The availability of safe and legal abortion can improve public health by reducing maternal mortality and morbidity, as well as the incidence of unsafe and illegal abortions. However, the costs of providing abortion services can also be significant for healthcare systems, particularly in countries where public funding for abortion is limited or non-existent.17
2. Demographics and population growth: Abortion can affect population growth by reducing the number of births, particularly among certain age groups or socioeconomic classes. This can have implications for workforce participation, social security, and economic growth. However, the impact of abortion on population growth depends on various factors, including fertility rates, access to contraception, and cultural attitudes towards family planning.18
3. Women's empowerment and equality: The ability to access safe and legal abortion can have a positive impact on women's social and economic empowerment, as it can help to reduce the burden of unintended pregnancies and enable women to control their reproductive health and autonomy. However, restrictive abortion laws or cultural attitudes towards abortion can limit women's choices and rights, exacerbating gender inequality.19
4. Economic benefits: Access to safe and legal abortion can have positive economic impacts, as it allows women to plan their families and make decisions about their careers and education without the financial burden of an unplanned pregnancy or additional children. This can lead to increased workforce participation, higher earnings, and improved financial stability for women and their families.20
5. Health outcomes: Access to safe and legal abortion services can improve maternal health outcomes and reduce the incidence of unsafe abortions. Unsafe abortions can have serious health consequences, including injury, infection, and death. By providing safe and legal abortion services, women are able to avoid these risks and maintain their overall health and wellbeing. This can have positive ripple effects on their families, communities, and society as a whole. On the other hand, limited access to abortion services can increase the risk of maternal mortality and morbidity, as well as other negative health outcomes for individuals who seek unsafe abortions or are unable to terminate unwanted pregnancies.
6. Reduction in poverty: Studies have shown that access to contraception and abortion can help reduce poverty by allowing women to plan their families and avoid unintended pregnancies. This can have a positive impact on the overall economic stability of communities and countries, as it reduces the burden on social services and increases the potential for economic growth.
7. Improved educational outcomes: Access to abortion can improve educational outcomes for women by allowing them to pursue higher education and training, which can lead to increased earning potential and career opportunities.
8. Increased gender equality: Access to safe and legal abortion can promote gender equality by allowing women to make informed decisions about their reproductive health and exercise control over their own bodies and lives. This can contribute to broader social and economic progress, by allowing women to participate fully in their communities and economies.
9. Social and cultural impacts: Abortion can have significant cultural and social impacts, as it is often tied to deeply-held beliefs and values about the sanctity of life, individual rights, and family structures. It can be a contentious issue that can polarize societies and have implications for public policy, social norms, and individual behavior. In some contexts, abortion may be viewed as a taboo or immoral practice, leading to social ostracism or discrimination against women who seek the procedure. In other contexts, however, abortion may be seen as a necessary and acceptable option for women facing difficult decisions about their reproductive health.
10. Developmental impact: 60% of people in the U.S. who have abortions are already mothers, and give as a reason for wanting to have an abortion that they need to take care of the children they already have. When we look at the well-being of those existing children, we see differences based on whether their mother received or was denied an abortion for their subsequent pregnancy. For instance, the kids whose mothers were denied abortions are typically less likely to achieve developmental milestones such as language and gross and fine motor skills.
11. Educational impact: A set of scoping reviews from 2021 indicate that abortion regulations – by being linked to fertility – affect women’s education, participation on the labour market, and positive contribution to GDP growth. The legal status of abortion can also affect children’s educational outcomes, and their earnings on the labour market later in life. For example, legalization of abortion – by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and thus increasing the likelihood that children are born wanted – can be linked to greater parental investments in children, including in girls’ schooling.13
12. Political impact: The availability of abortion services can be a politically charged issue, with debates about reproductive rights and women's health often at the forefront of political and legal discourse.28
Overall, the socioeconomic impacts of abortion are shaped by a wide range of factors and can be difficult to predict or measure with precision. They are complex and multifaceted, and depend on a variety of social, cultural, and economic factors. Understanding these impacts requires careful consideration of the many factors that influence individual choices and societal outcomes related to reproductive health and rights. However, it is clear that access to safe and legal abortion services can have important benefits for women, families, and communities, both in terms of their economic and social wellbeing, and their health and safety.
What might be the socioeconomic impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance?
A pro-life versus pro-choice stance on abortion can have different socioeconomic impacts, depending on a number of factors, including the specific policies being advocated, the legal and cultural context in which the debate is taking place, and the overall availability and quality of healthcare and reproductive services.
A pro-life stance typically seeks to restrict or ban access to abortion, often on moral or religious grounds.
This can have several socioeconomic impacts, including:
1. Limiting access to reproductive healthcare: Restrictions on abortion can limit women's access to reproductive healthcare and family planning resources, which can have negative impacts on their overall health and wellbeing, as well as their economic and social opportunities.
2. Increased risk of unsafe abortions: When abortion is restricted or illegal, women may resort to unsafe and potentially life-threatening methods to terminate their pregnancies, which can lead to serious health complications and death. This can have significant economic and social costs, both for individual women and their families, and for society as a whole.
3. Reduced workforce participation: Women who are unable to access abortion services may be forced to delay or forego career opportunities, education, or other life goals due to the demands of an unplanned pregnancy or the burden of caring for additional children. This can have negative impacts on their economic security and the overall productivity of the workforce.
4. Reinforcing gender inequality: Pro-life policies can reinforce gender inequality by limiting women's autonomy and control over their bodies and reproductive choices. This can perpetuate harmful stereotypes and contribute to broader social and economic disparities between men and women.
5. Reduced financial viability: This is not just about poverty, although we see that people who are denied abortions are more likely to live in households where there just isn't enough money for basic living needs... And they're more likely to be raising children alone if they are denied the abortion than if they receive one.16
The Turnaway Study found that women who were denied the procedure and carried the pregnancy to term were more likely to live in poverty and were also more likely to be unemployed. Between one and five years after seeking an abortion, women who were denied the procedure and ended up giving birth were more likely to report not having enough money to cover living expenses, a more subjective poverty measure.15
Restrictive abortion regulation can impose financial burdens on women and girls. Regulations that force women to travel to attain legal care, or require mandatory counselling or waiting periods, lead to loss of income and other financial costs, and can make abortion inaccessible to women with low resources.21
On the other hand, a pro-choice stance seeks to protect and expand access to abortion services, often on the grounds of individual autonomy and reproductive rights. This can have several socioeconomic impacts, including:
1. Improving maternal health: Access to safe and legal abortion can improve maternal health outcomes by reducing the risks associated with unsafe procedures and allowing women to make informed decisions about their reproductive health.
2. Increasing economic opportunities: By allowing women to plan their families and make decisions about their careers and education, access to abortion can increase workforce participation, higher earnings, and improved financial stability for women and their families.
3. Reducing poverty: Studies have shown that access to contraception and abortion can help reduce poverty by allowing women to plan their families and avoid unintended pregnancies. This can have a positive impact on the overall economic stability of communities and countries, as it reduces the burden on social services and increases the potential for economic growth.
4. Promoting gender equality: Pro-choice policies can promote gender equality by empowering women to make informed decisions about their reproductive health and exercise control over their own bodies and lives. This can contribute to broader social and economic progress, by allowing women to participate fully in their communities and economies.
That said, the “pro-life” vs. “pro-choice” debate tends to overlook the fact that the vast
majority of women who have abortions don't do so by choice, at least not entirely. Circumstances put them in a position where
abortion is the least self-destructive option available.
According to a study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, 73% of women who had abortions in the United States in 2004 said that they couldn't afford to have children.7
Women living in states that restrict or ban abortion face greater economic insecurity than those living in states where they have access, new research finds.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, half of all states – 26 in total –have implemented new abortion restrictions or all-out bans. In nearly all the 26 states, there are lower minimum wages, unionization levels, access to Medicaid and unemployment benefits, as well as higher rates of incarceration than states with more lenient abortion policies, according to new research by the Economic Policy Institute.
“These economic policies all compound on each other. And you add to that an abortion ban, it just compounds this financial stress, this economic insecurity,” said Asha Banerjee, an economic analyst with the institute and the author of the report.22
In summary, a pro-life versus pro-choice stance on abortion can have significant socioeconomic impacts, which are shaped by a wide range of factors, including the specific policies being advocated, the legal and cultural context, and the overall availability and quality of healthcare and reproductive services.12,21-27
Source:
(17) Public health and healthcare costs:
• Grimes, D. A., Benson, J., Singh, S., Romero, M., Ganatra, B., Okonofua, F. E., & Shah, I. H. (2006). Unsafe abortion: the preventable pandemic. The Lancet, 368(9550), 1908-1919.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69481-6
• Ralph, L. J., Foster, D. G., Raifman, S., Steinberg, J. R., & Lewis, C. (2018). The impact of public funding for contraception on unintended pregnancies and financial hardship in California. Contraception, 97(3), 189195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.contraception.2017.10.006
(18) Demographics and population growth:
• Sedgh, G., Bearak, J., Singh, S., Bankole, A., Popinchalk, A., Ganatra, B., ... & Hussain, R. (2019). Abortion incidence between 1990 and 2014: global, regional, and subregional levels and trends. The Lancet, 393(10175), 282-301.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32203-5
• Canning, D., & Schultz, T. P. (2012). The economic consequences of reproductive health and family planning. The Lancet, 380(9837), 165-171.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60827-7 (19) Women's empowerment and equality:
• World Health Organization. (2011). Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems. https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/unsafe_abortion/9789241548434/en/
• Jones, R. K., Jerman, J., & Onda, T. (2016). Characteristics and circumstances of US women who obtain very early and second-trimester abortions. PloS one, 11(1), e0149164.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149164
(20) Economic development and poverty reduction:
• Stevenson, A. J., Flores-Vazquez, I. M., Allgeyer, R. L., & Schenkkan, P. (2019). Does Abortion Legalization Lead to Higher Economic Growth? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 38(1), 199-227. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22123
• Mierzejewska, B. (2016). Economic effects of legalizing abortion: Poland’s experience since 1990. Journal of Health Economics, Policy and Law, 11(2), 263-276. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744133115000334
(21) Burbank, Megan. “A landmark study tracks the lasting effect of having an abortion - or being denied one” https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/05/15/1098347992/a-landmark-study-tracks-the-lastingeffect-of-having-an-abortion-or-being-denied
(22) Yurkevich, Vanessa. “Women living in states with abortion bans suffer greater economic insecurity.” https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/economy/abortion-women-states-economy/index.html
(23) Guttmacher Institute. "Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States." https://www.guttmacher.org/factsheet/induced-abortion-united-states
(24) World Health Organization. "Unsafe abortion: global and regional estimates of the incidence of unsafe abortion and associated mortality in 2008."
• Smith, J., & Joffe, C. (2013). The political life of abortion in the United States: A feminist perspective. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
• Donnelly, K. (2018). The politics of abortion: A historical perspective. Routledge.
1.5 MORAL IMPACTS
Abortion is a moral issue.
Abortion is often considered a moral issue, as it involves questions about the value and sanctity of human life, bodily autonomy, and the rights and responsibilities of individuals.
We know that different people may have different views on abortion depending on their personal beliefs, values, experiences, and circumstances. Some may consider abortion as a moral right or a moral good,29 while others may view it as a moral wrong or a moral evil.30 Some may see abortion as a matter of personal choice or autonomy,29 while others may see it as a violation of human dignity or life.30 Some may support abortion in some situations but not in others,¹ while others may oppose or support it in all cases without exception.30
Those who believe that human life begins at conception may view abortion as morally wrong because they see it as the taking of a human life. Others may believe that a woman has a right to make decisions about her own body and that abortion is morally justifiable in certain circumstances, such as when the woman's health is at risk or in cases of rape or incest.
The morality of abortion is a complex and controversial issue, with different ethical frameworks and cultural beliefs influencing individuals' attitudes and beliefs about abortion.
Some individuals and organizations may view abortion as a moral imperative, while others may see it as morally unacceptable or somewhere in between. Indeed, for many, abortion poses a moral dilemma.
However, the bigger issue to consider is to what extent the moral beliefs and attitudes of individuals and organizations regarding abortion should dictate the actions of others.
The abortion issue is a reflection of our values and priorities and should be treated as such. But at the end of the day, it’s personal.
While individuals are entitled to their moral views on abortion, imposing those views through law or policy is challenging. Abortion should not be a political issue. It’s not something that we can just choose to agree or disagree on without considering the consequences of how we treat each other or how we choose to live our lives. When we make abortion about politics, it becomes about winning or losing, rather than about people and their lives, which is ultimately what it should be about.43
What are the overarching moral impacts of abortion?
The moral impacts of abortion are a subject of significant debate and can vary depending on individual beliefs, cultural context, and legal regulations. They may also vary depending on the context and consequences of each individual case. Some possible moral impacts of abortion are:
1. Value of human life: One of the most significant moral implications of abortion is the question of the value of human life. Proponents of abortion rights may argue that a woman has the right to make decisions about her own body, including whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. On the other hand, opponents of abortion may argue that human life begins at conception and that the termination of a pregnancy is equivalent to taking a human life.
2. Moral status of the fetus: Abortion may affect the moral status of the fetus or embryo that is aborted. Some people may believe that the fetus or embryo has inherent moral value or rights from conception or at some point during pregnancy, while others may believe that the fetus or embryo does not have moral value or rights until birth or later. Some people may also consider other factors, such as the potentiality, viability, sentience, or quality of life of the fetus or embryo.
3. Moral obligations: Abortion may affect the moral obligations and responsibilities of the person who has an abortion and others who are involved in the decision or the procedure. Some people may believe that having an abortion is a morally permissible or obligatory choice that respects the person's autonomy, well-being, and future plans. Others may believe that having an abortion is a morally impermissible or irresponsible choice that violates the person's duty to protect and care for the fetus or embryo.
4. Personal responsibility: Some may argue that if a woman engages in sexual activity, she is responsible for the consequences of that activity, including any resulting pregnancy. Others may argue that pregnancy is not always the result of a conscious choice and that it may be unfair to hold individuals responsible for a situation they did not intend to be in.
5. Societal norms: Abortion may affect the moral values and norms of society at large. Some people may believe that legalizing and providing access to abortion promotes social justice, equality, freedom, and respect for diversity. Others may believe that legalizing and providing access to abortion undermines social morality, order, stability, and respect for life.
6. Legal impacts: It is important to remember that some moral and ethical considerations surrounding abortion can have legal implications and may influence the availability of abortion services in your area. For example, if your local government has imposed restrictions on abortion access based on moral or religious beliefs, this may impact your ability to obtain an abortion.
7. Psychological impact: There may be moral implications for the potential psychological effects of abortion on individuals involved, such as the woman seeking the abortion, the partner, and other family members. The decision to terminate a pregnancy can be emotionally challenging and can lead to feelings of guilt, regret, or trauma. Supporters of abortion rights may argue that these psychological effects can be mitigated through access to counseling and support services, while opponents may argue that these effects demonstrate the harm caused by the practice of abortion.
8. Effect on societal attitudes towards sex and responsibility: Some argue that access to abortion can lead to a culture of sexual promiscuity and irresponsibility, as people may believe that they can always "just get an abortion" if they become pregnant. Others argue that this is a simplistic and inaccurate portrayal of the issue and that access to safe and legal abortion is an important part of comprehensive reproductive healthcare.
In summary, the moral impacts of abortion are complex and varied, and, not surprisingly, different individuals and groups may have different perspectives on the issue. 31,32,33,34,35,36,37
What might be the moral impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance?
As noted previously, the moral impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance can vary widely, depending on one's personal beliefs and values. But, the controversy surrounding reproductive rights is much more complex than the two ideologies suggest. Some people back abortions in certain circumstances and not in others or believe such procedures should be “safe, rare, and legal”. 41 Complicating matters is that there's no consensus on when exactly life begins. The shades of gray in the abortion debate are why the reproductive rights discussion is far from simple.
The pro-life perspective is based on the belief that the government has an obligation to preserve all human life, regardless of intent, viability, or quality-of-life concerns. A comprehensive pro-life ethic prohibits abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide, the death penalty, and war with very few exceptions.41 In cases where the pro-life ethic conflicts with personal autonomy, as in abortion and assisted suicide, it’s considered conservative. In cases where the pro-life ethic conflicts with government policy, as in the death penalty and war, it’s said to be liberal. 41
On the other hand, people who are pro-choice believe that individuals have unlimited autonomy with respect to their own reproductive systems, as long as they don’t breach the autonomy of others. A comprehensive pro-choice position asserts that celibacy and abstinence, contraception use, emergency contraception use, abortion, and childbirth must remain legal.41
The pro-life movement argues that even a nonviable, undeveloped human life is sacred and must be protected by the government. The pro-choice movement argues that the government should not prevent an individual from terminating a pregnancy before the point of viability (when the fetus can’t live outside the womb) 41
Depending on one’s moral perspective, either stance may have positive or negative impacts on the well-being, happiness, health, safety, dignity, responsibility, opportunity, quality of life and future prospects of the pregnant woman, the fetus, the father, the family and the society.42
Ultimately, the moral impacts of a pro-life or pro-choice stance will depend on:
1. one's values and beliefs about the sanctity of life
2. one's values and beliefs about the rights of the pregnant woman versus those of the fetus
3. cultural norms
4. the role of government in regulating reproductive health 38,39,40
See also Section 1.11, page 82
Source:
(29) Abortion as a moral good - The Lancet. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)30581-1/fulltext.
(30) Social and moral considerations on abortion - Pew Research Center https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/social-and-moral-considerations-on-abortion/.
(31) Moral and Ethical Aspects of Abortion - Jurfem. https://jurfem.com.ua/en/moral-and-ethical-aspects-of-abortion/.
(32) Abortion: Negative Impacts on Women | Free Essay Example - StudyCorgi.com. https://studycorgi.com/abortion-negative-impacts-on-women/.
(33) Marquis, D. (1989). “Why abortion is immoral.” The Journal of Philosophy, 86(4), 183-202.
(34) Thompson, J. J. (1971). A defense of abortion. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1(1), 47-66.
(35) Jones, R. K., & Jerman, J. (2017). “Abortion incidence and service availability in the United States, 2014.” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 49(1), 17-27.
(36) Guttmacher Institute. (2022). State facts about abortion: Indiana. https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/state-facts-about-abortion-indiana (37) Finer, L. B., & Zolna, M. R. (2016). “Declines in unintended pregnancy in the United States, 2008-2011.” New England Journal of Medicine, 374(9), 843-852.
(38) National Right to Life. (n.d.). “What is Pro-Life?”
https://www.nrlc.org/resources/what-is-pro-life/ (39) Planned Parenthood. (n.d.). “What is Pro-Choice?” https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/issues/abortion/pro-choice (40) Thomson, J. J. (1971). “A Defense of Abortion. Philosophy & Public Affairs”, 1(1), 47-66. doi: 10.2307/2265091 (41) Head, Tom. The Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice Debate https://www.thoughtco.com/pro-life-vs-pro-choice-721108 (42) Robinson, Christina M. and Cooksey, Ange. The Ethical Dilemma of Abortion - Journal of Student Research at Indiana University East (43) Why Is Abortion a Moral Issue. (2022, Nov 01) – PhD Essay. https://phdessay.com/why-is-abortion-a-moral-issue/
Learn more:
Abortion (From bioethics briefings, The Hastings Center)
Abortion is very much a religious issue for some individuals and religious organizations. Many religions have different beliefs and attitudes towards abortion, ranging from strict opposition to acceptance of abortion in certain circumstances.
For example, some religious groups, such as the Catholic Church and many evangelical Protestant denominations, generally oppose abortion and consider it to be morally wrong because they view it as the taking of a human life. Other religious groups, such as some branches of Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, may have more nuanced views on abortion that take into account factors such as the health of the mother and the stage of fetal development.
However, it is important to note that abortion is primarily a legal and political issue, with laws and policies regarding abortion being determined by lawmakers and courts, rather than religious organizations. In many countries, the legality of abortion is determined by constitutional and legal frameworks that may be influenced by religious beliefs and attitudes but are ultimately grounded in secular law.
How does the religion affect abortion?
Religion can play a significant role in shaping attitudes towards abortion. Different religions have varying views on the morality and acceptability of abortion, and these views can influence the positions of religious individuals and organizations on the issue.
Here are some ways in which religion can affect abortion:
1. Moral and ethical considerations: Many religions view human life as sacred and believe that abortion is morally wrong because it involves the destruction of a life. These beliefs can shape the moral and ethical views of religious individuals and organizations on the issue of abortion.
2. Legal and political considerations: Religious beliefs can also influence the legal and political views of individuals and organizations on abortion. For example, religious groups may advocate for laws that restrict access to abortion or for the appointment of judges who hold similar views.
3. Access to abortion services: Religious beliefs can also affect access to abortion services, as some religious hospitals and healthcare providers may refuse to provide abortion services based on their moral or religious beliefs.
4. Religious exemptions: In some cases, religious organizations and individuals may seek exemptions from laws and regulations related to abortion based on their religious beliefs, such as exemptions from providing insurance coverage for abortion services.
It is worth noting that while many religions hold conservative views on abortion, there are also religious groups and individuals who support a woman's right to access safe and legal abortion services. Additionally, some religious groups focus on promoting access to healthcare and supporting the well-being of marginalized communities, including women seeking abortion services.
Not surprisingly, different religions have different views on the morality of abortion, and these views are often shaped by religious doctrines and teachings. Here are some of the overarching religious impacts of abortion:
Christianity: Christians have diverse views on abortion, with some opposing it as the taking of innocent life and others allowing it in certain circumstances, such as to save the life of the mother. The Roman Catholic Church considers abortion a grave sin and opposes it in all cases. Protestant denominations have varying positions on abortion, with some opposing it and others allowing it in certain circumstances. Some Christian groups are also involved in efforts to support women facing unintended pregnancies and to provide alternatives to abortion.
Islam: Islamic teachings generally oppose abortion, except in cases where the mother's life is at risk. Some Islamic scholars permit abortion in cases of rape or incest. Islamic teachings emphasize the sanctity of human life and the responsibility of parents to care for their children. However, there are variations among different schools of Islamic thought.
Judaism: Jewish teachings emphasize the value of human life and the importance of protecting the health and well-being of the mother. Abortion is generally permitted in cases where the mother's life is at risk, and some Jewish authorities also allow it in cases of severe fetal abnormalities. Jewish teachings also emphasize the importance of compassion and support for women facing difficult decisions regarding their pregnancies. Hinduism and Buddhism: Hindu and Buddhist teachings emphasize the value of all life and the importance of compassion and nonviolence. However, there is no one unified view on abortion in these religions, and opinions on the matter vary widely.
Overall, the religious impacts of abortion are significant and can influence personal beliefs, public policy, and social attitudes towards the issue. Religion can play a significant role in shaping attitudes towards abortion, with varying degrees of influence on moral, legal, and political considerations, and, as such, access to abortion services.44-47
Religious Tradition
The majorities of most religious groups say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases. White evangelical Protestants (27%), Jehovah’s Witnesses (27%) Latter-day Saints (32%), and Hispanic Protestants (44%) are the only major religious groups in which less than half of adherents say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases. By contrast, majorities of religiously unaffiliated Americans (85%), Unitarian Universalists (85%), Jewish Americans (79%), Buddhists (78%), Black Protestants (72%), other Catholics of color (71%), Hindus (69%), white mainline Protestants (68%), Muslims (66%), white Catholics (62%), Hispanic Catholics (61%), and other Protestants of color (53%) say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases. Although many of the arguments about abortion revolve around religion, less than a third of Americans overall (31%) agree with the statement “my religious faith dictates my views on abortion.” The majority of Republicans (52%) say their opinions on abortion are dictated by their religious faith, which is much higher than both independents and Democrats (26% and 20%, respectively).48
What might be the religious impacts of a pro-life versus prochoice stance?
The religious impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance are significant, as different religious traditions have varying views on the morality of abortion. Here are some potential religious impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance:
Pro-Life Stance:
• Within the Christian tradition, the pro-life stance is often associated with Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism, both of which oppose abortion as the taking of innocent life. For Catholics, abortion is considered a grave sin and a violation of the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." Evangelical Protestants generally view abortion as morally wrong because they believe that life begins at conception and that God has a plan for every human life.
• In Islam, the pro-life stance is based on the belief in the sanctity of human life and the responsibility of parents to care for their children. Islamic teachings generally prohibit abortion except in cases where the mother's life is at risk.
• In Judaism, the pro-life stance is based on the value of human life and the importance of protecting the health and well-being of the mother. Abortion is generally permitted in cases where the mother's life is at risk, but is otherwise discouraged.
Pro-Choice Stance:
• Within the Christian tradition, the pro-choice stance is often associated with mainline Protestant denominations, which generally allow for abortion in certain circumstances, such as to save the life of the mother. Some Christian groups also support the right to choose as a matter of personal autonomy and social justice.
• In Buddhism and Hinduism, the pro-choice stance is based on the principles of compassion and nonviolence. Some Buddhists and Hindus believe that a woman should have the right to make decisions about her own body and that abortion may be a compassionate choice in certain circumstances.
• In some other religious traditions, such as Unitarian Universalism and Humanism, the pro-choice stance is based on the value of personal autonomy and the right to make informed decisions about one's own body and health.
Generally speaking, the religious impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance are complex and varied, as different religious traditions have different views on the morality of abortion. As such, one should ideally approach the issue with sensitivity and respect for different religious perspectives, and recognize the diversity of views within and across religious traditions.44-47
Source: (44) Christianity:
• Roman Catholic Church. (1995). Evangelium Vitae. http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jpii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html
• National Association of Evangelicals. (n.d.). Abortion. https://www.nae.net/what-we-believe/abortion/
• The United Methodist Church. (n.d.). Abortion. https://www.umc.org/en/what-we-believe/abortion (45) Islam:
• Al-Qaradawi, Y. (2003). The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam. American Trust Publications.
• Amjad-Ali, C. (2012). Islamic Perspectives on the Principles of Biomedical Ethics. Islamic Medical Association of North America. (46) Judaism:
• Dorff, E. N. (2006). Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics. Jewish Publication Society.
• Union for Reform Judaism. (1998). Resolution on Reproductive Choice. https://urj.org/what-we-believe/resolutions/resolution-reproductive-choice (47) Hinduism and Buddhism:
• Ives, C. (2009). Hinduism and Abortion. In C. Martin (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the American News Media (pp. 312-326). Oxford University Press.
• Prebish, C. S., & Keown, D. (2010). Buddhism and Abortion. In C. S. Prebish & K. K. Tanaka (Eds.), The Faces of Buddhism in America (pp. 267-291). University of California Press. (48) Abortion Attitudes in a Post-Roe World: Findings From the 50-State 2022 American Values Atlas, PRRI Staff, 02.23.2023 https://www.prri.org/research/abortion-attitudes-in-a-post-roe-world-findings-from-the-50state-2022-american-values-atlas/#_ftn4
What the Bible actually says about abortion may surprise you
By THE CONVERSATION US https://www.alternet.org/abortion-in-the-bible/
1.7 LEGAL IMPACTS
Abortion is a legal issue.
Abortion is a legal issue that has been the subject of much legal debate and controversy. The legality of abortion varies widely around the world and is influenced by a range of factors, including cultural, religious, and political beliefs, as well as legal frameworks and social attitudes towards reproductive rights.
As we know, in the United States, the landmark Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade in 1973 established the constitutional right to access abortion services, but the legal landscape has since shifted with a range of federal and state laws aimed at restricting or limiting access to abortion services. This has led to ongoing legal battles over issues such as the constitutionality of state-level abortion restrictions and access to abortion services for marginalized communities.
How does the legal system affect abortion?
The legal system can have a significant impact on abortion in several ways. These may include:
1. Criminalization or legalization of abortion: The legal system can determine whether abortion is legal or illegal in a particular country or jurisdiction. Laws governing abortion can range from complete prohibition to allowing abortion in certain circumstances, such as to protect the life or health of the woman or in cases of rape or incest.
2. Access to abortion services: The legal system can impact access to abortion services by regulating the availability and affordability of abortion services, including requiring mandatory waiting periods, counseling, and consent requirements.
3. Prosecution of individuals involved in abortion: The legal system can also impact individuals involved in abortion, including women seeking abortion services, healthcare providers who perform abortions, and others who may assist in the process. In some countries, individuals who obtain or provide abortion services can face criminal charges and imprisonment.
4. Constitutional and human rights considerations: The legal system can impact abortion through the interpretation and application of constitutional and human rights laws. These may include the right to privacy, the right to bodily autonomy, and the rights of the unborn.
5. Political and social attitudes towards abortion: The legal system can be influenced by political and social attitudes towards abortion, with some groups advocating for greater restrictions or complete bans on abortion, while others advocate for greater access and affordability.
Overall, the legal system plays a crucial role in regulating access to and availability of abortion services and can have a significant impact on the rights and health of individuals seeking abortion services, as well as on broader social and political issues. 49-53
What might be the legal impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance?
A pro-life stance is typically associated with the belief that human life begins at conception and that abortion should be illegal, except in cases where the life of the woman is at risk. A pro-choice stance, on the other hand, is typically associated with the belief that a woman should have the right to make decisions about her own body, including the decision to have an abortion.
Here are some of the potential legal impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance:
1. Criminalization or legalization of abortion: A pro-life stance may lead to efforts to criminalize abortion, while a pro-choice stance may lead to efforts to legalize and expand access to abortion services.
2. Access to abortion services: A pro-life stance may lead to efforts to restrict or limit access to abortion services, while a pro-choice stance may lead to efforts to expand access and affordability.
3. Constitutional and human rights considerations: A pro-life stance may focus on the rights of the unborn and may seek to limit the rights of women seeking abortion services, while a pro-choice stance may focus on the right to bodily autonomy and reproductive choice.
4. Prosecution of individuals involved in abortion: A pro-life stance may lead to efforts to prosecute individuals involved in providing or obtaining abortion services, while a pro-choice stance may seek to protect the legal rights of individuals involved in providing or obtaining abortion services.
5. Political and social attitudes towards abortion: A pro-life stance may lead to the promotion of anti-abortion policies and candidates, while a pro-choice stance may lead to the promotion of policies and candidates that support reproductive rights and access to abortion services.
On the whole, a pro-life versus pro-choice stance can have significant legal impacts on abortion, ranging from criminalization to legalization and access to abortion services, constitutional and human rights considerations, prosecution of individuals involved in abortion, and political and social attitudes towards abortion. 54-58
Source:
(49) World Health Organization. (2019). Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems (2nd ed.). https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/abortion/safe-abortion-guidance/en/ (50) Guttmacher Institute. (2022). Abortion in the United States.
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states (51) Center for Reproductive Rights. (2021). Abortion worldwide: 2021 fact sheet. https://reproductiverights.org/abortion-worldwide-2021-fact-sheet (52) United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. (2011). Human rights bodies on abortion. https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/hrbodiesabortion.aspx (53) Cook, R. J., Dickens, B. M., & Fathalla, M. F. (2003). Reproductive health and human rights: integrating medicine, ethics, and law. Oxford University Press. (54) Guttmacher Institute. (2022). Abortion in the United States.
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states (55) Center for Reproductive Rights. (2021). Abortion worldwide: 2021 fact sheet. https://reproductiverights.org/abortion-worldwide-2021-fact-sheet (56) United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. (2011). Human rights bodies on abortion. https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/hrbodiesabortion.aspx (57) National Conference of State Legislatures. (2022). State policies on abortion. https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-policies-on-abortion.aspx (58) American Civil Liberties Union. (2022). Reproductive freedom.
https://www.aclu.org/issues/reproductive-freedom
1.7.1 The abortion debate in the US
Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade was a landmark decision of the U.S Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion In a state that banned abortions, it was argued that abortion violated the right to privacy that flows from the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects a citizen's right to “life, liberty and property.” Ultimately, in 1973, seven of nine judges found that the state’s abortion laws did violate that right.
What’s changed since 1973?
According to Bernard Dickens, a law professor from the University of Toronto who has studied laws around abortion for 50 years, the key difference between now and 1973 is the composition of the court. And, although justices are supposed to be free from political influence, Dickens noted that hasn’t always been the case - case in point, the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court.59
What happened in 2022?
In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Mississippi's ban on abortions after 15 weeks. In doing so, it overturned Roe v. Wade and effectively ended the constitutional right to an abortion for millions of US women, unleashing a flurry of abortion legislation across the nation. Individual states are now able to ban the procedure again.60
Might the Equal Rights Amendment guarantee that women can get abortions?
Apparently not. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) does not specifically guarantee the right to access abortion services. The ERA is a proposed amendment to the US Constitution that would guarantee equality of rights under the law regardless of sex. It was first introduced in Congress in 1923, and passed by both houses in 1972. However, it failed to be ratified by the required 38 states before the deadline of 1982 and, as such, is not currently part of the Constitution. 61 The text of the amendment is simple: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."
In recent years, some states have ratified the ERA, bringing the total number to 38 as of 2020 62 However, there are legal disputes over whether these ratifications are valid, whether the deadline can be extended or removed, and whether some states can rescind their ratifications.61,62 Supporters of the ERA argue that it should be published as the 28th amendment, and have introduced bills in Congress to do so.62,65 Opponents of the ERA contend that it is dead and invalid, and that it would have negative consequences for women's rights and issues such as abortion.61,64 At this point, the fate of the ERA is uncertain and may depend on future court decisions or congressional actions.61,62
The ERA, if ratified, would provide a constitutional basis for gender equality and help to address gender-based discrimination in a variety of contexts. However, the specific issue of access to abortion would still be subject to legal interpretation and ongoing debate 66,67,68,69
The ERA has been a topic of debate for decades, and its ratification has been linked to abortion rights.
Some advocates of the ERA argue that it would protect the right to abortion and the full range of reproductive health care as a matter of sex equality.71,73 They contend that restrictions on abortion violate the ERA because they single out abortions for more onerous treatment than other medical procedures, perpetuate harmful and discriminatory gender stereotypes, and interfere with the ability to control one's reproduction, which is essential for equal participation in society.73 Some opponents of the ERA, on the other hand, contend that because only women can have abortions, any regulations on abortion could be deemed unconstitutional under the ERA.74
Clearly, it’s not a slam dunk.
1.7.2 Understanding the overturning of Roe v. Wade
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. in 1973, on June 24, 2022 74,75,76 The decision came in response to Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a case that challenged a Mississippi law that banned abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy 76
1. The Court argued that it does not have the power to regulate abortion, thus leaving it to the states to set their own abortion laws.75,76,77
2. The Court also claimed that the U.S. Constitution makes no reference to abortion or that there are specific abortion rights protected by any constitutional provision. The ruling dismantled 50 years of legal protection and sparked dissents and public outcry 74,77
So, the essence of the argument to overturn Roe v. Wade is that:
1. states should be allowed to regulate or prohibit abortion as they see fit
2. there is no constitutional basis for a federal right to abortion
The Supreme Court's majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, said that Roe v. Wade was "egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided".
The opinion relied on a historical view of abortion rights and said that the court had overstepped its authority by creating a right that was not rooted in the text or original meaning of the Constitution. The opinion also said that Roe v. Wade had caused harm to society by undermining democratic self-government, eroding the rule of law, and harming women's health and dignity.
As such, it was deemed that the Constitution offers no protection for women’s rights—including abortion rights—because they are not “deeply rooted in the country’s history and traditions.”
The dissenting justices, on the other hand, argued that overturning Roe v. Wade was a "draconian" decision that violated women's rights and their "status as free and equal citizens". They said that:
• Roe v. Wade was a landmark precedent that had been reaffirmed and relied upon for decades and that the court had no legitimate reason to discard it.
• the majority opinion ignored the real-world consequences of banning abortion, such as endangering women's lives, health, and autonomy.74,75,76,77,78
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
- The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Excerpt from
Forced Pregnancy Is Involuntary Servitude, Violates the 13th Amendment
Without Roe, then, numerous states have banned or severely limited abortion, thereby forcing women to continue pregnancies against their will.
To be clear, abortion bans force pregnant women to endure the dangerous work of pregnancy, labor and childbirth against their will. Abortion bans place pregnant women seeking abortion under state control and require them to perform involuntary labor. This is a violation of the 13th Amendment.
Pregnancy, labor and childbirth are difficult forms of work, initiating a variety deeply invasive and painful physical experiences.
Pregnancy takes over the entire body, affecting the cardiovascular system, kidneys, respiratory system, gastrointestinal system, skin, hormones, liver and metabolism. It increases blood volume by about 50 percent and depletes calcium from the bones, decreasing bone density. Risks of pregnancy include high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, anemia, depression, infection and death.
These risks are particularly acute for women of color and low-income women in the United States, which has the worst rate of maternal deaths in the developed world. Labor and childbirth are extremely painful and bloody experiences, even with pain medications.
To force these experiences on an unwilling person is a form of involuntary servitude.
The injustice and illegality don’t stop there:
Abortion bans also violate the 14th Amendment, which requires equal protection of the laws.
No law requires a human being to donate their organs, blood or body to another human being. If someone forces another person to donate a kidney, they are committing a crime. No law requires a parent to give their organs or even blood to their child, even if the child desperately needs it. Yet, abortion bans force pregnant women to donate their bodies to serve fetuses a right that born children do not even have. To treat pregnant women so differently than all other people violates the 14th Amendment requirement that the government treat all citizens equally.
Any attempt by the government—or anyone else, for that matter—to force another person to continue a pregnancy is a form of bodily assault. This behavior has surprisingly similar dynamics to domestic violence and sexual assault. The essence of rape is taking control over another person’s body and forcing them to do something with their body that is against their will.
Abortion bans do the same: They force pregnant people to do something with their bodies against their will.
A comparable scenario would be if the government forced people to donate organs against their will. In both cases, the essence of this compulsion is the denial of bodily integrity and autonomy. Abortion opponents, including clinic protesters, use the same tactics as abusers: verbal harassment, threats, intimidation, misinformation, gaslighting, shaming, stalking and physical violence.
Denial of bodily autonomy is the essence of violence against women.
Reproductive coercion—whether by an intimate partner, an anti-abortion protester or the government is a form of violence against women.
Women have a right to control what happens to their bodies at all times. Forcing a person to continue a pregnancy is a form of bodily assault.
Abortion bans and restrictions violate the fundamental human right to bodily autonomy and liberty guaranteed by the 13th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
Source:
(59) Roe v. Wade has been overturned. Here’s what that means https://www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/post/roe-v.-wade-has-been-overturned.-heres-what-that-means (60) BBC. Roe v Wade: What is US Supreme Court ruling on abortion? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54513499
(62) What is the Equal Rights Amendment | CNN Politics. https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/13/politics/equal-rightsamendment-era-explained/index.html
(63) Homepage - Vote Equality! 28th Amendment (Equal Rights). https://voteequality.us/ (64) What Changes - Vote Equality! 28th Amendment (Equal Rights). https://voteequality.us/faq/what-changes/. (65) Equal Rights Amendment - Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Equal-Rights-Amendment (66) Text of the Equal Rights Amendment: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-jointresolution/79/text
(67) Roe v. Wade (1973): https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18
(68) "The Future of Abortion Rights and the ERA," by Melissa Murray and Kristin Luker, The New York Times, 2021: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/29/opinion/abortion-rights-era.html
(69) "What the Equal Rights Amendment Would Mean for Abortion Rights," by Caroline Kitchener, The Lily, 2019: https://www.thelily.com/what-the-equal-rights-amendment-would-mean-for-abortion-rights/ (70) Baker, Carrie N. The Equal Rights Amendment Will Protect Abortion Rights - Ms. https://msmagazine.com/2022/06/23/equal-rights-amendment-abortion/
(71) Columbia Law School, center for Gender & Sexuality Law. ERA and Abortion Talking Points https://gender-sexuality.law.columbia.edu/content/era-and-abortion-talking-points
(72) How the debate over the ERA became a fight over abortion. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/11/abortion-equal-rights-amendment-113505
(73) ERA and Abortion Talking Points - Columbia University. https://gendersexuality.law.columbia.edu/content/era-and-abortion-talking-points
(74) Want to Protect the Right to Abortion? Pass the ERA!. https://womensenews.org/2022/05/want-to-protectthe-right-to-abortion-pass-the-era/
(74) 5 key arguments from the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/key-arguments-supreme-court-decision-overturn-roe-v-wadercna35277.
(75) The Supreme Court’s Argument For Overturning Roe v. Wade. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/thesupreme-courts-argument-for-overturning-roe-v-wade/.
(76) Five-thousand fewer women getting abortions per month since Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/5k-fewer-women-getting-abortions-monthly-since-scotusoverturned-roe/ar-AA19MtUD
(77) New York City nuns see Roe v. Wade being overturned as an 'opportunity': 'A new point' in history. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/new-york-city-nuns-see-roe-v-wade-being-overturned-as-anopportunity-a-new-point-in-history/ar-AA19Cxvp
Democrats revive the Equal Rights Amendment from a long legal limbo
By DEANA ROHLINGER
Including a quick summary of how the country got to this point and the barriers that still exist to adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
The Fourteenth Amendment is a constitutional amendment that was ratified in 1868 and grants citizenship and equal protection of the laws to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. It has never been interpreted to grant equal rights on the basis of sex in the uniform and inclusive way that the ERA would It also includes a Due Process Clause that prohibits states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.79,80
The Supreme Court has interpreted the Due Process Clause to protect certain fundamental rights that are not explicitly listed in the Constitution, such as the right to privacy.79,80
In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court ruled that the right to privacy includes a woman's right to choose to have an abortion before the fetus becomes viable (able to survive outside the womb), which is usually around 24 weeks of pregnancy. The Court balanced this right against the state's interest in protecting women's health and potential life, and established a trimester framework for regulating abortion.80
However, this ruling was controversial and challenged by many states and individuals who oppose abortion on moral, religious, or legal grounds. Some argued that the right to privacy is not supported by the original meaning or intent of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the Court should not create new rights that are not explicitly stated in the Constitution.81,82 Others argued that the fetus has a right to life that is equal or superior to the woman's right to liberty, and that the state has a duty to protect that life from conception.82
The Supreme Court has modified its abortion jurisprudence over time, the most notable on June 24, 2022, when it issued a decision overturning Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion.
The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment does not protect a woman's right to choose to have an abortion, and that states have the authority to regulate or ban abortion as they see fit.
This decision effectively reversed decades of precedent and left millions of women without access to safe and legal abortion services in many parts of the country 79
Source:
(79) What is the 14th Amendment and How is It Connected to Abortion Rights, Roe v. Wade. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/what-is-the-14th-amendment-and-how-is-it-connected-to-abortionrights-roe-v-wade-2/2865134/
(80) Roe v. Wade - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade.
(81) Gans, David H. No, Really, the Right to an Abortion Is Supported by the Text and History of the ConstitutionThe Atlantic.
If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, it will betray the Fourteenth Amendment’s promise of bodily autonomy. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/roe-was-originalist-reading-constitution/620600/.
(82) Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) – National Constitution Center Supreme Court: ‘The Clear Answer is The Fourteenth Amendment Does Not Protect the Right to an Abortion” https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/supreme-court-case-library/dobbs-v-jackson-womens-healthorganization
1.7.4 A LOOK AT ABORTION LAW: Canada versus the US
The legality of abortion in Canada and the United States is based on different interpretations of their respective constitutions.
In Canada, abortion is legal at all stages of pregnancy, regardless of the reason.83 However, there is no law that explicitly guarantees a woman's right to an abortion 84,85 Abortion was decriminalized in 1988 by the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of R. v. Morgentaler84,85 , which stated that the criminalization of abortion violated a woman's right to "life, liberty, and security of the person" under Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This ruling effectively decriminalized abortion in Canada and recognized a woman's right to make decisions about her own body. Since then, no legislation has been passed to regulate abortion, and it falls under provincial health-care systems as a medical procedure. This means that access to abortion services and resources varies by region 83,84,85,86,87
In the US, abortion is no longer a constitutional right. And it is not protected by the 14th Amendment (equal protection), nor the 28th Amendment (equal rights). The legality of abortion in the United States has been repeatedly challenged by antiabortion activists and lawmakers, leading to various restrictions and regulations that have limited access to abortion services in some states. In June of 2022, the Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which had guaranteed a woman's right to an abortion across the United States.88 The judgement allows individual states to ban or restrict abortion as they see fit.
BY THE WAY
In September of 2023, Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalized abortion nationwide, ruling that national laws prohibiting the procedure are unconstitutional and violate women's rights in a sweeping decision that extended Latin American's trend of widening abortion access.
Source:
(83) Abortion in Canada - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Canada
(84) Smith, Marie-Danielle. Canada has no abortion right law. Does it need one? | CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada-abortion-law-1.6503899.
(85) What is the legal status of abortion in Canada? - CTVNews. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/what-is-the-legal-status-of-abortion-in-canada-1.5890266.
(86) Gollom, Mark. Why Canada's Roe v. Wade didn't enshrine abortion as a right. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/abortion-rights-canada-morgentaler-court-1.6439612.
(87) Abortion in Canada | The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/abortion.
(88) Roe v Wade: US Supreme Court ends constitutional right to abortion – BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61928898.
1.7.5 Understanding the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
To what extent does the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms give precedence to maternal autonomy over fetal rights?
This is a complex and controversial legal question that has not been definitively answered by the Supreme Court of Canada. However, based on the existing case law and legislation, it seems that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives a high degree of precedence to maternal autonomy over fetal rights.
The Charter does not explicitly recognize the fetus as a person or a rightsbearer, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the criminalization of abortion violates a woman's right to life, liberty and security of the person under Section 7 of the Charter.89.90 The Court has also ruled that a woman's right to privacy under Section 8 of the Charter protects her from being forced to undergo medical treatment or testing against her will, even if it may benefit her fetus.90
Furthermore, the Court has rejected the notion that a pregnant woman owes a legal duty of care to her fetus that could give rise to civil liability for prenatal injuries.91 The only exception to this general principle is the "born alive" rule, which grants retroactive rights to a child who is born alive after suffering prenatal harm, such as physical injury or inheritance deprivation.92 However, this rule does not apply to any action taken by the mother herself during her pregnancy 93,94
Source:
(89) Guide to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/how-rights-protected/guide-canadian-charter-rightsfreedoms.html.
(90) Tran, Linda. Legal Rights and the Maternal- Fetal Conflict - University of British Columbia https://www.bioteach.ubc.ca/Journal/V02I01/maternalfetal.pdf
(91) Fetal Rights in Canada - Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. https://www.arcc-cdac.ca/media/position-papers/63-fetal-rights-in-canada.pdf
(92) Court Decisions and Laws in Canada on Abortion - Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. https://www.arcc-cdac.ca/media/2020/06/court-decisions-laws-abortion-canada.pdf
(93) Abortion is a Charter Right - Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. https://www.arcc-cdac.ca/media/position-papers/65-abortion-charter-right.pdf
(94) The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is anti-abortion ... - LifeSite. https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/the-canadian-charter-of-rights-and-freedoms-is-anti-abortion-sowhy-are-we/
1.7.6 Understanding the Hyde Amendment
Passed in 1976, the Hyde Amendment forbids the use of federal funds for abortions - except under cases of rape, incest, or in which continuing the pregnancy would threaten the woman's health - via any programs that are administered by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).95
Since it was passed, the Hyde Amendment has affected abortion access for people under Medicaid and Medicare programs, federal employees and their dependents, Native American and Indigenous people who use Indian Health Services, military members, and people in federal prisons and detention centers, according to All Above All, a national abortion rights organization.7
Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia do not cover abortion within their state Medicaid programs, except for limited exceptions, according to the group.
By denying people insurance coverage for abortions, the Hyde Amendment forces them to pay for care out of their own pockets or carry the pregnancy to term. These financial barriers disproportionately affect people from marginalized communities who already face obstacles to reproductive care.96
Insurance coverage for abortion is a critical piece of the abortion access puzzle.
Learn more:
The Hyde Amendment: A Discriminatory Ban on Insurance Coverage of Abortion https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/hyde-amendment
Source:
(95) Norris, Louise. What is the Hyde Amendment? A History, Its Impacts, and How It Might Shape Future Healthcare Reform https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-the-hyde-amendment-4111739
(96) Fernando, Christine. House Democrats introduce bill targeting ban on federal funding for most abortions https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/01/26/house-democrats-target-hyde-amendment-througheach-act/11121739002/
1.7.7 Understanding the Comstock Act
The archaic Comstock Act has been in force since 1873, when Congress passed it. The act was heavily used from its enactment until the United States v. One Package ruling in 1936 by the 2nd Circuit Court. After that, the act’s scope was weakened and then eventually laid mostly dormant for several decades, but ever since the Dobbs ruling came down in June 2022, the Comstock Act came back with a vengeance.
The Comstock Act was rooted in ideas about purity and the social good as understood by a particular form of American Protestantism which viewed any sex that was not associated with procreation to be a sin.
During and after the civil war, socially conservative Christians like Comstock turned to state intervention and state power to enforce sexual morality. These efforts to promote a conservative Christian view of public health were also directed to restoring the “gendered hierarchy” that had existed before and been undermined by the war. Laws like the Comstock Act embody a stunted conception of the role of women. In the words of Yale Law School Professor Priscilla Smith, the statute is “rooted in archaic views of women’s sexual expression and their subservient role in the family.” It is ultimately “designed to control women’s sexual activity.”
Today, the statute prohibits the use of the mail for any “obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article” as well as any “article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion.”
Needless to say, anti-abortion activists are excited by the legal theory behind the Comstock strategy. Implementing it in practice will depend on a federal government being willing to enforce the law after decades on the shelf.
ComstockAct: A 19th Centurylaw firing up anti-abortion push
By HOLLY HONDERICH
US anti-abortion activists, including allies of Donald Trump, have a strategy to ban abortion nationwide - one that bypasses Congress and the American people. It's a plan that hinges on Mr Trump's re-election in November and the use of a little-known 19th Century law. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68580015
1.8 POLITICAL IMPACTS
Abortion is a political issue.
Abortion has been a political litmus test for decades. It is a highly controversial and divisive issue that is often debated in the political sphere. The issue is so contentious, pitting moral and religious convictions against bodily autonomy, that for many, abortion becomes a single-issue determination in how that person votes.104
The debate seems to revolve around the moral, legal, and ethical considerations of terminating a pregnancy and includes politicians, activists, and religious groups who hold differing beliefs and values on the matter. The political implications of abortion are significant, as laws and policies regarding abortion access and restrictions are often decided at the state and/or federal levels and can vary from country to country
The issue has been the subject of numerous court cases, including the landmark – and very political – Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which established a woman's right to an abortion in the United States until very recently The role that politics played in this legal reversal cannot be understated.
What are the overarching political impacts of abortion?
The political impacts of abortion are complex and can vary depending on the specific context and culture in which the issue is being debated. However, some potential overarching political impacts of abortion could include:
1. Political polarization: The issue of abortion is highly divisive and can lead to political polarization, where individuals and groups become entrenched in their positions and are unwilling to compromise or find common ground.
2. Mobilization of interest groups: Abortion can mobilize interest groups on both sides of the issue, such as pro-choice and pro-life groups, to become politically active and lobby for their respective positions.
3. Electoral politics: The issue of abortion can also influence electoral politics, with political candidates often taking a stance on the issue and using it to appeal to certain voting blocs.
4. Policy-making: The legality and availability of abortion services can also be influenced by political factors, such as changes in government or shifts in public opinion.
5. International relations: Abortion can also be a contentious issue in international relations, with debates over the funding of abortion services in developing countries or disagreements over reproductive rights in international agreements and conventions.
Overall, the political impacts of abortion can be far-reaching and have significant implications for a range of issues, from public health to human rights to democratic governance. 97-101
What might be the political impacts of a pro-life versus prochoice stance?
The political impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance can be significant and may vary depending on the specific context in which the issue is being debated. Here are some potential political impacts of each stance:
A Pro-life stance:
• Can mobilize conservative and religious voters to support candidates who advocate for strict anti-abortion laws
• May result in the passage of more restrictive abortion laws, which can limit access to safe and legal abortion services for women
• Can contribute to a culture of shaming and stigmatizing women who have had abortions or are considering having one
• May lead to decreased support among younger voters and those who support women's reproductive rights102
A Pro-choice stance:
• Can mobilize progressive and feminist voters to support candidates who advocate for reproductive rights and access to safe and legal abortion services
• May result in the passage of more liberal abortion laws that protect women's rights to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy
• Can contribute to a culture of destigmatizing and supporting women who have had abortions or are considering having one
• May lead to increased support among younger voters and those who prioritize women's reproductive rights and health103
In general, the political impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance can be significant and can influence electoral politics, policy-making, and public opinion on the issue of abortion.
Source:
(97) Political polarization: Levendusky, M. S. (2018). Political polarization and the electoral effects of abortion attitudes. Political Research Quarterly, 71(1), 174-187.
(98) Mobilization of interest groups: McAdam, D., Tarrow, S., & Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of contention. Cambridge University Press.
(99) Electoral politics: Klar, S., Krupnikov, Y., Ryan, J. B., & Vavreck, L. (2018). The political consequences of abortion. American Journal of Political Science, 62(1), 55-67.
(100) Policy-making: Boonstra, H., & Nash, E. (2000). The impact of abortion politics on women's health and rights worldwide. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, 70(3), 281-290.
(101) International relations: Haddad, L. B., Nour, N. M., & Unsafe Abortion: Unnecessary Maternal Mortality. Lancet, 368(9550), 1908-1919.
(102) Pro-life stance:
• DeHart, T., Sprecher, S., & Telford, J. (2021). Religion and abortion in the United States: A review of the literature. Sociology Compass, 15(7), e12885.
• Jones, R. K., & Jerman, J. (2017). Abortion incidence and service availability in the United States, 2014. Guttmacher Institute.
• Sugie, N. F., & Hays, S. (2019). Abortion attitudes among young people: Examining the role of generational change, knowledge, and ideology. Social Science Research, 78, 115-126.
(103) Pro-choice stance:
• Norris, A., & Weibe, E. (2011). Reproductive rights and access to abortion in Canada: Seeking common ground in a pluralistic society. Global Public Health, 6(sup1), S8-S21.
• Rose, S. (2019). The Supreme Court and the future of abortion rights. Harvard Law Review, 133(7), 2099-2130.
• Saad, L. (2021). In U.S., support for abortion rights edges up to highest in a decade. Gallup. (104) Kass, Harrison. Abortion: The Issue That Decides The 2024 Election?
Excerpt from Exposé: Mike Johnson & Pro-Life Hypocrisy
By END ABORTION NOW
https://endabortionnow.com/pro-life-hypocrisy-a-mike-johnson-expose/ HB 813 was the bill to provide equal protection to unborn babies in the State of Louisiana. It was a historic moment and an important bill that was worked on by Pastors Jeff Durbin and Brian Gunter. The bill passed the hearing and made it to the floor. Ultimately, the bill was stopped. Many will be shocked to know that it was stopped by leaders in the Pro-life movement. One of the men most responsible for the demise of equal protection in Louisiana, was Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.
The Right-Wing War on Abortion Has Nothing to Do With Babies
Coverage of the controversy over IVF has made a perilous omission: This is a battle over body autonomy. By
It is no surprise that in the wake of the latest assault on these freedoms the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law there has been a wave of poignant, moving, and sometimes terrifying reported features and first-person pieces on the effect of this policy.
GQ published an essay by Zach Baron on the arduous, expensive, yearslong IVF journey he and his wife endured to conceive their son. The Washington Post’s Caroline Kitchener, who last year won a Pulitzer for her coverage of abortion in post-Roe America, reported on a Texas woman who wanted to have a baby with her boyfriend and was denied treatment for her lifethreatening ectopic pregnancy.
There are plenty more where that came from, especially in Alabama, like this one about the married woman who cannot carry a pregnancy for health reasons and so was using a surrogate but whose embryo transfer was halted when the ruling came down, or this one about the 34-year-old woman who had been trying to conceive with her husband for over a year when her embryo transfer was also canceled.
What person of conscience could read stories like these and not be moved by them? Anyone who has yet to grasp the horror that awaits us all under these policies is surely awakened to the threat of them by dispatches like these. Those who are already suffering under the yoke of a post-Dobbs world, or know such suffering is imminent and inescapable, can read these stories and feel less alone.
But something about the thread tying all this work together makes me want to scream. Ultimately all these stories, on some level, capitulate to the terms set out by the right: that these laws are about babies, and therefore, the most compelling and sympathetic stories to counter the harm of these laws must necessarily be about babies and put the stories of people whose pregnancies are wanted and who desire the babies that would result, if it were possible to bear them, at the center. Newsrooms across the country seem to have deemed this to be the correct and commensurate response.
But the insidious, vile truth is that the Alabama ruling as well as all of the statutes and the language of the Alabama state Constitution, a plain reading of which really left the state Supreme Court no choice but to restrict IVF—has got nothing to do with babies. The anti-abortion movement is not about babies. It has never been about babies. It’s about control.
The force behind every anti-abortion policy is not concern for babies or the alleged humanity of unfertilized embryos; it is violent misogyny, plain and simple, with the obvious intent of stripping every person who can get pregnant of their basic human rights.
These laws are a knife at the throat of every woman you know. And the real case against them is, and should be, that any policy that aims to restrict bodily autonomy is barbaric and cruel, a violation of constitutional and human rights.
The point is not that everyone should get to safely have a baby.
The point is that every person should have the right to determine when and whether they become or stay pregnant at all.
The point is all people are deserving of bodily autonomy, and it is bodily autonomy, not babies, that these laws are designed to deny.
While the harrowing stories of those aspiring to raise families have ostensibly been put forward in service of protecting rights that conservatives attack, much of this media coverage is framed in such a way as to focus on people who are exercising their bodily autonomy in the least threatening and most conservative-approved manner in the interest of monogamy and parenthood.
But the case against these restrictions cannot be for this and this alone for the Norman Rockwell family fantasy that even a Reaganite can get behind. It’s the lowest-hanging fruit on the pro-choice tree. It offers up the noncontroversial desire of child-rearing as a gentler stand-in for the apparently polarizing idea progressives are supposed to actually be fighting for: the right of every person to decide their own future, to have a body that is theirs and theirs alone, to do with what they like.
This is the crux of the whole damn thing: It doesn’t matter what a person wants the autonomy for!
It would be very cool to see just as many stories about single people who have no interest in having kids or who want kids later but not right now, or who are done having kids and want the freedom to enjoy sex without the risk of pregnancy—as stories about people who are on their third round of IVF or who want children but whose lives are imperiled by doomed pregnancies. But media coverage rarely highlights these deemed-to-be-less-sympathetic characters, especially those who are so often the target of the right’s cruelty and vitriol: the women who do whatever they want, whose lives are not anchored to spouses or children.
Not only does this suggest, rather cruelly, that people who don’t want children are not as deserving of compassion or freedom as people who do, but it also plays right into the right’s hands, allowing the entire argument to be conducted on their terms. The media’s fixation on babies is how it comes to pass that everyone gets caught off guard by something as predictable and inevitable as the Alabama ruling. Oh, wow, how could Republicans do this? I thought they cared about babies! Well, what do you know: They don’t! They never have! This has such incredible Charlie-Brown-trying-to-kick-the-football energy. Thinking the antiabortion movement is about babies is like thinking the Civil War was about states’ rights.
The list of policies and actions the Republican Party would actually fight for if they gave a single solitary fuck about babies includes but is not limited to: supporting universal childcare and pre-K, addressing the nationwide lack of affordable housing that keeps so many parents and their young children on the streets (not to mention extending the federal eviction moratorium that would keep vulnerable people from being exiled from their homes), lowering horrifying maternal mortality rates, and raising the minimum wage
If they cared at all about the future of these babies, they wouldn’t be so busy rolling back child labor laws. Instead they might feel some sense of urgency around our ongoing and rapidly escalating climate disaster; probably they would also want to make it harder to buy a gun.
Remember the 2022 infant formula shortage? More than 90 percent of House Republicans voted against the emergency funding bill that saved those babies from starving. That same year, for the second year in a row, Republicans in Mississippi voted against postpartum Medicaid benefits, essentially ensuring that many low-income parents would lose health insurance just two months after giving birth. Their disdain for babies is both political and personal: The likely GOP presidential nominee brags about having never changed a single diaper for any of his five children.
Here is what is actually on the Republican to-do list: a federal abortion ban, which inevitably leads to the criminalization of miscarriage which is already happening; ongoing restrictions to IVF; bounty-hunter laws that incentivize suing anyone who helps someone get an abortion; bans on contraception and even recreational sex; the end of “no-fault” divorce.
This is also why triumphantly pointing to the supposed hypocrisy of the Republican Party is a pointless and idiotic exercise.
The only reason to consider the IVF ruling a hypocritical move by a self-proclaimed “pro-life” party is if you believe that “pro-life” is an accurate description of the movement. It isn’t. It has never been.
Pro-life is a propaganda term, utterly devoid of meaning, with no substantive concern for babies at all.
Here, no hypocrisy has been uncovered; rather, we just have more confirmation of what those who’ve been paying attention already know: This is a remarkably consistent movement that considers all women to be chattel and does not want them to enjoy full citizenship, full stop. It is actually that simple. This is not a plot twist. This is the plot.
COMMENT
For the record, in the matter of Republican pro-life hypocrisy, here are just some of the ways the GOP has passed laws negatively impacting women, veterans and children in the past 3 years:
Women:
1. Defunding Planned Parenthood: The GOP has consistently attempted to defund Planned Parenthood, a vital healthcare provider for millions of women. Planned Parenthood offers essential services like cancer screenings, birth control, and abortion.
2. Healthcare Access Challenges: The GOP has passed laws that make it harder for women to access affordable healthcare. For instance, so-called “health care freedom” laws allow states to waive essential health benefits and permit insurers to charge women more for coverage.
3. Rollback of Workplace Protections: Regulations safeguarding women from workplace discrimination have been rolled back by the GOP.
4. Introduction of restrictive laws: The GOP has passed laws restricting access to abortion, but have not done enough to support women, children, and families after birth. As Rep. Wilson states, "If those lawmakers were truly concerned with a child's life, they'd turn their attention to strengthening the social safety net for women so that children born from unplanned pregnancies are cared for."
Veterans:
1. Proposed Cuts to Benefits: The GOP has proposed deep cuts to veterans’ benefits, including healthcare, housing, and education benefits. These reductions risk negatively impacting veterans’ well-being.
2. Access to Healthcare: By rolling back regulations, the GOP has made it more challenging for veterans to access necessary healthcare services.
3. Privatization of Veterans Affairs: The GOP’s attempts to privatize the Department of Veterans Affairs could lead to longer wait times and subpar care for veterans.
Children:
1. Program Cuts: The GOP has proposed significant cuts to programs benefiting children, such as Head Start, school lunch, and child care subsidies.
2. Healthcare Accessibility: By rolling back the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and repealing the individual mandate, the GOP has made it harder for families to access affordable healthcare.
3. Education Funding: The GOP’s proposed cuts to education funding would result in larger class sizes and fewer resources for schools.
These legislative actions have far-reaching consequences for women, veterans, and children, impacting their access to essential services and well-being. And yet, there exists the political will to impose hardship on women and families by forcing unwanted pregnancies.
1.9 RACIST IMPACTS
Abortion is a racism issue.
It should be noted that, in America, white women have historically had very different experiences with reproductive rights than women of color. While white women's reproductive lives were viewed as something to be regulated by laws or church decrees, women of color often had their reproductive lives controlled directly by the people involved in their oppression for example, black female slaves who became pregnant were refused abortions by slave owner. Similarly, women of color have often had to fight for their right to become pregnant when they wish, in the face of state programs that forced them into unwanted sterilization and other road blocks to reproductive freedom.109
And according to many historians, racist concerns about white supremacy fed much of the US's early anti-abortion culture.109
In the 19th century, many white American anti-abortion activists thought the problem with abortion was less about violating laws or committing a Christian "sin," and more about trying to maintain high birth rates for white Americans.
Historians Nicola Beisel and Tamara Kay have argued that the real hysteria over abortion in American history was about "Anglo-Saxon control of the state and dominance of society." They write: "The arguments that physicians made to convince the public and politicians that abortion endangered society [in the nineteenth century] suggest that abortion politics in the mid-nineteenth century were part of an Anglo-Saxon racial project... While laws regulating abortion would ultimately affect all women, physicians argued that middleclass, Anglo-Saxon married women were those obtaining abortions, and that their use of abortion to curtail childbearing threatened the Anglo-Saxon race."109
In other words, white women were viewed as the ones most likely to be having abortions and to racist anti-abortion activists, that made white dominance of American society vulnerable. The white fear of "becoming a race minority" in comparison to the children of slaves and immigrants of non-white background was massive in white American culture in the 19th century, and fears about abortion fed straight into it. It was part of a landscape of anti-miscegenation laws and other legal restrictions designed to make sure that white Americans retained privilege and nonwhite people had less political and social power. Racist fixations on white birth rates appeared in Europe as well, but in America, it was particularly vicious: it's why Theodore Roosevelt famously declared that women of "good stock" who didn't have kids were "race criminals." Horatio R. Storer asked in 1868 whether the West would be filled with "aliens," and declared, "This is a question our women must answer; upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation."109
Racism contributes to poor health outcomes for women of color.
It has been shown that racism worsens maternal and infant mortality. Communities of color - primarily African Americans - are disproportionately affected by limitations to abortion and experience elevated rates of maternal and infant mortality compared with non-Hispanic white mothers.
Racism is, in fact, a motivating factor behind legislation that seeks to strip autonomy from women of color and limit their reproductive decision-making; restrictions on abortion and contraception disproportionately impact women of color, and antichoice proponents intentionally target communities of color in their advocacy and outreach.113
Furthermore, racism can sometimes fuel neglect within the medical industry: Healthcare providers have been known to ignore the pain of women of color, which contributes toward preventable death, maternal mortality, and distrust of health care providers. Additionally, women of color in particular, black women experience higher levels of stress and discrimination compared with non-Hispanic white women across all age levels, which contributes to lower health outcomes and increased maternal mortality.113
Some abortion opponents will frame it as an issue of racism105, saying, “If Black lives matter, why are we OK that Black people are having abortions at a higher rate?”
And they’ll bring up the history of racism and eugenics to claim abortion is a racial justice issue. They’ll say, “If you're concerned about equality, you should actually be opposed to abortion, because abortion carries the idea some groups of human beings can be disposed of, and others cannot.”105
There's also a misconception that people of color use abortion as birth control or pursue abortion more than people who aren’t of color. There’s also a political agenda being pushed suggesting Black mothers are killing their babies through abortion106, but that’s not true. Statistically, marginalized communities lack the necessary resources107 to not only access equitable reproductive care, but to access health care in general. So these communities are going to have less opportunities to practice reproductive justice, and may get pregnant at more frequent rates. But what we've seen is that people from all backgrounds pursue abortion care.108
It has often been said that the Hyde Amendment was the original abortion ban with communities of color historically being the most impacted. According to the Guttmacher Institute, people of color who are at reproductive age are disproportionately likely to have low incomes and to be insured through Medicaid.116
Most telling is the fact that those intent on protecting women’s constitutional right to make their own decision on terminating a pregnancy see a contradiction in the great concern some lawmakers and activists show toward the fetus versus the limited focus on policies that uplift black communities.105
“Systemic racism, economic insecurity, and immigration status multiply the barriers to abortion care. Folks who are enrolled in Medicaid are disproportionately people of color because of the way that capitalism and systemic racism work. Abortion care is an economic justice issue and a racial justice issue.”
- Morgan Hopkins Interim executive director of
campaigns and strategies at All
Above
All
What are the overarching racism-related considerations of abortion?
There are several ways in which racism and abortion are connected:
1. Racial attitudes: Opinions on abortion are closely connected with racial attitudes. Whites who score high on measures of racial resentment and racial grievance are far more likely to support strict limits on abortion than whites who score low on these measures.5
2. Abortion rates: Black women still have higher rates of abortion even when controlling for income. At almost every income level, African-Americans have higher unintended pregnancy and abortion rates than whites or Hispanics.110
3. Maternal mortality: There is no arguing the fact that abortion bans disproportionately harm Black people, who are three times as likely to die during childbirth as white people. Making it more difficult for Black people to access reproductive healthcare literally puts their lives at risk 111
The maternal mortality disparity is partly due to social determinants of health, such as poverty and lack of access to care, which impact communities of color more substantially than White communities.112
4. Access to reproductive healthcare: An important consideration is whether individuals, particularly those from marginalized communities, have equal access to reproductive healthcare services, including contraception, prenatal care, and abortion. There is evidence that certain groups, including people of color and lowincome individuals, face systemic barriers to accessing reproductive healthcare, which can limit their options and increase their risk of unintended pregnancy. The history of reproductive healthcare in the United States is deeply intertwined with issues of racism and discrimination. For example, during the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, forced sterilization was used as a tool of oppression against people of color, disabled individuals, and other marginalized groups. The legacy of this history continues to shape the current landscape of reproductive healthcare.113
5. Abortion stigma: There is a significant amount of stigma associated with abortion, which can be exacerbated by issues of race and class. Women of color who seek abortion services may face additional stigma and discrimination due to racist stereotypes and assumptions about their reproductive choices.114
Source:
(105) Eligon, John. When ‘Black Lives Matter’ Is Invoked in the Abortion Debate https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/06/us/black-abortion-missouri.html (106) Dobbins-Harris, Shyrissa. The Myth of Abortion as Black Genocide: Reclaiming our Reproductive Cycle –UCLA National Black Law Journal. https://escholarship.org/content/qt0988p9xp/qt0988p9xp.pdf (107) Dehlendorf, Christine, Harris, L. H., and Weitz, T. A. Disparities in Abortion Rates: A Public health Approach https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780732/ (108) Castillo, Rhyma. Here’s Why The Abortion Debate Is Even More Complex Than You Ever Thought https://www.elitedaily.com/news/what-to-know-abortion-debate-explained-experts (109) Thorpe, JR. Why is America So Obsessed with Abortion - Bustle https://www.bustle.com/p/why-is-america-so-obsessed-with-abortion-66871 (110) Abortion's Racial Gap - The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/abortions-racial-gap/380251/.
(111) Why Abortion Bans Are Racist & Threaten Black Women - Refinery29. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/10/10015405/abortion-ban-racism-black-women-effects (112) Maternal mortality:
• Black Women Over Three Times More Likely to Die in Pregnancy .... https://www.prb.org/resources/black-women-over-three-times-more-likely-to-die-in-pregnancypostpartum-than-white-women-new-research-finds/
• Reducing Maternal Mortality Among Women of Color. https://avalere.com/insights/reducing-maternal-mortality-among-women-of-color
• Unpacking Maternal-Health Disparities for Women of Color - Shondaland. https://www.shondaland.com/live/body/a36843893/unpacking-maternal-health-disparities-forwomen-of-color/.
(113) Access to reproductive healthcare:
• Guttmacher Institute. (2021). "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Reproductive and Sexual Health."
• Jones, R. K., Jerman, J., & Guttmacher Institute. (2019). "Abortion incidence and service availability in the United States, 2017." Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 51(4), 157-167. https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2019/08/abortion-incidence-and-service-availabilityunited-states-2017
• Lorde, A. (1984). "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism." Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, 124-133.
• Roberts, D. E. (1997). "Killing the black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty." Vintage.
• Rosenbaum, J. E. (2019). "The eugenics movement and forced sterilization." Journal of the American Medical Association, 321(11), 1049-1050.
(114) Abortion stigma:
• Roberts, E. F., & Sugie, N. F. (2020). "The role of intersectional stigma in the experiences of women of color who have abortions." Journal of Social Issues, 76(3), 485-502.
• Jones, R. K., & Jerman, J. (2017). "Population group abortion rates and lifetime incidence of abortion: United States, 2008-2014." American Journal of Public Health, 107(12), 1904-1909.
(115) Why abortion restrictions disproportionately impact people of color.
(116) Martinez, Alexandra. Biden’s proposed budget left out the Hyde Amendment, and advocates hope it stays that way https://prismreports.org/2022/04/06/biden-2023-budget-hyde-amendment/
Source:
What might be the racism-related impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance?
The issue of abortion and its related policies can intersect with racism in a number of ways, and the impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance can differ depending on the specific context and policies in question.
One way in which a pro-life stance could have racism-related impacts is by limiting access to abortion services for women of color and low-income women, who may have fewer resources and face more barriers to accessing healthcare. This can result in disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes, as well as economic and social disparities for women who are unable to control their reproductive choices.
On the other hand, a pro-choice stance could be viewed as a way to promote reproductive justice and empower women of color and low-income women to make their own decisions about their bodies and lives. This could include advocating for policies that increase access to affordable healthcare, contraception, and comprehensive sex education, as well as supporting policies that protect reproductive rights and promote reproductive justice.
However, it's important to note that the issue of abortion and its related policies is complex and multifaceted, and the impacts of a pro-life versus pro-choice stance can depend on a number of factors, such as the specific policies being advocated for, the cultural and societal contexts in which those policies are being debated, and the lived experiences of individuals and communities affected by those policies. While both camps of the pro-choice and pro-life debate give lip service to addressing the concerns of women of color, in the end, the manner in which both articulate the issues at stake contributes to their support of political positions that are racist and sexist and which do nothing to support either life or real choice for women of color.117,118,119
(117) Smith, Andrea. Beyond Pro-Choice versus Pro-Life: Women of Color and Reproductive Justice - JSTOR.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4317105
(118) ‘Pro-Choice’ or ‘Pro-Life’? In a debate often lacking nuance, 41% of Canadians are ‘somewhere in between’ –Angus Reid Institute
(119) Rye, B.J. & Underhill, Angela. Pro-choice and Pro-life Are Not Enough: An Investigation of Abortion Attitudes as a Function of Abortion prototypes.
Needless to say, there has been much research on the subject of abortion, but in order to get a better understanding of the issue, I wanted to highlight two telling studies:
1.10 THE TURNAWAY STUDY (and why it’s important)
By DIANA GREENE FOSTER, PhD
The Turnaway Study is a long-term research project (conducted by the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) program at the University of California, San Francisco) that examines the consequences of receiving or being denied an abortion on a range of outcomes, including physical health, mental health, economic well-being, and social outcomes.120,121
Turnaway refers to the women who were turned away from having an abortion. The study followed nearly 1,000 women who sought abortion from 30 facilities in the US for five years.
The women were divided into two groups: those who received an abortion and those who were turned away because they had exceeded the gestational limit at the facility. The study then tracked both groups over five years, interviewing them periodically to gather data on their health, economic status, relationships, and overall well-being.
The goal of the study was for judges and policymakers to understand what banning abortion would mean for women and children. The results of the study are published in Foster's new book "The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, A Thousand Women, And The Consequences Of Having - Or Being Denied - An Abortion."
The Turnaway study is important because it provides a unique perspective on the consequences of denying women access to abortion services.
In fact, it provides scientific evidence to support reproductive rights and abortion access, and challenges the common myths and assumptions that abortion harms women.122,123
Previous research on abortion had mostly focused on the outcomes for women who had received an abortion. The Turnaway study provides a comparison group of women who were denied abortion services, which allows researchers to examine the differences in outcomes between the two groups.
The first and most fundamental question for a study like this to consider is how women feel afterward about their decisions to have an abortion.
In general, research team lead demographer Diane Greene Foster writes, the two groups “were remarkably similar at the first interview. Their lives diverged thereafter in ways that were directly attributable to whether they received an abortion.”
Data collected from the Turnaway Study reveal that the women who received abortions for unwanted pregnancies experienced:
• significantly lower rates of poverty
• less need to rely on public assistance in the five years following their abortion.
• greater success in maintaining healthy romantic partnerships,
• an increased ability to care for their existing children
They also:
• expressed positive attitudes towards planning a pregnancy in the future.
• were far more likely to set and accomplish personal and career-oriented goals.
Comparatively, the life outcomes of women who sought and were denied abortion differed in a number of ways.
• For instance, women who carried unwanted pregnancies to term were far more likely to maintain contact with abusive intimate partners, continuing their exposure to violence.
In general, women who were denied wanted abortions:
• faced more economic hardships
• experienced increases in household poverty in the years following the denial. Not only did these women struggle more to cover their basic living expenses and stay out of debt, but they were also more likely to be evicted from their housing, file for bankruptcy, and become unemployed. Notably, it took an average of four additional years for women who were denied abortions to reach equal levels of employment as women who received abortions. As time went on, the economic differences between the two groups of women became more and more minimal. However, poverty, even for short periods of time, has deeply negative ramifications for overall life outcomes.
• experienced high levels of anxiety
• struggled to maintain self-esteem in the six months following abortion denial.
The study also found that, contrary to frequent claims from anti-choice advocates:
• no clear evidence that abortion was detrimental to women’s mental health. Women who received abortions did not have an increased risk of depression, anxiety, nor low self-esteem. Moreover, they were not at a higher risk of being diagnosed with PTSD or experiencing suicidal ideation.
• 95% of women who have abortions felt their decision was the right one for them.
• Women who received an abortion were much more likely (48%) than women who were denied an abortion (30%) to plan and achieve future goals.
Other positive impacts were more lasting. Women in the study who received the abortion they sought were more likely to be in a relationship they described as “very good.” Women who got the abortion were more likely to become pregnant intentionally in the next five years than women who did not. They were less likely to be on public assistance and to report that they did not have enough money to pay for food, housing, and transportation. When they had children at home already, those children were less likely to be living in poverty. Based on self-reports, their physical health was somewhat better.120,121,122,123
All the ways in which their lives diverged are attributable to whether they got that abortion or not, and the impacts are really wide-ranging.
From not being able to afford basic living needs like food and housing and transportation, to being more likely to raise your existing children in poverty, to not being able to hold a full-time job.
The health difference is one area in which people underestimate the impact on one’s body after continuing an unwanted pregnancy and giving birth. We see not just greater physical health risks in the end of pregnancy, but, over the next five years, a greater likelihood of chronic pain and hypertension for the people who give birth compared to the ones who were able to have an abortion.
Another area is all the life differences. The ways in which people have to scale back their aspirational plans to accommodate a pregnancy that they weren’t ready for, and those people are less likely to set and achieve aspirational plans when they know that they’re not going to be able to get a wanted abortion. And interestingly, that includes wanting to have a child later under better circumstances. Women who are denied abortions are less likely to have an intended pregnancy in the next five years. The circumstances of their lives and raising a child that they weren’t ready for impacts their ability to have a kid later.125
WHAT WERE SOME OF THE TOP REASONS THAT YOU FOUND WOMEN SEEK OUT ABORTIONS?
In the study, we asked women at their very first interview, “What are some of the reasons that you decided to have an abortion?” And we didn’t give them a list of acceptable reasons to choose from. We just asked it as an open-ended question, and then we went through and categorized all their answers and when we did that, we actually found that their reasons were very close to what the Guttmacher Institute finds when it surveys all people seeking abortion in clinics across the country.
1. Not being financially prepared, so feeling like you don’t have enough money to raise a baby or to raise another baby
2. Not the right time for a baby
3. Partner-related issues
Almost a third of women in the study gave partner-related reasons. That could be because he’s violent or it could be that he wouldn’t make a good father or isn’t willing.
4. The need to care for their existing children
This accounted for over a quarter of people in the study. Many people don’t realize that the majority of people who have abortions are already mothers and their need to take care of their existing kids is primary.
What’s interesting about all of these reasons is that they’re so closely tied to what the consequences were for the people who were denied.
It is critical that when people are making careful, life-changing decisions, they understand the circumstances of their lives so when they give these reasons, they understand what it would be like to have to carry that pregnancy to term.125
Source:
(120) The Turnaway Study | ANSIRH. https://www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study.
(121) TURNAWAY STUDY – Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health / Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health http://tiny.ucsf.edu/Turnaway
(122) Burbank, Megan and Kwong, Emily. A landmark study tracks the lasting effect of having an abortion – or being denied one https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/05/15/1098347992/a-landmark-study-tracks-the-lastingeffect-of-having-an-abortion-or-being-denied
(123) The Turnaway Study: An evidence-based argument for reproductive rights https://now.org/blog/the-turnaway-study-an-evidence-based-argument-for-reproductive-rights/
(124) Talbot, Margaret. The Study That Debunks Most Anti-Abortion Arguments https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-study-that-debunks-most-anti-abortion-arguments
(125) Vaglanos, Alanna. The Human Cost of Being Denied an Abortion https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-human-cost-of-being-denied-anabortion_n_61940cd5e4b00aa1efeeac79
Learn more:
The Study That Debunks Most Anti-Abortion Arguments
For five years, a team of researchers asked women about their experience after having or not having an abortion. What do their answers tell us?
Post Abortion-Syndrome: The Solution in Search of a Problem
A recent study from the University of California, San Francisco found that the vast majority of women that had an abortion felt that they had made the right decision.
NOTE: There are some who seek to discredit The Turnaway Study, claiming it to be based on faulty methodology, selective reporting, and ideological agenda. They purport that it ignores the physical, psychological, and spiritual harms of abortion, as well as the positive outcomes of choosing life. Some of the main criticisms of the study are:
• It used flawed data and methodology that biased the results in favor of abortion
• It minimized abortion regret by ignoring many women who have said they do regret their abortions
• It did not account for the long-term effects of abortion on women’s mental health, relationships, and spirituality
Diana Greene Foster, the lead researcher of The Turnaway Study, has defended her study against the criticisms by saying that it was a rigorous and unbiased scientific investigation that followed ethical standards and used valid methods She also said that her study was not designed with a post-Roe America in mind, and that more research is needed to understand the impact of abortion restrictions on different groups of people
1.11 HOW AMERICANS UNDERSTAND ABORTION
A comprehensive interview study of abortion attitudes in the U.S.
By TRICIA C. BRUCE, PhD
This landmark study is unique in its approach and sample. While most interview-based studies on abortion include only activists in social movements, people with personal experiences of abortion, and affiliates of particular religious traditions, this study draws from a cross-section of everyday Americans, many of whom had never spoken with someone about abortion before.
In this free report, one can:
• Learn how ordinary Americans think about the issue of abortion
• Discover what Americans know and don’t know about abortion
• Explore possibilities for new approaches to conversations about abortion
This report is a must-read for anyone committed to understanding not only what Americans believe about abortion, but also how they think about it.
It’s an attempt to understand people’s “attitudes” which encompass an array of evaluations regarding what is good or bad, right or wrong— morally or legally and under which conditions—both for oneself and others.
Following are some excerpts from the study that offer some insight into the moral and legal concerns on both sides of the debate.
The Oppositional Edge
MORAL OPPOSITION
What does moral opposition to abortion look like?
1. BECAUSE LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION.
Unsurprisingly, an explanation commonly offered for moral opposition to abortion is that life begins at conception and that an abortion ends that life. This rationale stems from the view that those not yet born should be protected by the same rights as those who are born. This explanation predicts the highest level of moral resolve among interviewees, with the least room for exceptions.
The attribution of rights to a prenatal person leads many morally opposed interviewees to equate abortion with “murder,” “killing,” or “taking a life.”
2. BECAUSE THIS DECISION DOES NOT BELONG TO ANY HUMAN.
A second (and sometimes related) explanation offered by morally opposed interviewees is that a decision to continue (or end) a pregnancy does not reside in the hands of the pregnant woman. The locus of decision-making instead resides elsewhere, either with God or with the baby (whose “decision” is presumed to be against abortion).
Many morally opposed interviewees harken to this idea of an earlier choice to engage in sex as the moment of choosing, not during pregnancy. Some use words such as “selfish” to describe women who seek abortions after that choice has been made.
3. BECAUSE I WOULD NEVER HAVE AN ABORTION MYSELF.
A third explanation offered for moral opposition to abortion is personal and hypothetical, when an interviewee says that they would never go through with an abortion themselves.
4. BECAUSE OF MY FAITH AND THE RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS I FOLLOW.
Religion infuses many explanations of moral opposition to abortion. Childhood religious socialization into abortion opposition is core to some interviewees’ religious beliefs and practices.
Some interviewees blame the decline and absence of religion and faith in society more broadly as itself cause of abortion. Religion operates for some as a clear demarcation of what is moral and immoral. And to them, abortion is immoral.
5. BECAUSE ABORTION IS A SYMPTOM OF BROADER SOCIAL PROBLEMS.
A fifth set of explanations for moral opposition links abortion to a broader set of social ills. Abortion is interpreted as a “symptom” of other problems or a moral “slippery slope” that can only lead to further devaluation of life and proper, moral living. Abortion is “too easy,” say some interviewees, and diminishes care for fellow humans.
Others describe abortion as linked to a lack of financial or familial support, excessive convenience, rampant selfishness, or otherwise.
TOTAL LEGAL OPPOSITION
Asked “Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances,” thirty of our 217 interviewees (14 percent) want abortion “illegal in all circumstances.”
Total legal opposition to abortion is a subset of moral opposition: Those who advance the idea that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances are also morally opposed to abortion. The thirty interviewees who told us that they wish to see all abortions illegal share other similarities as well:
1. All are church-attending Catholics or Protestants (among the latter, most are evangelical).
2. The majority are Republican.
3. They are disproportionately male and non-Hispanic white.
4. The majority describe themselves as conservative. They are nearly split in educational attainment: half have a college degree or more, half have less than a college degree. More than half belong to the Boomer or Silent generations; a third are millennials or Gen Z.
Legal opposition to abortion in all circumstances typically hinges upon three interrelated tenets:
1. that abortion takes a life;
2. that this is not about a woman’s body but a baby; and
3. that there are alternatives to abortion.
Interviewees fully opposed to abortion’s legality wish to enforce their moral position using the law.
The Permissive Edge
“No, not all reasons are justified. But it’s not the government’s business. It’s not my business. It’s not anyone’s business but her business.” – Consuelo
MORAL PERMISSIVENESS
What does it mean to not be morally opposed to abortion?
a. BECAUSE IT IS NOT A LIFE / BECAUSE I AM UNCERTAIN WHEN LIFE BEGINS.
Unlike those morally opposed to abortion, those without moral opposition either dispute the presence of life prior to birth or approach it with uncertainty. Others point to viability to delimit their moral permissiveness toward abortion.
b. BECAUSE ABORTION CAN HAPPEN EARLY IN THE PREGNANCY.
Some interviewees say that they are not morally opposed because an abortion can be sought early in a pregnancy. This explanation implies a boundary to their moral permissiveness, even when a closed-ended response does not reflect it. Some predicate their moral acceptance on the abortion occurring in the first trimester, before the point of viability, or not “late” in the pregnancy.
Uncertainty regarding the onset of a person bestowed with rights makes room for interviewees’ moral permissiveness toward abortion, especially early in a pregnancy.
c. BECAUSE I PRIORITIZE A “GOOD LIFE” FOR THE CHILD AFTER BIRTH.
Another set of explanations focuses not on life inherently but rather on the anticipation of a good life (or not) for the child who would be born. A moral allowance for abortion stems from fears that a child will be “unwanted” or unloved, will suffer in foster care, will be unable to live independently, and more. Under a given set of conditions, some interviewees evaluate abortion as morally superior to birth.
d. BECAUSE I PRIORITIZE A “GOOD LIFE” FOR THE PREGNANT WOMAN.
Others explain that they are not morally opposed to abortion because they support the desire of the pregnant woman to pursue a good life for herself. A choice to abort relates not only to the immediate nine months, but what happens after. Interviewees’ moral permissiveness toward abortion is explained as benefitting the long-term outcomes of pregnant women.
e. BECAUSE THE MORAL DECISION BELONGS ONLY TO THE PERSON IN THE SITUATION.
Morally opposed interviewees spoke of abortion decisions as not belonging to the pregnant woman (nor any human, perhaps). But for those not morally opposed to abortion, the decision resides exactly there. Implicit in this explanation is a kind of trust or laissez-faire approach to the person directly involved in the situation.
f. BECAUSE THERE ARE JUSTIFIED EXCEPTIONS, BASED UPON THE SITUATION. As with explanations that hinge on the timing of the abortion (with greater permissibility early in the pregnancy), some interviewees share that because of justifiable exceptions, they are not morally opposed.
g. BECAUSE ABORTION IS LINKED TO BROADER SOCIAL PROBLEMS.
Tis explanation for not being morally opposed to abortion is similar to what we heard from those morally opposed: that abortion is linked to the morality of broader social problems. But whereas problems identified previously included the decline of religion, morals, and selflessness, from this group of interviewees we hear social problems like environmentalism, patriarchy, and poverty.
h. BECAUSE ABORTION IS NOT A MORAL ISSUE.
Finally, some interviewees who are not morally opposed to abortion explain how, for them, abortion is not a moral issue at all, but a decision like any other. It’s just a question of whether the woman feels she can be a parent to the baby, whether she wants to have another baby, and whether she feels that she can have another baby. Some resist assessments of “good” and “bad” entirely, whether for themselves or another. Some resist moral categorization, because they link morality to religion, which connotes negative feelings or judgment.
TOTAL LEGAL PERMISSIVENESS
Thirty-five percent of our interviewees (75 of 217) agreed that abortion should be “legal under any circumstance.”
Though they are a mix of religious identities, many in this group of interviewees are:
a. religiously unaffiliated
b. Democrats
c. liberal or moderate, though a handful identify as conservative
d. disproportionately female and nearly four in ten are people of color.
e. college graduates
A third belong to Boomer or Silent generations; two-thirds are younger. Most have at least a college degree.
Interrelated tenets explaining interviewees’ preference for the complete legality of abortion emanate from:
1. notions of rights, choice, freedom, and privacy;
2. seeing abortion as “her decision” / “not my decision”;
3. personal experience and relationships; and
4. the inability to know or exhaustively list all justified legal circumstances.
Interviewees who support the legality of abortion under any circumstance also engage hypotheticals about what would happen if abortion were made illegal. These include:
a. increased financial burdens where society will end up paying for the child, one way or another
b. a return to unsafe abortions in which a lot of women would die again
c. concern about criminalization that would put these poor women in jail, punishing them for circumstances that we may not understand fully.
Several interviewees clarify that their support for legalization assumes regulated medical standards to ensure that abortion is performed safely and by licensed professionals
The Ambivalent Morality “Depends”
The highest proportion of interviewees expressed neither moral opposition nor the opposite but, rather, ambivalence: “It depends.” Overall, 38 percent of our interviewees said that abortion’s morality “depends,” tying the morality of abortion to circumstance.
Summarized below are the most common contingencies expressed by morally conflicted interviewees. These consider the context of the conception, the pregnancy, or the conjectured future as important factors to determining abortion’s morality.
1. SELF-DETERMINATION CONTINGENCIES
Many Americans are uncomfortable making unequivocal statements about the morality of abortion for someone else. The most common explanation for moral ambivalence stems from the belief that one cannot or should not assess the morality of another’s decision.
2. HEALTH CONTINGENCIES
Another common explanation for moral ambivalence is health, most commonly the health of the mother, less commonly the health of the fetus/baby. For those otherwise against abortion morally, situations when the mother’s life is at risk constitute the “rare” circumstance that moves them from moral opposition to moral ambivalence.
Moral ambiguity hinges on medical scenarios that are unpredictable and impossible to control, thus absolving the pregnant woman of moral failing, in the view of interviewees who express this contingency.
3. NONCONSENSUAL CONTINGENCIES
Closely following health contingencies as an explanation for moral ambivalence are those who discriminate morality based upon whether or not sex between the conceiving partners was consensual. Such explanations clarify that moral opposition does not apply when the pregnancy came as a result of rape. For many interviewees, rape is an obvious and resolute moral exception.
Others include:
a. the (mental) health of the mother
b. uncontrollable situations that absolve her from culpability
c. other non-consensual relations including incest and domestic abuse.
4. GESTATIONAL CONTINGENCIES
Interviewees who express moral ambivalence about abortion also commonly cite timing during the pregnancy as a determining factor in abortion’s morality. Viability, in particular, matters for the way that many Americans think about abortion.
For some, gestational and non-consensual contingencies work hand-in-hand to determine morality: an abortion after rape is morally permissible only if done early in the pregnancy.
5. CONTRACEPTIVE CONTINGENCIES
Others hinge their moral judgment of abortion on the chosen circumstances that led to pregnancy. Apart from situations of non-consensual sex, many Americans look for “responsibility” in sexual activity, realized through mutual decision, education, and the use of contraception. Americans commonly level moral critiques of using abortion “as birth control.”
6. READINESS CONTINGENCIES
Another factor that weighs into Americans’ ambivalence about the morality of abortion is readiness, realized in different ways. Age plays into moral considerations, particularly if the pregnant woman is under eighteen or in early adulthood. This overlaps with financial readiness and the moral contingency that some people cannot afford a child.
LEGAL AMBIVALENCE
Half of our interviewees expressed conflicted views about abortion’s legality, saying that abortion should be legal in some circumstances and illegal in others. This legal ambivalence cuts across gender (half of women, half of men), racial group (52 percent among white interviewees, 49 percent among interviewees of color), generation, and education level (48 percent among interviewees with a college degree or more, 54 percent among those with less than a college degree). Legal ambivalence is widespread.
THE EXCEPTIONS
A small set of circumstances constitutes exceptions to many interviewees’ otherwise “illegal” stance toward abortion. These same circumstances may be mentioned as “exceptional” or “obvious” by those who lean toward legalization. Exceptions to abortion’s illegality drop in frequency after these three:
1. the health of the pregnant woman
2. pregnancy by rape
3. instances in which there is a substantial health issue (physical “defect”) with the baby/fetus
SOME THOUGHTS FROM THE TRENCHES ON THE VARIOUS ASPECTS OF THE ABORTION DEBATE
As we established in the previous section, abortion is a highly complex, contentious and polarizing topic that involves a range of ethical, moral, religious, social, economic, and legal considerations and one that initiates a broad range of personal ramifications.
And all the factors mentioned - human rights, medical considerations, socio-economic factors, moral and religious beliefs, legal and political frameworks, and racism - can have important impacts on:
• one’s psychological and emotional well-being
• one’s ability to access reproductive services
• one’s own personal situation including family dynamics
• one’s chances of success moving forward
In this section, I offer some further insight into the various potential impacts of the abortion issue.
In this section, personal commentary on various articles written by others is noted in red: COMMENT
2.1 BREAKING DOWN THE SILOS
Looking at the various facets of the issue may offer an appreciation of its complexity. But at the end of the day, you can’t treat the issue in a silo, because it’s so much broader than that, its impacts considerable and potentially long-lasting.
Human rights considerations are clearly a critical factor when discussing the personal impacts of abortion. On the chopping block is an individual’s right to make decisions about their own bodies and reproductive health, including the right to access safe and legal abortion services. However, political and legal frameworks can sometimes restrict access to these services, which can subsequently impact an individual's ability to exercise their rights. Of equal consequence is the opinions of others who have no direct stake in the game.
Medical considerations such as the physical and emotional effects of abortion, the stage of the pregnancy, and the availability of safe and legal abortion services all impact an individual's experience of abortion, not to mention their general well-being.
Socio-economic factors such as financial stability, access to healthcare, and social support show the personal ramifications of the matter. For example, individuals with limited financial resources may face barriers to accessing healthcare services or may not have the financial resources to support a child, which not only impact their decision to have an abortion, but more importantly, the chances of success of both mother and child if the abortion is denied.
Moral and religious beliefs can also be a significant factor in the personal impacts of abortion. Individuals may experience emotional or psychological distress as a result of conflicting beliefs or values related to abortion or be subjected to the wrath of those who may not share their beliefs.
Legal and political restrictions can create additional barriers to access and can lead to feelings of shame, stigma, or discrimination. More problematic in the American contextgiven the overturning of Roe v. Wade - is the variability of the restrictions across the country and the animosity and divisiveness that results. And making abortion illegal won’t stop abortion altogether. It will just increase the number of unsafe abortions.
With all this in mind, I offer the following summary and related thoughts, again, issue by issue, in an attempt to dissect and get to the essence of problem. But more importantly, I try to parse those aspects that are negatively impactful to the players involved with those that are objectionable to the bystanders.
2.2 Abortion is a HUMAN RIGHTS issue
First and foremost.
The primary stumbling block in the debate seems to be the nature of the human rights and the related limits of maternal and fetal rights. Which naturally leads to a discussion of:
1. What is human?
ADJECTIVE
1. relating to or characteristic of people or human beings
2. being, relating to, or belonging to a person or to people as opposed to animals
2. Whose rights should take precedence?
Ultimately, the crux of the abortion issue seems to hinge on these two questions, so let’s try to address those.
1. What is human?
Let’s be frank. All the hubbub really comes down to the philosophical notion of “personhood” — in this case, whether or not a fertilized egg has all the legal rights of a living, breathing, physically independent child.
Some people consider the embryo or fetus to have a certain moral status of possessing a right to life and base that not only on it being human, but on it being considered a (metaphysical) person from the time of conception. Others disagree with the claim that the embryo is a person at all because it fails to meet what they consider necessary criteria of personhood.127
So, the main underlying ethical query is, “What is a person?”
How people answer this question shapes how they think about a developing human being. When philosophers talk about “personhood,” they are typically referring to something or someone having exceptionally high moral status, often described as having a right to life, an inherent dignity, or mattering for one’s own sake. Nonpersons may have lesser rights or value, but lack the full moral value associated with persons.129
A healthy adult human being is often considered the clearest example of a person. Yet, most philosophers distinguish being a person from being human, pointing out that no one disputes the fetus’s species, but many disagree about the fetus’s personhood.129
Modern advances in neurological science and technology pose profound challenges for our traditional concepts of the human person: they generate metaphysical and moral questions about beings at the edges of human life, from embryos that are not yet conscious, to persons who have lost their capacity for rational thought or have become permanently unconscious.128
Looking at the matter from a biomedical ethics perspective, human beings can only sensibly be considered persons to the extent that they are capable of conscious experience. That capacity first emerges in the human fetus between 20 and 32 weeks gestation, and can be irreversibly lost if the cerebral cortex permanently stops working, even if the brainstem continues to function with respirator support. Thus, early abortions, experiments on human embryos and early fetuses, and withdrawal of feeding tubes from PVS (persistent vegetative state) individuals do not in themselves represent violations of the rights of persons.128
In current law, fetal viability is often used to mark the beginning of personhood. However, viability varies based on people’s access to intensive medical care. It also changes as medicine and technology advance.129
Some state laws restricting abortion identify the presence of a “fetal heartbeat” as morally significant and use this as a basis for personhood. However, many living things have beating hearts, and they are not all considered persons. And as physicians point out, though they may use the term “fetal heartbeat” in conversations with patients, the fetus does not yet have a functioning heart that generates sound during early development.129
Female pastor, Rev. Rebecca Todd (The Community Church of Chapel Hill Unitarian Universalist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina), who is also a Planned Parenthood advisor delivered a sermon in which she said she felt “God’s presence” when she aborted two pregnancies and blasted Evangelicals for their “toxic theology” on the subject. Her sermon culminated in a stated theological position in which she suggested Biblebelieving Christians can be both pro-life and pro-abortion, a position not shared by all in the Christian community.133
“As complicated, thoughtful morally capable people, we are able to hold both of these realities in tension: that the gestation and birth of a child is a wondrous event to be celebrated and that not all pregnancies will or need to culminate in a birth,” she said.133
“This is theologically consistent with the belief that prenates are not yet human beings.”133
Clearly, this stance is very much a bone of contention. But whose to decide? Scriptures, someone’s interpretation, the community, the mother??
That said, let’s continue the investigation of personhood…
When does personhood begin?
Clearly, there are plenty of reasons to figure out what personhood requires. And doing so demands wrestling with at least three common opposing views.129
1. The first holds that fetuses qualify as persons from the moment of conception. Supporters say that from conception on, the developing fetus has “a future like ours,” and abortion takes that future away. A variation on this theme is that at conception, a fetus has the full genetic code and therefore the potential to become a person, and this potential qualifies the fetus as a person.
2. A second view regards personhood as arising at some point after conception and prior to birth. Some people reason that a human being’s moral status is not all-or-nothing, but, like human development, a matter of degree. Others say that what matters is consciousness and other cognitive capacities, thought to develop late in the second trimester.
3. A third view maintains that personhood begins at birth or shortly thereafter, because this is when an infant first acquires a sense of themselves and an interest in their own continued existence. Another source of support for the third view is Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant’s claim that what makes human beings morally special is their rationality and capacity to be autonomous.
Which view of personhood is right?
Perhaps the better question is, which view is right for you?
Your body, your choice would seem the fairest avenue, one in which you take a decision you can live with and not necessarily impose on others, in whose lives you likely have no stake.
Anti-abortion activists ignore the consequences of granting fertilized eggs constitutional rights, but a full range of radical implications exist.
Fetal personhood changes the legal rights and status of pregnant people and forces them to forfeit their own personhood. The words of an anti-abortion voter perfectly capture this: "I understand women saying, 'I need to control my own body,' but once you have another body in there, that's their body."131
Again, it’s their body, not yours.
2. Whose rights should take precedence?
In the way Americans have argued about abortion over the decades, a standoff exists between the rights-bearing autonomous person who, as the Dobbs dissent argues, “owns” her own pregnant body versus the fetus that she might view as impinging on that autonomy.132
But abortion is not just like killing your toddler.
The analogies put forth by abortion opponents and abortion-rights supporters, respectively, fail by disregarding the natural and existential dependency of the unborn child upon its mother, an enveloping nurturance and protection that ultimately only the child’s mother can give.132
As the nascent child shares her mother’s body, the mother depends upon many others for her own sustenance and flourishing. This is the case in every pregnancy, of course. But the need of the expectant mother becomes more acute when she is poor or ill, or her life or health is endangered by the pregnancy. The woman with child means two vulnerable patients for doctors to care for and for insurance to support; capacious workplace accommodations and financial assistance; paternal duties expected, not ignored.132
Without robust societal support of pregnant women and child-rearing families, too many women will be left to regard their unborn children as trespassers on their already taxed lives rather than unbidden gifts that open new horizons to them. These women need society’s utmost assistance — not abortion, or scorn.132
In many states, that support is simply not there. Ultimately, we must address if an actual, functioning life should take precedence over a potential life in all of its intricacies, complications and repercussions and only one of those entities can take that awful decision.
That said, when weighing rights, it is particularly important to consider the toll exacted when people wishing to terminate a pregnancy are prevented from doing so. A decade-long study showed people in this situation suffered adverse health effects; were less likely to have money for basic living expenses like food, housing and transportation; and were more likely to remain with violent partners. Since the risk of dying from childbirth is much greater than the risk of dying from legal abortion, a ban on abortion is projected to increase maternal mortality 129
So where do we stand now?
In a country as exceptional as the US, there seems to be an inordinate amount of chatter about what will make America great…..again. Amongst the essential factors that make for a great democracy is respect for human rights and the rule of law, two concepts which continue to be at the root of national division and debate. Typically, a great democracy protects the rights and freedoms of all its citizens, regardless of their race, gender, religion, or any other characteristic. It also ensures that the laws are fair, transparent, and applied equally to everyone.
But remarkably, and as noted previously, the US has yet to enact an equal rights amendment. And not for lack of trying (The federal Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced in Congress 100 years ago in 1923 but is still not ratified into the U.S. Constitution. Over 20 states have an equal rights amendment in their state constitutions, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, and still others have more limited gender equity protections.). But there is clearly not an appetite for such legislation in many states and as a result, the nature and protection of human rights is still a bone of contention.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade just added more fuel to this fire, reinforcing the need to revisit the enactment of a national policy on human rights, including reproductive rights and related impact on women's autonomy and health.
For this reason, numerous states are being forced to delve into their own constitutions. A growing number of Democratic-controlled states, including New York, have passed “shield laws” protecting patients and providers of abortion and gender-affirming care from punishment or retribution based on other states’ laws. In order to address reproductive rights protections, abortion rights advocates in New York are pushing for a novel equal rights amendment they hope will establish the state as a haven for abortion access and set a roadmap for other states. New York lawmakers have, in two consecutive sessions, passed the New York Equal Protection of Law Amendment, which would ban a wide range of discrimination based on sex, expressly including sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes. It would also ban discrimination based on age, disability, ethnicity and national origin and establish a constitutional right to abortion and other reproductive health care.134
At the same time, many Republican states and anti-abortion activists are working feverishly to ban or restrict abortions, arguing that abortion is immoral and violates the sanctity of life, and that the government has a duty to protect the unborn (The protection of the born seems be another question entirely.)
Interestingly, though, in an apparent perverse reversal of logic, at the very moment that Roe v. Wade was overturned, the American right became obsessed with bodily autonomy and adopted the slogan “My body, my choice” about Covid vaccines and mask mandates.141
Feminists have always known that if men or at any rate cis men could get pregnant, abortion would be a nonissue. The furious conservative reaction to Covid mitigation measures demonstrates this more than any hypothetical ever could. Many on the right, we now know, believe it’s tyranny to be told to put something they don’t want on or in their bodies in order to save lives.141
It’s striking the gap between the bodily impositions people on the right will accept in their own lives and those they would impose on others. When it comes to themselves, many conservatives find any encroachment on their physical sovereignty intolerable, and arguments about the common good irrelevant. Yet their movement is dragging us into a future where many women will be stripped of self-determination the moment they get pregnant. Choices, it seems, are NOT for everybody.141
Regardless, the primary disagreement in the abortion debate remains hinged on the rights of the mother and the fetus, with “pro-choice” advocates arguing for the woman’s right to choose how to deal with her body and specifically whether or not to carry her pregnancy to term and “pro-life” advocates adopting the maximalist position that human life begins at the instant of conception.
Given the complex, multifaceted nature of the issue, it is not surprising that the legal status of a fetus varies by country and state. In Canada, for example, a long-standing legal principle is that the fetus has no legal status until it is born alive and viable, which means its purported rights cannot take precedence over those of its pregnant mother.134 In the US, however, there continues to be debate over whether the rights of a fetus trump those of the mother.135
Until the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we saw a desire to:
• safeguard the autonomy of women
• give precedence to maternal autonomy over fetal rights BUT within certain time limits (namely, up to the point of fetal viability)
This outlook gave precedence to the fully independent human and less to fetus until such time as the independence of the latter was possible.
HOWEVER, this seemingly reasonable approach was blown out of the water in the U.S. with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, essentially giving all rights to the fetus and none to the mother (unless individual state legislatures decided otherwise).
In this scenario, if the prospective mother feels unprepared for a child, she is forced to deal with a variety of unpalatable and likely detrimental scenarios which lower the chances of success of both mother AND child.
I’m not seeing a winner here other than the anti-abortionists who have absolutely no stake in the game.
Now, I recognize that there are different opinions and perspectives on whether abortion should be considered a right (not to mention a choice, a health service, or a moral issue)
So let’s summarize:
SCENARIO 1: Abortion is a human right because it is essential for women's equality, autonomy, dignity, and health.137,138
SCENARIO 2: Abortion is not a human right because it violates the rights of the unborn, the family, or the society.139,140
Regardless of which scenario is chosen, I don’t think one can underestimate the importance of the decision to be taken and its resultant impacts:
• The former scenario impacts a person in the here and now.
The latter impacts a largely unviable entity (debatably up to the beginning of the third trimester) and a bunch of others not responsible for the raising of the future baby in question.
• The former scenario offers the possibility of addressing a variety of problematic issues prior to birth.
The latter initiates a variety of potential problems that must begin to be addressed immediately upon establishing pregnancy and thereafter, possibly well beyond birth, including direct socio-economic impacts on both mother and child as well as related impacts – in fact, burdens – on our societal systems (including healthcare, education, social services, law enforcement, penal system, and employment).
• The former scenario offers the chance for remedial measures and hope for a more optimistic future.
The latter greatly increases the odds of a compromised future, for mother, child, possibly father, and society in general.
So in the end, who really wins when the abortion option is removed?
Does the upholding of Pro-life values offer any real benefits to those who must deal with an unintended pregnancy?
Who has the right to make the most difficult decision of one’s life?
Ultimately, the discussion of personhood and its varied nuances is really moot.
Because whose rights should take precedence is more a matter of personal conscience, not to mention a measured assessment of personal circumstance. At the end of the day, the very difficult, personal decision to be taken revolves around creating the conditions for the success of both mother and potential child. Full stop.
Whose to deny any mother this right?
“Biology need not be destiny.”
- Charlotte Shane
Learn more:
SCOTUS Handed Conservatives a New Weapon to Attack Your Rights Conservative judges are coming for birth control, same-sex marriage, and more.
(126) Ford, Jess. Personhood Explained - Focus on the Family
https://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/personhood-explained/ (127) Concept of Personhood - MU School of Medicine
https://medicine.missouri.edu/centers-institutes-labs/health-ethics/faq/personhood (128) Perry, Dr. David L. Ethics and Personhood - Markkula Center for Applied Ethics https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/bioethics/resources/ethics-and-personhood/
(129) Jecker, Nancy S. What is 'personhood'? The ethics question that needs a closer look in abortion debates https://theconversation.com/what-is-personhood-the-ethics-question-that-needs-a-closer-look-inabortion-debates-182745
(130) Personhood In The Womb: A Constitutional Question : NPR https://www.npr.org/2013/11/21/246534132/personhood-in-the-womb-a-constitutional-question (131) When Fetuses Gain Personhood: Understanding the Impact on IVF, Contraception, Medical Treatment, Criminal Law, Child Support, and Beyond - New York | Pregnancy Justice https://www.pregnancyjusticeus.org/wp-content-uploads-2022-08-fetal-personhood-issue-8-17-22-pdf/ (132) Bachiochi, Erika. What Makes a Fetus a Person?
(133) Giatti, Ian M. PCUSA pastor teaches on Psalm 139, says she 'felt God's presence,' 'no sin' after 2 abortions https://www.christianpost.com/news/pcusa-pastor-felt-gods-presence-no-sin-after-two-abortions.html
(134) The Legal Status of the Fetus - Canadian Nurses Protective Society. https://cnps.ca/article/the-legal-status-of-the-fetus/
(135) Tran, Linda. Legal Rights and the Maternal-fetal Conflict. https://www.scq.ubc.ca/legal-rights-and-the-maternal-fetal-conflict/
(137) Smith, Marie-Danielle. Canada has no abortion right law. Does it need one? - CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada-abortion-law-1.6503899.
(138) Gollom, Mark. Why Canada's Roe v. Wade didn't enshrine abortion as a right. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/abortion-rights-canada-morgentaler-court-1.6439612.
(139) Neustaeter, Brooklyn. What is the legal status of abortion in Canada? - CTVNews. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/what-is-the-legal-status-of-abortion-in-canada-1.5890266.
(140) Jones, Alexandra Mae. One in six women in Canada have had an abortion: survey. https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/one-in-six-women-in-canada-have-had-an-abortion-survey-1.6163233.
(141) Goldberg, Michelle. What ‘My Body, My Choice’ Means to the Right https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/29/opinion/abortion-vaccinemandate.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
(142) Panetta, Grace.New York’s novel equal rights amendment could make the state a haven for abortion access https://19thnews.org/2023/07/new-york-novel-equal-rights-amendment-abortion-lgbtq-rights/
In the matter of personhood and human rights, we are clearly witnessing the collision of politics, law and religion in which chaos has ensued because America is resistant to establishing a clear national edict in this regard.
In “The twisted irony in Alabama’s court decision on embryos”
by MARY ZIEGLER, (Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of
Law at UC Davis and author of “Dollars for Life: The Antiabortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment” and “Roe: The History of a National Obsession”) noted that the ruling is a reminder of how important fetal personhood is becoming for both the antiabortion movement and the Republican Party and of its potentially drastic consequences. In the United States today, recognizing the value of an embryo or fetus sets a precedent that no state can permit access to abortion — and that anyone who chooses abortion may be committing a crime.
The irony in the Alabama court’s decision is that more Americans who want to be parents will be unable to achieve that dream. The ruling is extraordinary not only in declaring personhood before birth but also in applying the idea to embryos that haven’t been implanted in the uterus. But the ruling is not just bizarre; its consequences may be profound. If an embryo is a person, it can no longer be destroyed, donated for research or potentially even stored. Some abortion opponents argue that if embryos are persons, each one that is created must be implanted and that would make even storing embryos for future use impermissible. If any of that comes to pass — and in Alabama, it likely will — that will transform how in vitro fertilization (IVF) works, and will mean a lower rate of success for
The Alabama ruling is a reminder of the importance of personhood politics on the American right — and a warning about how punitive they have become.
COMMENT
More to the point, the push to give legal rights to embryos and fetuses not only forces unwanted pregnancies, it also steals choice from women who fervently want children!
So, since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, we’ve witnessed the sober consequences of denying abortions to people who desperately want them. Now we’re seeing the flip side of the anti-abortion movement’s push to give legal rights to embryos and fetuses: the denial of pregnancy to women who actually want children.
The IVF Ruling Is About Who Gets to Raise Your Children
Yes, it’s a continuation of Dobbs. But it’s also something more sinister.
By DAHLIA LITHWICK https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/02/alabama-ivf-who-gets-to-parent.html
In its decision in early February 2024 interpreting Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act as conferring personhood upon embryos, that state’s high court realized part of the dream of Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.
What Alito had called “unborn human beings” would inevitably be swept into Alabama’s protections for “extrauterine children.” That should surprise none of us. There’s been a robust and necessary public debate about the ways in which Dobbs v. Jackson very deliberately seeded the ground for jurisdictions seeking to further limit and even criminalize abortion, to ban certain forms of birth control and IVF, and (if everything breaks in their favor) to end surrogacy and even no-fault divorce. But the implications of Alabama’s frozen embryo decision on what it means to be a family post-Dobbs have received less sustained attention.
It’s not merely that Dobbs made it more likely that fetal personhood, contraception bans, and other previously unimagined constraints on women’s autonomy and equality would be enacted into law. Dobbs was never self-limiting to abortion it was a save-the-date card for the religious right’s plan to come for the rest of our reproductive freedoms.
But the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision highlights another strain of revanchist Christian nationalist thinking. It’s one that is embodied in policies like family separation at the border (which will be put back in place in a second Trump administration), and last year’s challenge at the Supreme Court to the Indian Child Welfare Act, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s cheerful dismissal of five decades of abortion protections in favor of the drop-your-baby-at-the-firestation alternative to reproductive autonomy.
This line of thinking is about more than reproductive autonomy; it is a claim about who owns your babies and your children, and who gets to raise them.
When Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida announced on NBC’s Meet the Press on February 25 2024 that he fully supports IVF because it is necessary to “create great families, which is what our country desperately needs,” and that IVF “helps them breed great families,” he gave away this darker game.
This isn’t just about forcing pregnant people to carry babies; it’s also about the “domestic supply of infants” problem that the 14th Amendment was expressly crafted to redress: a sordid history of power and money and ownership of children, still baked so deeply into adoption and foster care that you almost don’t notice when the state coolly lays claim to the entire contents of a “cryogenic nursery.”
Nothing about this should shock you, at least not if you’ve been reading Dorothy Roberts. This is the two-step wherein the state forces women to have babies they cannot raise, does nothing to help support them, then swoops in to seize the babies when their parents are seen as endangering them—a phenomenon that of course predominantly hurts poor women and women of color.
The state also ensures that adoptions flow in the direction of more “worthy” parents, which means heterosexual and Christian parents, a regime also built into the legal framework. The list of people who cannot assert autonomy and control over their potential children has, in the course of a few weeks, now expanded from LGBTQ+ parents, single parents, poor parents, and parents of color to anyone who has started the process of IVF in Alabama. When Republicans insist that life begins at conception, and also that seven cell clusters constitute “life,” what they are saying what they were always saying is that we as a society need babies so badly that somebody should always be entitled to take control and custody over somebody else’s baby, and indeed of every potential baby. Because, at the end of the day, your babies don’t belong to you; they belong, variously, to God, to the GOP, to the state, and to those who want to raise them in your stead.
That isn’t just about controlling women, then, or about fertility and the power to make economic and health decisions about one’s own life. This is about the government endlessly making determinations about who is fit to take your children away from you and raise them as their own.
This is the Handmaid’s Tale version of religion, as Dorothy Roberts has long warned, and it’s embodied deeply in U.S. history and in long-standing policies. It is why women can be left to die of sepsis outside the ER, then be blamed by the government for having made bad choices. Their babies never really belonged to them in the first instance. And what Alabama established in February 2024 is that doctors and patients will have to make choices in the IVF context that privilege potential lives over their own family autonomy.
Think for a moment about those families separated at the border under Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions’ truly sociopathic deterrence policy. Some of the children who were ripped away from their parents were placed with good religious families long before their own families were given any kind of opportunity to claim them back. Consider also that some of the groups challenging ICWA in Brackeen, the case heard last term at the Supreme Court, were making a similar claim, rooted in their religious preferences: a claim that they were somehow entitled to adopt and raise the Native American babies whose families could not care for them. Consider Barrett’s chipper assertion at oral argument in Dobbs that there’s no hardship on a woman forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term because “safe haven laws take care of that problem” by letting women dump babies, without risk of prosecution, to be raised by others.
Every one of these examples suggests that the Alabama IVF decision is as much about family separation as reproductive freedom. If your babies are not yours, which under the current abortion regime they are not, it stands to reason that your fertilized embryos are not yours either. If you have unused embryos after treatment, you cannot dispose of them as you wish, because that could be murder; instead, the Alabama Supreme Court’s reasoning implies, the state may force you to adopt them out to strangers.
It’s part of a long-standing tradition of denying autonomy and support to parents and caregivers, blaming them for being unable to raise children, and making alternate plans for their babies.
The 14th Amendment was drafted in part to redress precisely this scenario; it’s being warped to encourage it instead.
There is no way to regulate and control pregnancy without regulating and controlling people.
States that have enacted abortion bans in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization have also considered the establishment of regimes for the surveillance and criminalization of anyone who dares to circumvent the state’s dictates for the acceptable use of one’s body.
This is why the war on abortion rights is properly seen as a war on bodily autonomy and why the attacks on reproductive freedom have moved hand in hand with renewed attacks on the gay, queer and transgender community.
It’s all part of the same tapestry of reaction. And this reactionary impulse extends to the means of the anti-abortion political project as well as its ends.
The same lawmakers who want to rob their constituents of the right to bodily autonomy have also begun to treat democracy as an obstacle to avoid, not a process to respect. If the people stand in the way of ending abortion, then it’s the people who have to go.
We just witnessed, in fact, an attempt by anti-abortion lawmakers to do exactly that to try to remove the public from the equation.
A majority of Ohio voters support the right to an abortion. The Ohio Legislature — gerrymandered into a seemingly perpetual Republican majority does not. In many states, this would be the end of the story, but in Ohio, voters have the power to act directly on the state Constitution at the ballot box. With a simple majority, they can protect abortion rights from a legislature that has no interest in honoring the views of most Ohioans on this particular issue.
Eager to pursue their unpopular agenda and uninterested in trying to persuade Ohio voters of the wisdom of their views Republican lawmakers tried to change the rules. Last week, in what its Republican sponsors hoped would be a low-turnout election, Ohioans voted on a ballot initiative that would have raised the threshold for change to the state Constitution from a simple majority to a supermajority. They defeated the measure, clearing the path for a November vote on the future of abortion rights in the state.
In his opinion for the court in Dobbs, Justice Samuel Alito cast the decision to overturn Roe and Casey as a victory for democracy. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” he wrote. “Reproductive rights,” he continued, quoting Justice Antonin Scalia’s 1992 dissent in Casey, are “to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.”
COMMENT
Hey Sammy, reproductive rights are human rights!! Sadly, the highest court in the land didn’t have the balls to cement those.
Citizens can indeed persuade one another, and they can vote.
But our political system is not designed to turn the aggregate preferences of a majority into direct political power (If that were true, neither Alito nor his Republican colleagues, save for Clarence Thomas, would be on the Supreme Court.). More important, Alito’s vision of voting and representation works only if that legislative majority, whomever it represents, is interested in fair play.
But as the Ohio example illustrates, the assault on bodily autonomy often includes, even rests on, an assault on other rights and privileges.
In Idaho, to give another example, the No Public Funds for Abortion Act, which passed before Dobbs was decided, would punish state employees with the termination of employment, require restitution of public funds and possible prison time for counseling in favor of an abortion or referring someone to an abortion clinic. Other legislatures, such as those in Texas and South Carolina, have pushed similar restrictions on speech in pursuit of near-total abortion bans in their states.
There’s something that feels inevitable in this anti-abortion turn toward political restriction. The attack on bodily autonomy is not general. It is aimed at women. It subjects their bodies to state control and in the process degrades their citizenship.
“Without the ability to decide whether and when to have children, women could not in the way men took for granted determine how they would live their lives, and how they would contribute to the society around them,” the dissenters in Dobbs wrote. For women to take their place as “full and equal citizens,” they “must have control over their reproductive decisions.”
In other words, the attack on bodily autonomy is an assault on both political equality and reproductive freedom. It creates a class of citizens whose status is lower than that of another group.
And once you are in the business of degrading the citizenship of one group of people, it’s easy to extend that pattern of action to the citizenship of other groups. The authoritarian habits of mind that you cultivate diminishing one form of freedom may lead you to view other forms of freedom with equal contempt.
For now, the anti-abortion project is an assault on one form of freedom. But don’t be surprised if, to secure whatever victories it gains, it becomes an attack on all the others.
2.3 Abortion is a MEDICAL issue
Whether Pro-choice or Pro-life, the health and well-being of both mother and fetus are important during the pregnancy.
When an abortion is being considered, physical and mental health aspects are equally critical, as there can be both physical and psychological impacts on the person undergoing the procedure.
Per the landmark Turnaway Study, which compares the lives of women who received a wanted abortion with those who were denied, or “turned away” from getting one, those who carried unwanted pregnancies to term suffered worse physical health for years to come; in fact, two died from childbirth.143
That said, it’s important to recognize the potential for compromised medical care due to the local context - particularly in the wake of Roe’s demise - as abortion services are:
• subject to legal and political frameworks that may impact both access to care and the quality of care provided;
• influenced by a range of factors, including the moral and religious protests of others who may seek to handicap the process, the pregnancy and the post-birth context, all of which can have a detrimental effect on both mother and child.
Perhaps it’s time conservative, anti-abortion states become more serious about family policy and public health given their stated concern for life and family.
The statistics, sadly, show the opposite.
Mississippi, the state whose law was the basis for the Supreme Court reversal of Roe, has the highest rate144A of infant mortality among the 50 states, per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics. Most of the 10 worst states for infant mortality are deep red states. The worst places for life expectancy144B and percentage of citizens without health insurance145 are similarly heavily tilted to the red states.
Roe did not stop these conservative states from caring for their residents. Why would its absence reverse their neglect?
Let’s not mince words. Hypocrisy does not make for a convincing argument. True caring is reflected in policy and legislation.
What we really need to be asking is:
• How might court decisions impact the lives of real people?
• How might they affect the medical profession?
• How are we to provide reproductive healthcare when legal battles go against everything one learns in medical school?
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has had a significant impact on the medical profession.
Many medical journals and professional societies, including those for pediatricians, gynecological and obstetric doctors, have condemned the decision, warning that it will risk patient safety and increase mortality 146 The American Nurses Association (ANA) has stated that the decision is a serious setback for reproductive health and human rights.147 ANA acknowledges the ethical challenges nurses face as a result of the ruling and explains nurses’ ethical obligation to protect patients and communities without coercion from outside influences The National League for Nursing (NLN) also objects to the decision, stating that it jeopardizes public health.147 Hospitals and medical associations across the nation have reacted to the decision by calling attention to the consequences it will have on vulnerable populations, and the increased demand providers will see in states where abortion services are still accessible 148 Essentially, a medical procedure that has been legally performed for decades could now put medical professionals in both civil and criminal danger, and the laws and penalties would vary from state to state.149
The ongoing legal battle over abortion, including the approval and access to mifepristone, a widely used abortion pill, threatens to undermine the basic tenets of medicine.
It will also have generational effects on the way we learn and practice medicine. The lower court rulings undercut the foundational framework of medical education, severely threatening our understanding of evidence-based medicine and patient autonomy.150 Mifepristone is one of the most studied medications, with overwhelming scientific evidence to support its efficacy and safety. The mifepristone-misoprostol combination treatment is over 99 percent effective and has been widely used successfully for the majority of abortions which typically occur in the first trimester. Relying on legal decisions to undermine the FDA’s authority constructs a harmful narrative to students that medicine, though tested and validated, can be challenged without scientific rationale.150
With mifepristone potentially off the shelves and not even being offered as an option to patients, especially in states where abortion remains legal, medical students will be forced to develop their foundational clinical knowledge based on political interests rather than patient autonomy. And not surprisingly, the restrictions on patient autonomy are most concerning for Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other marginalized communities.146
So after all’s said and done, who wins here?
DISSENT
LETTER FROM
PHYSICIANS:
A Message to our Patients on the Loss of Reproductive Rights
Dear Patients,
We are physicians in the state of Ohio, gravely concerned for the well-being of our citizens, particularly of women and pregnant persons. With the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and the enactment of Ohio House Bill 258/Senate Bill 23 (aka the “heartbeat bill”), it has become painfully clear that women are now losing bodily autonomy, basic human rights, and access to life-saving medical care.
We stand steadfast in our support for the sanctity and privacy of the patient-physician relationship. Withholding treatment until a preventable medical emergency occurs is antithetical to our roles as healthcare workers. We wholeheartedly believe that a woman’s mental health is essential in the discussions regarding medical necessity and emergency; suicide is a leading cause of death amongst women of child-bearing age. A government that takes away the freedom of women to access critical medical care and threatens physicians with criminal penalties for upholding their oath is un-American.
What defines and necessitates abortion is nuanced.
• Women may require abortion in order to undergo life-preserving treatments such as chemotherapy.
• Women may choose to have an abortion to terminate an unviable pregnancy, and to be spared the emotional anguish and physical threat of carrying a fetus that cannot survive outside the womb.
• A woman (including a child or an adolescent minor) may choose to have an abortion after being raped and impregnated.
• A woman may choose to have an abortion simply to protect her future.
No explanation should be required for a choice that allows a woman to enjoy the same status in society as a man: freedom to preserve her health and wellbeing.
The decision to perform an abortion should be left solely to a woman and her physician. Doctors are guided by evidence-based medicine and are bound by our commitment to do no harm. The “heartbeat bill” is an intrusion of government on personal autonomy and will directly lead to oppression, illness, and death of countless women. This will disproportionately affect women of color and individuals without the financial means to seek other options and will perpetuate the cycle of poverty. Anyone who supports this legislation is complicit in the greatest assault on women’s rights in our lifetime.
As physicians of many specialties, we are calling on Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, as well as all elected and appointed government officials in the state of Ohio, to protect the lives of women and persons capable of becoming pregnant. We call on other physicians to uphold their duty to their patients and on our patients to organize for their personal bodily autonomy. We demand that Ohio House Bill 258/Senate Bill 23 be repealed. We ask our elected officials to defend the separation of church and state, to support reproductive autonomy, and to respect our basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
(143) Lauren, R.J., Bilma Scharz, E., Grossman, D. and Greene Foster, D. Self-reported Physical Health of Women Who Did and Did Not Terminate Pregnancy After Seeking Abortion Services https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M18-1666
(144) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: National Center for Health Statistics.
A. Infant Mortality Rates by State https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/infant_mortality_rates/infant_mortality.htm
B. Life Expectancy at Birth by State https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/life_expectancy/life_expectancy.htm
(145) Index mundi: United States - Population percentage without health insurance, under age 65 years by State https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/all-states/population-percentage-withouthealth-insurance-under-65#map
(146) Bushard, Brian. 'Grave Consequences': Medical Journals And Professional Groups Condemn Supreme Court Decision Overturning Roe https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/06/24/grave-consequences-medical-journals-andprofessional-groups-condemn-supreme-court-decision-overturning-roe/?sh=c224a46461de
(147) Davidson, Alexa. Where Nurse Organizations Stand on the Overturning of Roe v. Wade https://nursejournal.org/articles/where-nurse-organizations-stand-on-overturning-of-roe-v-wade/
(148) Carbajal, Erica and Gleeson, Cailey. 16 healthcare responses to Roe v. Wade reversal https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/12-healthcare-responses-to-roe-v-wadereversal.html
(149) Blitchok, Amy. Roe v. Wade Overturned, What it Means for Healthcare https://nurse.org/articles/roe-v-wade-abortion-healthcare-impact/
(150) Jain, Diva and Alexander, Matt. The Ongoing Mifepristone Legal Battle Goes Against Everything We Learn in Medical School
Abortion-ban states pour millions into pregnancy centers with little medical care
Some states use tax credits to encourage donations to the anti-abortion entities
By ANNA CLAIRE VOLLERS
https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/26/abortion-ban-states-pour-millions-into-pregnancy-centers-with-little-medical-care/ Sexual and Reproductive Health Is Fundamental to Achieving Universal Health Coverage
In an environment that is not receptive to an abortion option, a woman, in the unenviable position of having to terminate a pregnancy, is likely to be faced with a variety of scenarios that will likely compromise her life and that of her baby, both in the short and long terms.
Per the Turnaway Study, women denied abortions were more likely to live in poverty, along with their children12, and to have a hard time covering even basic expenses like food and housing152, compared with those able to get their abortions. Not being able to access abortion services curtailed people’s other life goals153 such as getting a higher education154, finding a high-quality romantic relationship and even having intended children later155 under better circumstances.
It is equally important to recognize that anti-abortion advocates, by virtue of their position, typically have no vested interest in the health and welfare of a woman seeking an abortion, but equally important – in light of their stated concern for the fetus - no interest in the fate of an unwanted child post-birth. Again, the result may be negative direct socio-economic impacts on both mother and child as well as related undue pressure on our societal systems (including healthcare, education, social services, law enforcement, penal system, employment) for which we are all paying.
In his article, “The Morality of Abortion: An Ethical Non-Issue156,” Brandon Ray Langston notes:
“Most people who have had abortions cite a lack of financial resources as their primary reason for terminating a pregnancy, meaning a large number of abortions could be prevented by making motherhood affordable. But the same political factions most opposed to abortion are those most opposed to policies that would do this. The high cost of motherhood is a policy choice, and that choice, like the enthusiastic deployment of state violence against Latino kids at the southern border and trans kids born within our borders, is not one which is made by people sincerely concerned with the wellbeing of actual children. The inescapable threads of misogyny and cynical political expediency are woven throughout the fabric of anti-abortion activism. Still, it is important to know just how confused the claims of those activists are, and to ask them why, if their concern is really about the suffering of children, they have taken up such a position at all.”
A world without abortion fails to take the needs and goals of actual women into account.
Even with lavish financial support and who believes that will happen? some women will not want the physical and emotional responsibility of motherhood. And what will happen to children born to women who do not want them and do not want motherhood? Some will be abused and neglected, some abandoned to relatives, and a few possibly murdered. Some may grow up emotionally stunted by living with a distant and resentful mother.
Had the pro-life movement spent as much effort supporting programs and candidates that promote child care, public education, and aiding the poor and disabled, maybe abortion would have been reduced because people would see life as a gift.
But the majority of the movement stands behind regressive, hypocritical policies and candidates. The same pro-life supporters rejoicing at the end of Roe v. Wade are generally just fine with capital punishment and guns at the ready.
Now that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health has been decided, researchers will be able to test whether “pro-lifers” are really pro-life.
Will states that ban abortion really enact more favorable laws to support infants and children from conception through childhood? Will they ensure healthy obstetric care, family leave and quality child care? Will they work to alleviate hunger and strengthen low-income families? Will they invest in public education?
In actual fact, the nature and quality of post-birth care is so much more impactful because of its long-term effects and the pressure it puts on the existing “care” infrastructure, not to mention the potential negative impacts of downstream issues that may result – both for the mother and the child such as education potential, employment potential, need for special healthcare, potential legal issues as well as law enforcement and penal considerations.
WHAT ABOUT FORCING MEN TO PAY CHILD SUPPORT?
When you first start watching Shane Morris's series of TikToks157 protesting child support, you might think, "Oh no, here is another man refusing to do right by the children he brought into the world" but context matters and, in this case, context proves that Morris is actually part of an important fight for women's rights.
Morris went over to his local reproductive healthcare clinic and decided to mess with the people protesting outside of it. He decided that, instead of advocating for pro-life or anti-abortion, he would protest the one thing men in America are forced to do, but never want to.
“She can bring a baby [into] the world if she wants to, but she can’t make me pay for it,” he explains. “It’s not late, I’m just not paying.”
In 2019, Forbes reported that US census statistics showed that more than 30% of child support payments are never paid and less than half are paid in full. Often, this means that primary care-givers are left funding kids alone. This is typically though not always the mother. So, imagine if women who are already at risk of being forced to support children alone are also being forced to become mothers because their reproductive rights are being stripped from them... that would be something worth protesting about for sure! That's where Morris comes in.
He points out the hypocrisy and almost laughable decision to force women into motherhood without forcing fathers to support children. His goal is to get them to realize their own perspective on the subject.
Morris's whole point here, although he’s mocking them by playing the role satirically, is that people shouldn’t be forced to do things they don’t want to do.157
THE GIST OF THE MATTER
Although there are a myriad of reasons women might seek out abortion, often it’s an economic decision. “That is one main reason why people get abortions,” Dorothy Roberts said. “Compelling a woman to give birth only intensifies the financial hardships she and her family were already facing. So all that is going to do now is increase the numbers of families that are unable to meet the needs of their children, which is the main reason why children are taken from their families by the family policing system or so-called child welfare system.”
“[The] system pretends to be caring for children, but what it’s really doing is punishing the most marginalized families as a way of dealing with their problems that are caused by structural inequities and by diverting attention from needed social change. The child welfare system is designed to deal with the problems of impoverished and low-income families.”
- Dorothy Roberts, a sociologist and law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World.
N.B. Many people now see bringing life into this world irresponsible given what a dystopian future seems to await a child born today. The explosive rise of single-parent families is also problematic.
Source:
(151) Greene Foster, D., Raifman, S.E., Gipson, J., Rocca, C. and Biggs, M. Antonia. Effects of Carrying an Unwanted Pregnancy to Term on Women's Existing Children
(153) Ralph, J., Mauldon, J., Biggs, M. Antonia and Greene Foster, D. A Prospective Cohort Study of the Effect of Receiving versus Being Denied an Abortion on Educational Attainment
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S104938671930475X (154) Upadhyay, U.D., Aztlan-James, E.A., Rocca, C. and Greene Foster, D. Intended pregnancy after receiving vs. being denied a wanted abortion
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010782418304335 (155) Langston, Brandon Ray. The Morality of Abortion: An Ethical Non-Issue https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-morality-of-abortion-an-ethical-non-issue-a51ce3b5d4be (156) Serna-Diaz, Isaac. Man Protests Being 'Forced' To Pay Child Support For A Baby He Didn't Want 'We Should Never Force A Man To Do Anything'
https://www.yourtango.com/news/man-protests-being-forced-pay-child-support-baby-he-didnt-want (157) Also see TikToks:
Could we ever find common ethical ground in the matter of abortion?
Not likely. The abortion debate asks whether it can be morally right to terminate a pregnancy before normal childbirth. There are many different opinions on the topic, and people’s views on the morality of abortion can vary widely. Some people believe that abortion is morally permissible, while others believe that it is not. Some think that abortion is right when the mother's life is at risk. Others think that there is a range of circumstances in which abortion is morally acceptable.
But at the end of the day, the primary argument about the permissibility of abortion all comes down to the concept of “personhood” and the “murder” of said “person.”
In fact, the question of whether abortion is ‘murder’ is one of the most divisive issues in America.
On the one hand, it is argued that a fetus is NOT a person and, as such, does not inherently have a right to life. Mary Ann Warren, American writer and philosopher known for her writings on abortion, argues that to be considered a person, you must display the following traits:
• Consciousness: awareness of oneself, the external world, the ability to feel pain
• Reasoning: a developed ability to solve fairly complex problems
• Ability to communicate: on a variety of topics, with some depth
• Self-motivated activity: ability to choose what to do (or not to do) in a way that is not determined by genetics or the environment
• Self-concept
The key point for Warren is that fetuses do not have any of these traits and therefore, are not persons. As such, abortion is morally permissible throughout the entire pregnancy 158
On the other hand, some people believe, as previously noted, that life begins at conception and that abortion is therefore morally wrong. These individuals may argue that the rights guaranteed to all Americans in the Fourteenth Amendment apply to unborn children as well.
As has already been discussed, embryonic personhood raises interesting legal questions, but to claim embryos cannot be murdered because of personhood is sophistry. Indisputably, an embryo does not have decision-making capacity, nor can it ever express opinions and experiences that a court might consider. Therefore, even if we grant legal personhood to the embryo, we need proxies to make these decisions at the very beginning of life, just as we do at the end. Pregnancy is a state of partnership of interests, and in a situation where an embryo cannot articulate its own claims, the other stakeholder in the partnership - the embryo's next of kin - is the logical proxy.167
In the United States, abortion is often framed in broad ethical terms such as life versus death, and privacy versus government intrusion. 159
From a medical ethics standpoint, some doctors focus on autonomy and beneficence in the context of doing good for the patient. This might mean upholding a person’s choice not to proceed with a pregnancy, which can be a risky proposition 159
Our sense of right and wrong goes back a long way. But just to be clear, perhaps it might be helpful to firstly distinguish between “ethics” and “morals”.
Morals is an individual’s, largely intuitive and emotional, sense of how they should treat others; one’s personal standards of good versus bad behavior or right versus wrong.
Ethics, on the other hand, is a formalized set of principles that claim to represent the truth about how people should behave. They represent similar standards of behavior, except they are shared by a group of people or society and enforced through law and customs.
For instance, while almost everyone has a strong moral sense that killing is wrong and that it simply “mustn’t be done”, ethicists have long sought to understand why killing is wrong and under what circumstances (war, capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion) it may still be permissible.164
Morality is a complex concept that can be influenced by a variety of factors. According to Verywell Mind, morality refers to the set of standards that enable people to live cooperatively in groups. These standards are determined by society and can vary between cultures, religions, and geographical regions Personal beliefs can play a role in shaping an individual’s moral code, but morality is also influenced by external factors such as family, community, and life experiences.162
In general, morals are considered guidelines that affect individuals, and ethics are considered guideposts for entire larger groups or communities. Ethics are also more culturally based than morals.163
Which begs the question: Is morality a public or private matter?
On a personal level, morality is often seen as a private matter, as it relates to an individual's own values, beliefs, and sense of right and wrong. It is up to each person to decide what they consider to be moral or ethical, and how they choose to act on those beliefs in their own lives.
However, morality may also be a public matter, especially when it comes to discussions about laws, policies, and social norms. In these contexts, morality may be debated and negotiated in the public sphere, with different groups and individuals expressing their opinions and advocating for their particular moral views.
Ultimately, the line between public and private morality can be blurred, as individual beliefs and actions can have broader societal implications.
BUT, it is a common ethical principle to respect the autonomy and choices of others. It is also important to recognize that while everyone has the right to their own moral beliefs, those beliefs should not be used to harm or infringe upon the rights of others.
What criteria do people use to decide that something is morally wrong?
This is a fundamental question in the psychology of morality. Some psychologists believe that there is single answer to this question—that all moral wrongdoings share a single basic property. If you think that all moral judgments are based on a single criterion, you are a moral monist
Probably the most common form of moral monism is harm-based monism. Harm-based monists think that people see actions as morally wrong when they cause someone harm in the sense of causing pain or suffering.165
A woman’s decision to have an abortion is one such case.
In the matter of abortion, then, one might be faced with a conundrum. Is it morally wrong to harm the mother or the fetus?
What harm is, in fact, being done to the fetus if it is not viable?
Is it morally wrong to put someone in a situation that harms their chance of future success?
In his article, “The Morality of Abortion: An Ethical Non-Issue,” Brandon Ray Langston tries to answer these questions in his attempt to deal with the most popular argument for the immorality of abortion: The Sanctity of Human Life Theory. The UK Essay Experts also attempt to address the issue in their philosophical paper. Abortion: An Ethical Issue, in which they include a teleological perspective which depends solely on consequences.161
This approach to morality and ethics hold that there is no universal basis for determining what is right. The main idea behind it is the principle of Utility. The principle focuses on the consequences of action - intentions are irrelevanttherefore breaking promise, lying, causing pain or killing someone may under certain circumstances be the right action and in other circumstances, wrong action.161
Applying this theory to the topic of abortion, numerous questions arise including: Do I really need a child? Am I ready for a baby? Do I really want to give up all of my time to raise a baby? How might the timing of the decision affect the chances of success for me and my child? Do I have the necessary support, financial and emotional? This theory seems to focus on a very selfish viewpoint of the situation.161 But the theory does not mean that a woman is selfish about her decision to have an abortion.
To be fair, though, I think we must also ask:
Is it morally wrong to “kill” a “baby” that’s not yet a viable being?
Is it morally wrong to get a woman pregnant against her will?
Is it morally wrong to force a woman to have a child she doesn’t want or able to care for?
Is it morally wrong to perform an abortion to save the mother? Or better yet:
How can we best support individuals in making their own moral decisions and stand with them as they struggle with the very real complexities of life?
Whose morals shall rule?
How can one group of people be convinced that abortion is morally wrong, while another sees abortion as a woman’s right to choose?
Why do Republicans tend to favor the death penalty as morally just, while many Democrats find it morally repugnant? And why do we keep fighting about these and other “moral” issues?
Per Joshua Greene, the John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences and director of the Moral Cognitions Lab at Harvard University, the fundamental moral problem is one of cooperation, which is getting a pair or a group of people to do what’s best for the group as opposed to what is best for the individual.166
When you’re facing the moral problems of everyday life, your gut reactions are more likely to be a good guide than rational calculation. But when you’re trying to decide what our policy should be about the death penalty, abortion, international conflicts, global warming—those are not the kinds of problems that our tribal gut reactions were designed to solve. Here we need to step back from our feelings and look at the evidence to figure out what is likely to produce the best results.166
For dealing with real-world problems, Greene offers the following commonsense guidelines:
1. The first rule is that, when it comes to controversial moral issues, you should consult your gut feelings, but you shouldn’t trust them too much. When we have strong emotional disagreements, someone’s gut reactions have to be wrong, and maybe everyone’s are wrong.
An extension of this idea and a more controversial one is that we’re unlikely to settle our disagreements by arguing about rights. We talk about rights to make our gut reactions sound more rational. Whatever we feel, we can posit the existence of a right that corresponds to our feelings. So if I feel that it’s wrong to kill a fetus, I say it has a right to live. If I feel that it’s wrong to tell a woman that she can’t terminate her pregnancy, I say she has a right to choose. We have no procedure for figuring out who has which rights or which rights count more. The alternative approach is to focus instead on costs and benefits, and to focus on evidence concerning costs and benefits.166
2. A second rule: Watch out for what I call “biased fairness.” “Biased fairness” means favoring the version of fairness that suits your selfish interests. Typically, we choose the version of fairness that suits us best.166
3. Another key idea is using common currency. If we’re not going to be talking about rights, because rights are really just dressing up our gut reactions, what’s our common currency? We need a common currency of facts, and we need a common currency of values. The currency of facts is science, broadly construed the search for observable replicable evidence. Science is our common ground.166
When it comes to values, that’s really where deep pragmatism comes in. Believe what you want, value what you want, but the only way we can systematically make trade-offs, I think, is to appeal to consequences, giving equal weight to everyone’s interests (which means considering the greater societal consequences of abortion).
How can we disengage and reflect when faced with moral dilemmas?
Greene posits that what we need is what he calls a “meta-morality.” A morality is what allows the individuals within a group to get along, to turn a bunch of separate “Me”s into an “Us”. A meta-morality, then, performs the same function at a higher level, allowing groups to get along. A meta-morality adjudicates among competing moral systems, just as a first-order moral system adjudicates among competing individuals.
The meta-morality that Greene favors has historically been known as “utilitarianism” which boils down to this:
Maximize happiness impartially. Try to make life as happy as possible overall, giving equal weight to everyone’s happiness.166
Easier said than done, for sure.
But let’s keep in mind that abortion is, first and foremost, a very personal issue that will greatly affect the rest of a person’s life and, as such, requires the careful consideration of an individual’s unique circumstances, beliefs and values, not to mention their medical and socioeconomic context.
While people of all religions anguish over abortion, most feel this is a moral decision, one a woman must make for herself in keeping with her faith, beliefs, conscience, and her own personal situation. And while other people may have their own moral beliefs about abortion, those beliefs should not necessarily dictate what someone else does with their own body.
That said,
if you don’t believe it’s ethical, don’t do it. Leave others to make their own excruciatingly difficult personal decision.
N.B. In the matter of the ethics of abortion, the jury is still out. There is, as yet, no consensus.
“Anti-abortion agitators often use sonogram images to push the fiction that women are merely incubators for a self-sufficient process—that pregnancies happen in women and are connected to them by only temporary, inconvenient placement; that a zygote, then embryo, then fetus, is in some sense independent, complete from the moment sperm meets egg, or built by God alone.”
- Charlotte Shane
From The Right to Not Be Pregnant
“I think the moral issue is whether you want to force your religious beliefs on another person in a country where religious freedom is a right."
- Nicole Klungle
From Archdiocese of Cincinnati doubles down on Issue 1 position with signs, homilies
Source:
(158) Austin, Michael W. Ethics and Abortion. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ethics-everyone/201906/ethics-and-abortion (159) Powell, Alvin. How a bioethicist and doctor sees abortion. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/05/how-a-bioethicist-and-doctor-sees-abortion/ (160) The Pluralism Project, Harvard University. The Ethics of Abortion https://pluralism.org/the-ethics-of-abortion
(161) UK Essay Experts. Abortion: An Ethical Issue. https://www.ukessays.com/essays/philosophy/abortion-an-ethical-issue-philosophy-essay.php (162) Morin, Amy. What is Morality?
Morality is the behavior and beliefs that a society deems acceptable https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-morality-5076160 (163) Loggins, Brittany. The Difference between Morals and Ethics https://www.verywellmind.com/morality-vs-ethics-what-s-the-difference-5195271 (164) Beard, S.J. Deep Ethics: The long-term quest to decide right from wrong – BBC https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190617-deep-ethics-the-long-term-quest-to-decide-right-fromwrong (165) Piazza, Jared and Sousa, Paulo. What makes People Think an Action is Morally Wrong?
https://spsp.org/news-center/character-context-blog/what-makes-people-think-action-morally-wrong (166) Suttie, Jill. How to Close the Gap Between Us and Them: A Q&A with Moral Tribes author Joshua Greene about emotion, reason, and conflict.
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_close_the_gap_between_us_and_them (167) Zivot, Joel. Abortion Is Not Murder in the Eyes of the Law https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/unchartedterritory/103731
Learn more:
Ethics Guide: Introduction to the abortion debate https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/philosophical/introduction.shtml
The Morality of Abortion: An Ethical Non-Issue
By BRANDON RAY LANGSTON
https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-morality-of-abortion-an-ethical-non-issue-a51ce3b5d4be AMERICA’S ABORTION QUANDARY: Social and moral considerations on abortion PEW RESEARCH CENTER
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/social-and-moral-considerations-on-abortion/ Abortion Is Not Murder
FOR 30 YEARS, I held an uncompromising conviction that abortion was murder. I preached against “child-killing,” suffered multiple arrests for blockading clinics, and had pro-choice groups successfully sue me.
I led a national anti-abortion organization and directed the only large-scale annual pro-life event held in the U.S. Capitol. I personally appealed to Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Today, I no longer have these positions, and I did not applaud the recent reversal of Roe. I remain an evangelical by belief, but I now call myself a “pro-choice pro-lifer.” I have concluded that legislators and judges are not the people to try to resolve this complex, moral, social, and health-related question. Even among religions, there is no consensus on what constitutes permissible or impermissible abortion. Moreover, each woman’s experience with pregnancy is unique. Therefore, there can be no universal mandate forcing her to continue her pregnancy. My transformation from an absolute to a nuanced position on abortion proceeded slowly and fitfully. Many exasperated old pro-life movement friends ask, “Whatever happened to you?”
The short answer: empathetic listening. There came a moment when I realized I was doing all the talking and no listening on this subject. For nearly three decades, I had lived isolated in a fantasy where I presumed everything would work how it was supposed to, so I questioned nothing.
In this fictitious pro-life world, all a woman in an unwelcomed pregnancy needed was to call out for help. In response, pro-life people would instantly help her, offering free housing, parenting supplies, medical care, babysitting, and, should she so choose, adoption. “With so much support,” I asked my audiences rhetorically, “why would anyone choose abortion?”
“I really want to talk about murdering babies. Actual babies, and children. Living breathing walking talking children who died directly at the hands of the Church. I want to talk about the blood of innocent children on YOUR hands.”
The writer questions the real moral authority of the church given some dubious history.
2.6 Abortion is a RELIGIOUS issue
Certainly. BUT…
In my view, religious considerations are no different than moral considerations. It’s personal. So we can ask the same question: Is religion a public or private matter?
Surprisingly, whether religion is a public or private matter continues to be a topic of debate and can depend on various factors such as cultural norms, legal frameworks, and individual beliefs.
In some cultures and societies, religion is considered a private matter, and individuals are free to practice their faith in their personal lives without interference from others. In these contexts, the government may not have a role in promoting or regulating religion, and individuals may not be expected to discuss their religious beliefs in public settings.
On the other hand, in some cultures and societies, religion may be considered a public matter, and religious beliefs may play a significant role in shaping public policy, social norms, and cultural values. In these contexts, the government may have a role in promoting or regulating religion, and individuals may be expected to discuss their religious beliefs in public settings.C
As such, the notion of abortion may be a religious matter for some and not for others. Regardless, the real problems start when the belief system of one is imposed on another against their will.
It’s important to respect an individual's right to practice their religion (or not) in their personal lives, while also recognizing the importance of promoting religious freedom and tolerance in the public sphere. This means that individuals should be free to express their religious beliefs in public settings, but should also be respectful of the beliefs of others and not seek to impose their beliefs on them. Additionally, governments should strive to promote religious freedom and tolerance, while also ensuring that no one is discriminated against on the basis of their religious beliefs. This concept, sadly, is not universally shared.
Basically, though:
1. Religion is a personal belief system – shaped by dogma – which people are free to follow unless and until it does harm to others. If it works for you great, but it should not be imposed on others, nor be used as a tool to control, condemn or harm others.
2. Religion is not a legal system, nor a universal directive or edict to be imposed on others.
3. Religion is used as a power system by some, another vehicle employed to sway followers with the threat of penalty (such as shame, excommunication, hell, and possibly death).
4. Religion is not a legislative system. Ideally, government and religion should be kept separate. In Canada and the U.S., we note this to be the case (per their Constitutions), though in practice there continues to be overlap which I believe causes more problems than it solves. In fact, in the U.S., we are currently seeing the overlap of the legislative, legal and religious systems.
C In fact, many immigrants come to Canada and the U S to escape the religious oppression - often state-sanctioned - found in their home countries.
As in any belief system, tolerance and respect are the order of the day. Anything else breeds conflict or worse.
To my way of thinking, abortion, not unlike religion, is first and foremost a personal and private matter. In the case of abortion, it is one that requires the best decision based on personal beliefs and values, not to mention personal medical and socioeconomic contexts. While other people may have their own religious beliefs about abortion, it becomes problematic when those beliefs dictate what someone else does with their body.
If you subscribe to a religion that does not believe it’s an ethical choice, don’t do it. Be respectful. Leave others to make their own decisions.
In the Western world, we are told that we “should not mix religion and politics.” This saying has a powerful truth: that when religion is used for political purposes, it empties religion of its eternal meaning and becomes just one more cynical method of acquiring power. Separation of church and state is too important a concept to be misused especially not as a tool for silencing opposing views.168
God has no place in the legislature of the nation. God’s will is of no concern to the legislature.
As such, religion, at least here in Canada and the U.S., is not – and should not – be the arbiter of our laws, though it may be the arbiter of personal conduct.
Freedom of religion or belief is a universal human right. In Canada, it is enshrined in both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, among other key human rights documents.
Discrimination against religious and belief communities, as with all forms of discrimination, causes suffering, spreads division, and contributes to a climate of fear, intolerance, and stigmatization.169 Discrimination against those who don’t believe as you do does the same. We might do well to keep this in mind and act accordingly.
Source:
(168) Lankford, James and Moore, Russell. The Real Meaning of the Separation of Church and State https://time.com/5103677/church-state-separation-religious-freedom/ (169) Government of Canada. Freedom of religion or belief. https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/human_rightsdroits_homme/freedom_religion-liberte_religion.aspx?lang=eng
Unquestionably, religion can affect choice when it comes to abortion. In fact, both religion and abortion suffer from the same problem – the imposition of personal belief on others.
Proceeding from a long-held position of profound respect for both reproductive rights and religious liberty, the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project has developed and offers in this report a framework for reconciling the competing interests involved when religious belief affects decision-making about reproductive health care. It seeks two ends:
1. avoiding impositions on people who do not share the beliefs that motivate the refusal, and 2. protecting the religious practices of insular, sectarian institutions while insisting on compliance with general rules in the public, secular world.
The proposed framework is both informed by and informs their work in diverse settings – from the public arena to the legislatures to the courts – as they take positions on religious refusals in the reproductive health context.
Religious freedom is both a bedrock principle of American democracy and, lately, a powerful weapon in the hands of the right. Although the Constitution forbids the establishment of any state religion, a persistent faction imagines a Christian nation anyway, and it is close to achieving its goal. Last year, the Supreme Court handed it a major victory with Dobbs and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Though legal arguments against abortion are typically couched in secular language, scratch lightly and a religious rationale appears.
The war on abortion is not only deeply religious but Christian, and a specific strain of Christianity at that. Not all religious traditions prohibit abortion on moral grounds, and to many people of faith, abortion bans infringe upon their own right to religious liberty.
Now some religious groups are taking that argument to court.
The New York Times reported in June 2023 that members of various religious groups, including some Christian and Jewish organizations, have filed around 15 lawsuits in eight states to challenge abortion restrictions. In doing so, they’re taking far-right arguments that have expanded religious liberty at the expense of minority groups and turned those arguments inside out. “The suits, some seeking exemptions and others seeking to overturn the bans, often invoke state religious-freedom restoration acts enacted and used by conservatives in some battles over social issues,” the Times explained.
In response to the suits, states like Indiana have argued that they have “a compelling interest” to ban abortion (What, pray tell, might that be?) and suggested the plaintiffs practice abstinence or use contraception, including IUDs. This is disingenuous to say the least.
1. It completely disregards the reality that women will always need abortions, for medical reasons or because they simply do not want to be pregnant and while certain religious traditions may frown on the latter reason, others fully embrace a woman’s right to choose how, when, and if she bears children.
2. Some anti-abortion activists falsely consider IUDs to be abortifacients (a drug that induces abortion), and legal experts have feared that birth control restrictions could follow abortion bans (which seems to me to be only adding to the problem).
The Constitution does protect religious beliefs; a person can live according to their interpretation of the Bible and the teachings of their church and reject abortion as an option for themselves.
But the anti-abortion movement was never satisfied with this personal expression of religious liberty, nor could it be, given its conviction that abortion murders babies. Its religious underpinnings pushed the movement toward an exclusionary definition of religious freedom, in which its beliefs must triumph over others. Remarkably, the courts have privileged such a view. With Dobbs, the Supreme Court has allowed states to restrict abortion in accordance with the religious views of lawmakers, no matter the damage to women with differing views.
But let’s be clear. Abortion bans not only harm women – not to mention, their unwanted children – in a variety of ways, but they also harm democracy:
1. They relegate women to second-class citizenship.
2. They elevate one religious view at the expense of others. Neither outcome is compatible with a pluralistic and free society.
The below article shows how religious beliefs can impact decisions, cloud understanding and even overlook empathy.
What Gen Z Gets Right and Wrong in the Abortion Debate
By CHLOE BELK https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/gen-z-abortion/
My generation, Gen Z, is known for its social consciousness. We’ve been born and bred to care deeply about the environment, equality, and each other. Gen Z came of age during the COVID19 pandemic, and we’re acutely aware of how difficult life can be, not just for ourselves but for those we may never meet. Through social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, we’re exposed to more people’s stories than ever before.
Enter the abortion issue. It’s no secret the abortion debate is central to the social landscape of our generation.
During high school, I saw some friends attend the Women’s March and others attend the March for Life. During college, I had dorm-room-floor conversations with friends who advocated for a woman’s right to choose, and during my graduate degree, I saw Roe overturned. I’ve shed tears while learning about the realities and results of abortion even while choosing to carefully listen to friends who disagree with me.
Mantras like “My body, my choice” reflect pro-choice Americans’ value of individual freedom and autonomy. Those of us with a biblically informed worldview may see a blatant rejection of the sanctity of human life. But in the mind of the pro-choice advocate, this isn’t a denial of a child’s life so much as a conscious decision to support the person with whom she can most empathize—a person in the middle of a story much like her own.
Gen Zers talk a lot about “empathy,” a sense of identifying with another person that moves beyond sympathy and into understanding his or her unique experiences. As the abortion debate makes clear, empathy is a great strength but has its limitations.
Gen Z’s Need for Empathy
Gen Z is the most diverse generation in American history, and that reality requires we work hard at understanding one another. Gen Zers want to understand where others are coming from, and when we can’t, many choose to trust others’ perspectives and validate their experiences. This rationale stands behind much pro-choice advocacy. It says, “I don’t know what life circumstances would lead a woman to choose abortion, but that’s not for me to dictate.”
But the pro-choice rationale isn’t the only conclusion people can reach through empathy. When I finished my undergraduate degree, I interned at a pregnancy resource center, The Pregnancy Network, in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Learning about the difficult circumstances women with unplanned pregnancies face brought me back to the same core value my generation shares: empathy.
• Empathy for the abortion-minded woman.
• Empathy for the undecided woman.
• Empathy for the woman experiencing housing insecurity.
• Empathy for the woman facing financial difficulties.
• Empathy for the woman with little support for her pregnancy.
• Empathy for the woman in an unhealthy relationship. With empathy, I can seek to understand the women who come to our center for help. With empathy, I’m led toward compassion and practical care.
Empathy’s Limits
But empathy alone can’t sustain hurting women, lead them with truth, or offer the fullness of life that the Savior can. The Christian gospel provides more than empathy alone.
Empathy is subjective; it can bring comfort but not truth. Jesus came to bring both. As John wrote, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
When we discuss abortion, we must do so with a heart posture informed by and saturated in the grace and truth of the gospel. The message of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection humbles us, leading us to turn from our self-righteousness (1 Cor. 1:29–31). It’s transformed my heart, opening me to compassion for others whose sin is different from mine.
COMMENT
What?? What happened to the author’s empathy she learned at The Pregnancy Network? It seems to have suddenly vanished and been replaced by religious fervor. Let’s be clear. When we discuss abortion, we must do so with a heart posture informed, first and foremost, by an understanding of personal circumstance.
For the record, empathy is a concept that is often encouraged and valued across various religious teachings. While not exclusive to any one religion, empathy is seen as a virtue that promotes understanding and compassion among individuals. Many religious texts and traditions emphasize the importance of putting oneself in another’s shoes and treating others with kindness and consideration.
For instance, in Christianity, the Bible speaks about empathy in terms of having compassion for one another, loving as brothers, being tender-hearted, and courteous. Similarly, other religions also teach the importance of understanding and sharing the feelings of others as a way to foster better relationships and communities.
In the broader context of religious studies, empathy is considered an important quality for engaging with diverse perspectives and experiences. It is seen as a tool for better understanding the beliefs, practices, and values of different religious traditions
The gospel rescues us from sin and the punishment due for sin (Rom. 6:23). It empowers us to love differently from the world (12:9–21), leading people toward righteousness and away from sin. The best I can offer women facing unplanned pregnancies is the hope found in Christ and tangible resources that will equip them to follow him in the journey of pregnancy and parenthood.
COMMENT
If you believe that abortion is a sin rather than an option to change the course of one’s life for the better, go with that. But the imposition of scripture or personal belief on others in whose life you have no stake is presumptuous to say the least.
From Empathy to Hope
I’ve come to believe that women deserve better than abortion, and I’m not alone. More and more, I see Gen Zers stepping into the front lines of pregnancy care. I’ve seen them serving women with compassion and love.
At The Pregnancy Network (where I serve), we offer women free medical services, educational classes, and material and community resources, as well as an opportunity to find community and mentorship. We offer women a chance to hear the gospel at every appointment.
COMMENT
Indeed, there are some who offer true support for women in need, but there are many who don’t. The inconsistency and lack of available support often leads to harmful outcomes, typically not remedied by gospel.
Informed by empathy and motivated by the same gospel that saved us, we can both meet women where they are and point them to the One who will ultimately supply their every need according to his riches in glory (Phil. 4:19). We can offer them hope and a future (Jer. 29:11), remembering the One who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9). The grace and truth offered to us in Christ enable us to move through empathy and into Christian love.
COMMENT
The belief that “the One…will supply their every need” and is the solution to the difficult circumstance a woman might find herself in is an example of blind faith. And while blind faith may be the answer for some, it cannot, by definition, be imposed on others.
Some people may find solace and meaning in believing without questioning, but this is a personal choice that cannot be forced on anyone else. By its very nature, blind faith is a subjective and individual experience that does not require or accept evidence or logic. Therefore, it is not a valid basis for making decisions or judgments that affect other people who may have different views or beliefs – and, more importantly, more difficult real-life experiences requiring more difficult reallife decisions. Blind faith can be a source of comfort and hope for some, but it can also be a source of conflict and oppression for others.
Dobbs, abolition and women's right to bodily integrity
In my days in the Right to Life Party in the 1980s, I had no doubt that the post-Roe v. Wade Catholic effort to pass laws in the United States prohibiting abortion was the modern equivalent of the 19th-century abolitionist drive to end slavery.
Now, in a post-Dobbs world, I find the comparison flawed and a reminder of how my mind has changed on law and abortion.
Today, I think the post-Roe Catholic effort to pass laws focused on the dignity of the unborn faltered in its engagement with the reality of pregnant women. Today, I also find it disingenuous to compare the Catholic campaign against abortion to abolition, since Catholics in the 19th century in the U.S. by and large supported slavery and opposed abolition.
Moreover, instead of the easy certainty of my past, a hard question lingers today: Is a similar conceptual problem — the neglect of the right to bodily integrity — that was partially complicit in the failure of American Catholicism to oppose slavery in the 19th century also now at work in the refusal of American Catholic leadership to acknowledge the injustice of using coercive law to compel women to give birth no matter the circumstances of their pregnancy?
I am referring to the way that American Catholic arguments about slavery and abortion had then and have now little to no place for the right to bodily integrity. The encyclical Pacem in Terris in 1963 affirmed this as an essential human right.
The U.S. Supreme Court's jurisprudence noted in the late 19th century:
"No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded ... than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person." The dissent in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that was decided June 24, 2022, described the right to mean: "Everyone, including women, owns their own bodies."
To be sure, the 19th-century American Catholic failure to oppose slavery had numerous causes, such as racism, fear over competition for jobs, and the anti-Catholicism of many abolitionists. But historian John McGreevy in Catholicism and American Freedom has also shown how any possible Catholic moral concern for the violent, physical bondage of enslaved persons was displaced by a moralizing fear of abolition as liberal freedom run amok.
We can see in Catholic writing on abortion an analogous diminishment of the moral significance of the physical, bodily constraint of women that is necessarily an aspect of the use of law to restrict abortion.
In a post-Dobbs talk on the issues of slavery and abortion, Vice President Kamala Harris said that the United States has a regrettable history of "claiming ownership over human bodies."
Carl Olson responded in Catholic World Report not by directly engaging Harris' claim but instead, as Catholics responded to slavery in the 19th century, by seeing in her argument about ownership a transparent excuse to abort consistent with 21st-century liberalism run amok.
In my own case, two reasons have kept me from engaging the right to bodily integrity in the context of law and abortion. One is the obvious moral urgency of abortion. But it's also the case that moral urgency can obscure moral complexity especially in the context of law. Thus, the rightful focus on the fetus became for me the exclusive focus on the fetus blocking out any competing moral concerns other than compassion for pregnant women.
Theologian Kathleen Bonnette has articulated another reason: the way that Catholic thought has emphasized the sacrificial, maternal nature of women's bodies. Given such a presumed nature, self-sacrifice seems contrary to the idea of self-possession implicit in the concept of owning one's body. Moreover, given a presumed self-sacrificial nature, a woman's embodied burdens of pregnancy however extreme they may be can seem like the inevitable price to pay for the vocation of giving birth.
But it is a failure of moral truth not to recognize the injustice of using coercive law to compel women to give birth no matter the circumstances of their pregnancy. Catholicism failed fully to recognize the bodies of enslaved persons in the 19th century.
In the post-Dobbs world, we are failing fully to recognize pregnant women's bodies not simply as objects of compassion but as dignified subjects of justice.
See also The Anti-Abortion Movement Is in Crisis Communications Mode
By TARA MURTHA and JENIFER MCKENNA
Anti-abortion lawmakers and right-to-lifers are making crisis pregnancy centers a priority in 2024 messaging.
Americans should not have to live in fear of their judiciary. They should not have to wake up each day wondering whether their rights have been erased overnight by a secretive cabal of right-wing judges operating outside norms of accountability, who take their position as a license to impose their reactionary beliefs upon the society that elevated them.
Least of all should Americans be compelled to submit to arbitrary, religious-based edicts hatched out of the warped and subjective thought processes of those same judges. That is a direct path to the corruption of the American judicial system.
The appalling decision in mid-February 2024 by the Alabama Supreme Court to characterize tiny amalgamations of frozen cells stored in metal canisters as “unborn children,” lovingly tended in a “cryogenic nursery,” is possibly the most extreme, repugnant example of “conservative” judicial doctrine to date. It is not, however, unique. The Alabama court found validation for its decision in the same reactionary characterizations made by Justice Samuel Alito in his Dobbs opinion overruling Roe v. Wade, written less than two years ago. In fact, the court cited Dobbs no less than 15 times in fashioning its ruling, one which now essentially stands for the proposition that a fetal embryo which can consist of as few as 2-4 cells enjoys the same rights (and thus the same legal status and privileges) afforded to actual, living human beings.
As Ruth Marcus, writing for The Washington Post, puts it: “Welcome to the theocracy.”
Marcus focuses on the opinion of Alabama’s Chief Justice Tom Parker, a forced-birth proponent and evangelical Christian proselytizer whose homophobic and white supremacist sympathies are well-established. Parker’s writings, in fact, have been described as forming the “blueprint” for overruling Roe v. Wade. (As Marcus notes, Parker described Roe as a “constitutional aberration,” a sentiment echoed by Alito in Dobbs.)
As Marcus explains:
Especially read the concurring opinion of Chief Justice Tom Parker on the meaning of the Alabama Constitution, which declares that “it is the public policy of this state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life.” Parker cites Genesis (man is created “in the image of God”), the prophet Jeremiah (“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you”), Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and other Christian thinkers to support his view that the state constitution adopts a “theologically based view of the sanctity of life.”
As Marcus notes, Parker’s concurrence is replete with similar paeans to his personal religious sensibilities. He straightforwardly cites the biblical Books of Genesis and Exodus in reasoning that these cellular embryos cryogenically preserved for potential in vitro implantation (he calls them “little people” at one point) must be subject to the state’s 1872 Wrongful Death to Minors Act. This law subjects facilities that may have improperly stored the cells to liability for causing the deaths of “extrauterine children.”
Parker’s concurrence does not carry the same weight as the court’s full opinion, but as Marcus notes, it doesn’t need to. The court’s majority wholly adopted Parker’s framing:
The ruling went off the rails from the start as Justice Jay Mitchell wrote: “All parties to these cases, like all members of this Court, agree that an unborn child is a genetically unique human being whose life begins at fertilization and ends at death.”
That single statement that all parties “agreed” to such framing shows just how pervasive and insidious the forced-birther position has become in red states, particularly in the wake of Dobbs.
As Marcus points out, the reality—which goes unacknowledged by the Alabama court—is that there is no such consensus (legal or otherwise) on when “personhood” or even “life” begins, either in 1872 or today.
The court relied on the fact that it had previously ruled its Wrongful Death to Minors statute applied to “unborn children,” regardless of viability. That ruling stemmed, in turn, from the Alabama Legislature’s amendment to the Fetal Homicide Act in 2006, specifying that the Act would apply to and include “an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability.”
But the majority opinion relies on more than simply the “agreement” of the parties about the nature of “life” in that particular case. Why, it’s just common sense, after all!
From the court’s majority opinion:
The upshot here is that the phrase "minor child" means the same thing in the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act as it does in everyday parlance: "an unborn or recently born" individual member of the human species, from fertilization until the age of majority.
See Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 214 (11th ed. 2020) (defining "child"); accord Noah Webster et al., An American Dictionary of the English Language 198 (defining "child").
Nothing about the Act narrows that definition to unborn children who are physically "in utero." Instead, the Act provides a cause of action for the death of any "minor child," without exception or limitation.
Marcus observes that the immediate (and drastic) impact of the Alabama decision will likely be the end of in vitro treatment in the state.
After all, “The costs of exposure to civil lawsuits would be enormous, and although Alabama’s criminal homicide law refers only to the ‘unborn child in utero’ who knows what could happen in terms of criminal prosecution?”
But the decision’s long-term impact, Marcus notes, is “equally sinister”:
The longer-term danger—indeed the apparent longer-term goal—is to raise and expand the definition of unborn personhood, to go after birth control methods and reproductive technologies that involve fertilized eggs. Will fertility clinics be permitted to dispose of unused frozen embryos? Could states prohibit in vitro fertilization altogether?
Will IUDs, birth control pills or the morning-after pill be banned?
The answer of course, is that Republican state legislators, eager to please their white evangelical constituents, will craft similar legislation in other states they control (to the extent they have not already done so). Then the forced-birth lobby will swiftly follow by bringing lawsuits in front of receptive, Republican-appointed judges just like the ones in Alabama.
As Marcus observes, that is how forced-birthers intend to establish their theocracy. If such rights and privileges are established for a cellular mass of frozen cells, then anything or anyone who interferes with its God-ordained development can then be subjected to civil (and possibly criminal) liability.
That is the endgame of “fetal personhood,” an idea carefully nurtured by Republicans in their legislation and state constitutional amendments (such as Alabama’s), purporting to stand for the “sanctity” of the “unborn.”
Their ultimate goal is, and has always been, a nation in which all women and anyone who might become pregnant is forced to carry their fetus to term, no matter what stage of pregnancy. A nation in which any person who assists them in preventing or terminating that pregnancy will find themselves targeted by the crosshairs of the law.
As observed by Sarah Posner, reporting for MSNBC, the Alabama decision “represents the culmination of a movement to enshrine into law the unscientific and purely religious claim that life begins when a sperm fertilizes an egg, supplanting secular laws with supposedly “biblical beliefs.”
And it’s already having an impact: a large Alabama hospital has already paused its in vitro treatments to weigh the impact of the ruling, the AP reports.
And as Posner notes, its implications for the 2024 presidential election are equally clear:
This theocratic dystopia is not an outlier, confined to a single state, but rather a roadmap should Donald Trump return to the White House. Recent reporting in Politico and The New York Times exposes further expansions of plans by Trump allies to Christianize the federal government, including the restriction and even criminalization of abortion.
Posner points out that the biblical language employed by Alabama Justice Parker is identical to the “Christian nationalist” views espoused by Trump’s key advisers, who intend to pursue similar theocratic policies in a renewed Trump administration:
Should Trump win in 2024, those staffing his administration will deploy the same philosophy for the same brutal outcomes. Politico reports that the Center for Renewing America, a think tank run by Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, has developed a draft document that includes “Christian nationalism” as an explicit goal of a second Trump term. Vought is a key adviser to Project 2025, the plan released by a coalition of right-wing groups that, among other initiatives, proposes sweeping anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ policies.
In a 2021 essay, Vought embraced the term “Christian nationalism” as “An orientation for engaging in the public square that recognizes America as a Christian nation, where our rights and duties are understood to come from God.”
COMMENT
For the first time, a frozen embryo - an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development, in particular a human offspring during the period from approximately the second to the eighth week after fertilization (after which it is usually termed a fetus) - has been recognized by the law as a person with rights. This decision by the Alabama Supreme Court is a huge victory for anti-abortion groups, who have long sought to pass fetal personhood laws. This time, by declaring not just a fetus but a fertilized egg in a lab the equivalent of an “unborn child,” the courts have done them one better. If this keeps up, anti-abortion groups may succeed at outlawing both abortion and in vitro fertilization, or IVF.
What is most frightening in all of this is that there are a bunch of Supreme Court judges who are under the impression that America is a theocracy and that you can actually make rulings that are substantiated by the Bible, claiming that the law recognizes “that even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”
Further, Chief Justice Tom Parker suggested that divine law — which, he claimed, had been embraced by the people of Alabama supported the court’s conclusion. “Human life,” he stressed, “cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”
For the love of God!
Rulings such as this beg a whole host of questions, not the least of which is, what happened to the separation of church and state? Who deemed America a Christian nation? How does it accommodate other religions and beliefs? If America is “one nation under God”, who’s God is it and how is it united and guided by this divine presence? FYI, Jewish doctrine for example, holds that life doesn’t begin until a child takes its first breath — clashing with the state’s assertion that life begins at conception, and that Judaism permits, and in some cases requires, an abortion when there are pregnancy complications.
By the way, the U.S. Constitution does not establish Christianity or any other religion as the official religion of the United States. It explicitly prohibits any law that respects an establishment of religion or impedes the free exercise of religion. This is outlined in the First Amendment and Article VI of the Constitution.
If America cannot follow and enforce its own Constitution in the highest courts in the land, where do we go from here?
This, I would submit, is an example of a court’s brazen overstepping of their authority and the complete disregard of accepted jurisprudence.
Rulings like this put religion – a belief system – ahead of science. Rulings like this put religion ahead of the Constitution.
Rulings like this clearly show the chaos that can be created by the unconscionable overturning of Roe v Wade and the resultant diverting of reproductive decisions to 50 States.
And to what end? So we can force the birth of unwanted or unhealthy children on unprepared or unwilling mothers or, worse yet, put a woman’s health at risk?
For those religious folk, that’s real wrath!
Alabama Supreme Court Rules Embryos Are “Children” by Citing
Bible Passages
“Unborn children are ‘children,'” the Alabama Supreme Court said in its ruling.
By CHRIS WALKER https://truthout.org/articles/alabama-supreme-court-rules-embryos-are-children-by-citing-bible-passages/
In February 2024, the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be given the same legal rights as children.
The ruling furthers the errant “personhood” movement that purports fertilized eggs are human beings, an argument which has been used to promote anti-abortion laws across the country. At least 11 states have passed laws defining personhood as beginning at fertilization.
COMMENT
The Alabama Supreme Court decision partly hinged on anti-abortion language added to the Alabama Constitution in 2018, stating it is the “policy of this state to ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child.” Supporters at the time said it would have no impact unless states gained more control over abortion access.
Guess what: States gained control of abortion access in 2022.
The case focused on a specific incident at an in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic in Mobile, Alabama, where a patient made an unauthorized entrance into a room where frozen embryos were being stored. The patient ended up destroying a number of embryos, resulting in a wrongful death lawsuit against the clinic from a couple whose embryos were affected.
A lower court ruled that the wrongful death lawsuit couldn’t proceed as the embryos weren’t people. However, all but one of the justices on the state Supreme Court disagreed, stating in their ruling that the lawsuit could move forward.
The court ruled that “unborn children are ‘children,'” giving embryos the same legal protections afforded to babies and other children under state law.
The court cited a 2018 state ballot initiative in which Alabama voters granted personhood rights to unborn fetuses. After a ruling by the US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned abortion protections that were established in 1973 by Roe v. Wade, Alabama’s amendment to its constitution took effect.
But it wasn’t until February 2024 that the state Supreme Court applied the amendment to IVF centers, a move that critics say will make things more difficult for Alabamans struggling with fertility. IVF works by manually fertilizing eggs with sperm in a lab. A fertilized egg is then placed in the uterus, with the remaining eggs slated for disposal after impregnation. With this latest ruling, the precedent is now set to allow a lawsuit to ban or curtail IVF treatments entirely.
“We’re going to have a situation where people being able to get care for their infertility is going to be so much harder in Alabama, and not because we’re putting more protections in place, because the way the court has decided the status of a fertilized egg,” said Barbara Collura, CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, speaking to the Alabama Reflector.
Notably, in a concurring opinion with the court’s majority, Chief Justice Tom Parker cited the Bible, a move that is in clear violation of the separation of church and state.
“The theologically based view of the sanctity of life adopted by the People of Alabama” through the 2018 ballot initiative encompasses the belief that “God made every person in His image,” Parker wrote in one passage.
COMMENT
Not surprisingly, the Chief Justice’s comments have led to debates about the influence of religious texts on legal decisions and whether this could set a precedent for other conservative states.
“We believe that each human being, from the moment of conception, is made in the image of God, created by Him to reflect His likeness,” Parker added in another.
COMMENT
When did the Bible become a legal document?
Clearly, some of the highest courts in America have not succeeded in separating church from state.
Not surprisingly, critics lambasted the chief justice’s statements and the court’s overall judgment.
“This is not pro-life. This is not helping people have families. This is about reproductive control and a political agenda,” said fertility doctor and social media personality Natalie Crawford
Meanwhile, the White House said the fallout from the ruling is “exactly the type of chaos that we expected when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for politicians to dictate some of the most personal decisions families can make.”
In “In unprecedented decision, Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled frozen embryos are children. It could have chilling effects on IVF, critics say” by
CHRISTINA MAXOURIS,
Dana Sussman, the deputy executive director of legal advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, noted:
“This is part of a long and strategic march towards entrenching this ideology of fetal personhood, that is at the heart of controlling pregnant people, their decisions and their birth outcomes.”
COMMENT
The ruling illustrates how the overturning of Roe v. Wade can subsume other areas of reproductive health, by, among other things, giving states final say over such questions as what defines a person and using religious texts to establish jurisprudence.
The Bible does not provide a singular definition of personhood, though it does offer various perspectives on the value and dignity of human life. The concept of personhood in the Bible is often linked to being made in the image of God (imago Dei) and having inherent worth and dignity. However, interpretations of these biblical principles can vary widely among different communities and individuals.
It’s important to note that the legal definition of personhood can differ from religious or philosophical definitions, and the intersection of law, religion, and personal beliefs often leads to complex and nuanced discussions.
The Alabama ruling reflects one of the many ways in which these discussions can manifest in legal decisions. But the question remains, what place should religion take in the courtrooms of America?
The Holy Post Podcast Reveals the Christian Blind-Spot on Abortion
Reproductive Rights, Age of Viability, and Pro-Choice Christianity
Within the pro-life movement, a small but loud minority wants to outlaw all abortion without any exceptions. They also want to jail women who attempt or complete an abortion. These “prolife absolutists” about 8% of the U.S. adult population disturb the rest of the pro-life movement.
The pro-life movement agrees on two things:
• Life begins at conception.
• Abortion is murder.
But the large majority of pro-lifers endorse the following exceptions to abortion bans:
• Situations in which the mother’s life or health may be at risk.
• Cases of rape or incest.
And most pro-lifers do not want to investigate and prosecute women who seek or obtain abortions.
If life begins at conception, the “pro-life absolutists” argue, then the health of the mother does not outweigh the health of a fertilized egg at any stage of its development. There cannot be any exceptions for a woman’s health, or for cases of rape or incest, because murder is murder.
Absolutism is the view that such incremental changes are, essentially, concessions to the current culture and political climate. In order to change the law, one must aim for total repeal of abortion law.
And any women who seek or obtain abortions should be charged for attempted murder or murder in the first degree. Of course, it’s only a short hop to the next conclusion: we must investigate miscarriages to ensure they are natural, not induced.
The pro-life absolutist positions make mainstream pro-lifers deeply uncomfortable, while the mainstream’s exceptions anger the absolutists.
The Evangelical Blind-Spot Revealed on the Holy Post Podcast
If you listen to Phil, Skye, and Kaitlyn discussing the emerging rift within the pro-life movement, you will hear semi-anguished attempts to nuance exactly when life and “personhood” begin. Roughly paraphrasing, they wrestled with questions such as:
• If life begins at conception, is a frozen fertilized egg a person? The Alabama Supreme Court thinks so, but mustn’t an embryo attach to a placenta?
• Or does the egg need to develop into a blastocyst, a group of a couple of hundred cells, to become life?
• Or is a fetus not a person until the “quickening,” when women can feel the baby moving?
• Then again, ultrasounds show something that looks like a baby well before a woman feels its movement. It can’t survive outside the womb until well after the “quickening,” but still, people view it as a baby.
I applaud the Holy Post Podcast for thinking long and hard about the nature of life and what that nature means for our society’s laws and norms. I also appreciate that they do not endorse singleissue voting, since many economic and social policies affect people’s lives, including abortion rates.
Here is what you will not hear on the Holy Post Podcast:
• Women are people.
I am a regular listener of the Holy Post Podcast, and at no point can I recall the hosts or their guests discussing abortion and the rights of women as people alongside unborn people.
To be fair, I have heard them express sympathy for women in desperate financial circumstances or in abusive relationships. They have also acknowledged the importance of social programs for reducing the number of abortions. But I can’t remember them ever considering the morality of forcing women to carry pregnancies to full term against their wills.
“Don’t have sex if you don’t want a baby,” some retort, but that argument simply side-steps a woman’s right to consent to a pregnancy. Vasectomies are safe and reversible, but no one advocates forced vasectomies as a solution to unwanted pregnancies. Why? We assume men’s bodily autonomy. Nor do we tell men, “Don’t have sex if you don’t want a baby.” Heck, we don’t even try to pressure men into wearing condoms.
We seem to value consent for other matters of life-and-death. We don’t legally compel donations of blood or spare kidneys without consent, though doing so would save lives.
We don’t harvest organs from deceased people who did not consent to being organ donors, despite the many lives that could be saved. Corpses and embryos now have more bodily rights than women in many U.S. states.
As the Holy Post Podcast shows, the abortion debate in the U.S. has shifted hard toward the prolife position.
We debate abortion access almost entirely on the terms of “Life begins at conception.” We have long conversations about exactly when cells become a human being that deserves legal rights and protections.
Women are also human beings who deserve legal rights and protections.
Women Are People, but Do They Get Bodily Autonomy?
Many Christians believe, because life begins at conception, that women should be legally required to carry pregnancies against their will to save a life. Such a legal requirement obviously infringes on a woman’s bodily autonomy, as abortion rights activists have argued for decades.
There is a problem with the argument for bodily autonomy: it is easily dismissed in the abstract. Oh, we’ll have exceptions for the mother’s safety, exceptions for cases of rape or incest, and adoption for women who can’t raise the children we made them birth knowing they couldn’t keep them. (As an adoptive father, trust me, it’s not a real solution to abortion.)
In the concrete, women’s right to bodily autonomy becomes a moral quagmire. Since Roe fell, Americans have seen how outlawing abortion also affects women’s access to birth control and D&Cs (dilation and curettage, procedures typically used for miscarriages).
Some modern birth control can be viewed as abortion because it prevents an embryo’s implantation in the uterus. Pro-life politicians and activists are busy trying to ban the use of prescription pills that can be mailed across state lines, but if they succeed there, eventually they will come for the morning-after pill, IUDs, and other forms of birth control they dislike.
The standard-of-care for miscarriages is an abortion.
In U.S. states with anti-abortion laws, women have been:
• denied medical care for their miscarriages;
• kept waiting in writhing pain while an ethics board decided whether a miscarriage could be induced; and
• required to have c-sections to remove miscarried babies.
Doctors are so afraid of being prosecuted or sued that they will make women wait for their miscarriage bleeding to stop on its own, risking septic shock, and will cut open a woman’s abdomen to avoid even the appearance of an abortion.
Around 26% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.
For abortion to be available to women who need it for medical reasons, abortion must be available up to the age of viability for any reason. Otherwise, some doctors will refuse women the medical care they need and deserve because they are people, too.
The Age of Viability Balances the Rights of Both People
The rhetoric of the pro-life movement has created false perceptions of the unborn and abortion. For example, the U.S. has many billboards falsely claiming, “Heartbeat at 18 days,” next to pictures of 6-month-old babies. This rhetoric creates in the viewer’s mind a false equivalence between an 18-day-old fetus and a born infant. The “heartbeat” at 18 days is a machine representing nerve signals where a heart will be later in the pregnancy.
Such rhetoric has led many Christians and politicians to disregard the age of viability as a reasonable way to balance the rights of both the unborn and women.
I believe life begins at conception. Once the process of embryonic development begins, it will result in an infant unless interrupted. I am not arguing against the intrinsic worth of an unborn baby aged 0–5/6 months.
But many people seem to think abortion means killing an infant similar to a newborn. That is not the case. Once a fetus can survive outside the womb, doctors take abortion off the table and deliver the baby if necessary to protect the mother’s health (or the baby’s).
A viable infant can be born or removed by c-section to save a mother’s life. Doctors don’t abort viable infants because the mother can’t raise the child. So when we talk about abortion, we’re talking about non-viable infants.
Yes, non-viable infants have intrinsic worth.
But so do women, because they’re people, too.
We can’t protect women’s access to birth control and D&Cs for miscarriage unless we distinguish between women as people and non-viable infants as people.
The pro-life movement has always distinguished the personhood of women and non-viable babies hence, the exceptions in abortion bans for the mother’s life or health. These exceptions acknowledge that we should not prioritize a non-viable infant’s life over a woman’s life. Intuitively, most people would also distinguish between viable and non-viable infants when forced to compare them to each other. I wish life didn’t present us with such dilemmas, but it does.
In the abstract, pro-life absolutists can argue that “life is life” and “murder is murder.” In the concrete, pro-life absolutism causes unnecessary suffering for women, who are also people. The medical and judicial systems are not up to the task of adjudicating abortion cases; women and their doctors must be empowered.
Judging Personhood with Science and a Thought Experiment
Accurate imagery of fetal development can starkly illustrate the intuitive distinctions among different stages of life. In turn, the age of viability becomes even more obvious as a method of balancing different people’s rights and protections.
The painting below depicts what a baby looks like at 12 weeks. The first ultrasound that most parents see is a machine-generated image of a 2.5-inch, half-ounce creature that lacks most major organs.
Imagine this baby the size of your thumb in a baby stroller that gets away from its mother and veers into oncoming traffic. Would you risk your life to save it?
Now imagine that the mother pushes the stroller across the street, and a delivery truck turns the corner and will run over both. You can’t save both of the mother and the stroller. Which one do you choose?
The painting below shows what a baby looks like at 7 weeks, a week after the 6-week abortion bans in some U.S. states.
Yes, this baby is a person who deserves rights and protections. But no, I wouldn’t sacrifice my life to save it from traffic, and I would choose to save its mother from the delivery truck.
Until a fetus can survive outside the womb, we simply cannot in good conscience elevate its rights above the rights of born women.
Why I Am a Pro-Choice Christian
I have long believed that the process of life begins at conception and that women must have the right to an abortion.
Pregnancy complications can threaten a woman’s health. Who am I to say whose life matters more? How can I dictate health outcomes to that woman, her partner, and any kids she may already have?
I have never trusted in the promised exceptions for women’s safety. How can our legal and medical systems adjudicate when a pregnancy complication is lifethreatening or merely life-altering? How long should women (and their partners and children) wait to see if the pregnancy kills her? How much pain should women endure to save a life? How life-altering can a medical complication become before we allow an abortion to prevent it? And who will decide? Certainly not the woman or her doctor, according to the anti-abortion
legislation passed after Roe’s demise. By the way, when will the legal system decide? In time to save a mother’s life?
It’s ironic that conservatives who believe “government is the problem” as an article of faith want the government to make intimate medical decisions for women and their families and, apparently, trust it to do so effectively and efficiently.
For abortion to be available to women who need it for medical reasons, when they need it, abortion must be an option up to the age of viability. I dislike it, but I can’t think of anything that better balances the rights of the unborn person and the rights of the walking, talking, pregnant person.
White evangelicals in the 1970s didn’t initially care about abortion. They organized to defend racial segregation in evangelical institutions and only seized on banning abortion because it was more palatable than their real goal.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade put the exclamation point on this. Of the various arbiters out there of what you can or can’t do, our legal system theoretically carries the greatest weight.
In the matter of abortion, the highest court in the land, in their infinite wisdom, decided to throw the issue to the states, instantly creating nothing but chaos and confusion. For 50 years, it had been legal precedent and confirmed by many different supreme courts until this one
Much to the chagrin of many, we learned that Supreme Court justices hold the power to take away human rights from pregnant people and acted on it.
In theory, laws should be put in place to assist in the advancement of society, encourage decency, social stability, respect, accountability, fairness and equality, and protect individual rights while working to eliminate situations that do the opposite. Ideally, laws should help to optimize our chances of success as a society.
Which should naturally lead us to a conversation about what constitutes “the greater good.” (We’ll come back to this later.) In the meantime, you might ponder: Explainer: the greater good and why it matters more than ever, by SCOTT WHITE.
What we really need to ask is: Does inventing rules that force the birth of unwanted children breed success? Who is it helping? Who is it harming?
At the same time, I think we also have to question – or at least be concerned about – the overall functionality (or dysfunction) and objectivity of the highest court in the land, especially if:
1. its operation can be affected by political partisanship
2. its operation can be affected by religion
3. its rulings are in discordance with the majority (which is basically what we’re seeing in America in the matter of abortion)
Sadly, the legal battles over abortion continue. And while there is no longer a constitutional right to an abortion, fetal personhood laws could still be challenged for violating state constitutions or other constitutional rights, perpetuating the ongoing debate over whether a fetus should be considered a biological life or a life with rights, in other words, a “person”. While a biological life is any functioning life, “personhood” is required for such a being to be protected under the law.
Supreme Court Justice John Roberts explains in his essay “Science Disputes in Abortion Law” that there is scientific consensus that a fetus is a living member of our species, BUT, he write: “This biological fact did not mean that they are persons within the protection of the law.” 204
As such, the real battle is not so much a disagreement over whether abortion is taking a life, but rather, over different definitions of “murder.”
As we’ve established, many anti-abortion individuals and religious bodies argue that a fetus is a person from conception, making abortion murder.
Pro-abortion rights advocates often counter either that abortion is not murder because a mother’s life could be endangered due to pregnancy or that abortion is preferable to potentially letting a child live an unfulfilled life.204
Some pro-abortion rights individuals argue that abortion is not murder because they define murder as taking a life unjustly. Consider the pro-abortion rights Bazaar editorial titled “Abortion is Not Murder.” Political editor Jennifer Wright argues that abortion would not be murder even if a fetus had conscious agency, because the “life” poses a threat to another. Even if a mother’s health is not directly in danger, her livelihood can be. We often justify taking the lives of those who threaten our lives in the form of selfdefence or war. The abortion debate is no different.204
To these pro-abortion rights individuals, when life-taking is justified, it is not murder.
On the contrary, some anti-abortion individuals define murder as taking a human life, even if it is done in self-defence or saves a developing fetus from living a disadvantaged and unfulfilled life.204
And, if that’s the case, we must consider, as regards an abortion denied, who are the real winners? Who does such a stance really benefit in the long run?
Learn more:
Under right-leaning Supreme Court, the church-state wall is crumbling
The Supreme Court Wants to End the Separation of Church and State Justice Alito doesn’t think society is Christian enough. Recent court decisions show how he intends to remedy that.
The anti-abortion pill judge is back with an alarming new target If the justices were willing to reinvent abortion jurisprudence, why not free speech law?
1. Criminalization does not dissuade women from having abortions
2. Criminalization of abortion violates the fundamental human rights of women and girls
3. Criminalization causes women to resort to unsafe abortion methods
4. Criminalization increases mortality and health complications caused by unsafe abortions
5. Criminalization negatively impacts access to legal abortions
6. Lack of access to a safe abortion in complicated pregnancies leads to death by indirect causes
7. Criminalization of abortion disproportionately impacts poor and young women
8. Criminalization exposes women to potential torture and institutional violence
9. Criminalization validates a clandestine market that profits at the cost of women’s autonomy
10. Criminalization of abortion goes against the principle of egalitarian society
Criminalization is not founded on protecting the life of the fetus—because there are other effective ways to achieve that but is instead a form of stigmatization written into criminal codes.
In addition to reinforcing stereotypes around child raising, denying a woman’s right to decide whether or not to become a mother and when to do so, aggravates gender inequalities in education, cultural, economic and political life. Maintaining the criminalization of abortion goes against the construction of equal societies.
A first step towards gender equality is to ensure that women are in control of their reproductive capacity, including having access to contraception and safe abortion, because the sovereignty of women over their own bodies is key to achieving gender equality.
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by Perri Tomkiewicz
Does the Constitution protect a woman’s right to choose an abortion?
Abortion was legal and uncontroversial at the time of the nation’s founding, but what does the Constitution say about it?
Millions of women lost half a century of legal protection following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in SCOTUS’s 2022 Dobbs decision. The ruling has led to a patchwork of wildly different laws across the states.
Even as the latest polls show 64% of U.S. adults believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and even as the pro-choice position has won on ballot measures in every election since Dobbs, many state legislatures have kept the abortion issue away from their voters. Republican-controlled legislatures in 24 states have passed or are working on total or near-total abortion bans. This landscape is untenable, as 167.5 million women now experience wildly different rights depending on what state they live in.
How does a document that does not mention the word ‘abortion’ protect a woman’s right to one?
The Constitution was designed to afford all Americans rights and liberties regardless of their home state. Though the Constitution does not mention the word “abortion,” several of the Amendments should be interpreted to protect a woman’s right to have one.
The First Amendment
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Since the nation’s founding, people of various faiths have held different views on abortion, on when life begins, and on what constitutes personhood. The question of when life begins remains a spiritual and religious one; therefore, federal and state governments cannot show a preference for certain religious groups and their beliefs over others. Governments cannot pass abortion bans simply because some religious groups hold the spiritual view that a fetus constitutes human life.
The Fourth Amendment
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
When a government bans abortion, it violates the right of the people (women) to be secure in their persons (bodies) against government seizure (gov’t control of uteruses).
The Fifth Amendment
“Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.”
Abortion bans violate the Fifth Amendment when the government does not compensate women for the 40 weeks their property (uteruses) is made to serve the state’s interest of birthing more humans. Also of note, legal scholars undermined exclusively male mandatory military service on the grounds that the draft violated the equal protection clause of the 5th Amendment, as it was a discriminatory burden applied only to men. Women prevented from accessing abortion face a similar discriminatory burden that is applied only to them.
The Eighth Amendment
“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Women are 14 times more likely to die from a pregnancy than an abortion. The U.S. ranks 55th in maternal mortality, falling behind every developed nation in the world. Women often undergo serious complications from pregnancy that negatively affect them for life. The Eighth Amendment was intended to protect convicted criminals from cruel and unusual punishment, so it seems odd that state governments would be so quick to exert the cruel and unusual punishment of a forced gestational period on millions of women who have committed no crime.
The Ninth Amendment
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
As mentioned earlier, abortions occurred legally and were not uncommon when the Constitution was written. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin famously wrote an abortion recipe and added it to a textbook he widely distributed across the nascent country. Abortion remains a right the people have despite that right not being explicitly stated in the Constitution, much like the rights to travel, vote, and marry.
The 13th Amendment
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”
While ratified to abolish slavery, the 13th Amendment has been used in legal arguments against human trafficking, child labor, and mandatory military service. Abortion bans are not so different, as they remove women’s control of their bodies and force them to endure the dangerous work of pregnancy.
The 14th Amendment
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside… [No] State [shall] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
In addition to explicitly providing protections only to persons born in the United States (notably, not to fetuses), the 14th Amendment has been used for over a century to protect Americans’ rights to make decisions related to family, marriage, and childrearing, as well as decisions relating to one’s body and privacy. Thanks to the liberty clause of the 14th Amendment, the government cannot force a parent to give one of their organs to their dying child who needs it, even if the child will die as a result of the parent’s decision. With that being true, abortion bans that force pregnant women to continue gestating their fetuses are obviously unconstitutional. The equal protection language of the 14th Amendment also applies, as abortion bans are discriminatory and impose a burden on women but not on men (even as men bear responsibility for causing unwanted pregnancies).
Even as bans are ratified, abortions increase
Removing women’s rights to abortion is unconstitutional and will not result in fewer abortions. The thirty-year decline in abortions has reversed, with 8% more abortions occurring in 2020 than in 2017 and 5% more occurring in 2021 than in 2020. In the year following the Dobbs decision, states that banned abortions saw 114,590 fewer abortions than expected, but states that allowed the procedure saw 116,790 more abortions than expected, a net increase.
Fewer Americans are becoming pregnant, and a greater percentage of those who do are seeking abortions. Rather than infringing on the Constitutional rights of women, red states like Tennessee should see the warning signs for what they are: American pregnancy and birth rates are declining! States should provide the support their residents need to willingly raise healthy, happy children rather than spending their legislative sessions concocting cruel ways to control women.
COMMENT
If the Constitution was designed to afford all Americans rights and liberties regardless of their home state, how is it that it cannot be enforced in the matter of abortion?
Clearly, it is becoming frighteningly apparent that while the Constitution stands as the supreme law of the land, its ability to be applied and, more importantly enforced, is sadly lacking (and not only in the matter of abortion), which begs the questions: What protections really exist in America?
Do Pregnant Women Have the Same Rights Under the Law as Everyone Else?
The same Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade will now be asked to answer the question: Are pregnant women full people under the law?
Feminists often say that abortion bans make women second-class citizens. And it’s true: Abortion bans strip from pregnant women the basic right to bodily autonomy, which other people enjoy.
This is true for any abortion ban. But this concept that banning abortion puts pregnant women in a different class from “regular” people is particularly apparent in laws that do not allow for a full range of emergency care to preserve a pregnant woman’s health.
These laws quite literally violate general duty-of-care requirements for emergency room workers, and do so only for pregnant women as a class. The anti-abortion movement writes them, promotes them, passes them, defends them, and fights for them in court. And the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear one of them, and decide: Can the law say that pregnant women are not entitled to the same protections as everyone else?
The case comes out of Idaho, which bans abortions almost entirely. The Idaho ban has an exception for abortions which save a woman’s life, but not those that are necessary to preserve her health. The Biden administration has issued a common-sense rule which basically says that, regardless of state law, emergency rooms and other medical facilities have to comply with federal law when it comes to providing care. That means they still have to afford pregnant women the same duty of care that they afford any patient—which is to take steps necessary to stabilize the patient, preserve their health, and save their life.
In no other case do emergency room physicians have to wait, as a matter of law, until a patient’s condition deteriorates to the point where they are going to die before they can provide necessary care to stabilize them. But if the patient is pregnant, and if what she needs to stabilize her is an end to the pregnancy, ER doctors in states like Idaho may face prison time for doing their jobs.
The Biden administration is trying to clarify that the federal law saying doctors have to keep patients not just alive but stable that doctors have to help patients not just avoid death, but avoid major and potentially irreversible harm applies fully to pregnant women, too.
A federal district court agreed. From the New York Times:
“If the physician provides the abortion, she faces indictment, arrest, pretrial detention, loss of her medical license, a trial on felony charges and at least two years in prison,” Judge Winmill wrote. “Yet if the physician does not perform the abortion, the pregnant patient faces grave risks to her health such as severe sepsis requiring limb amputation, uncontrollable uterine hemorrhage requiring hysterectomy, kidney failure requiring lifelong dialysis, hypoxic brain injury or even death.”
“And this woman, if she lives, potentially may have to live the remainder of her life with significant disabilities and chronic medical conditions as a result of her pregnancy complication,” the judge went on. “All because Idaho law prohibited the physician from performing the abortion.”
The “pro-life” movement, though, sees it differently. They argue that the “unborn child” is a patient, too. In states like Idaho, if a pregnancy threatens a woman’s health, well, that isn’t a good enough reason for the pregnancy to end. These laws put fetal life ahead of maternal life, and render women little more than fetussustaining objects.
Womenareputthroughunbelievabletortures
inthenameofbeing‘pro-life.’
If a child came into the ER and was having kidney failure, no hospital would require that his mother donate one of her kidneys to him. Hospitals don’t require that a parent donate blood to their child. They don’t require that a parent who dies in a tragic accident donate their organs to a surviving but in-need child, or to anyone at all.
It is only pregnant woman who are consigned to a special, sub-standard category of person not entitled to a standard level of health-preserving care.
Some other abortion bans have language that would allow doctors who perform medically necessary abortions and are criminally prosecuted to defend themselves by arguing that the abortion was necessary to preserve a major bodily function. These laws are also a joke in practice, few health providers are going to risk going to prison, and so women are put through unbelievable tortures in the name of being “pro-life.”
But the Idaho ban is even more extreme insofar as it does away with any pretense of caring about a woman’s health or the preservation of her body parts and major bodily functions her fertility, her limbs, her organs, her brain health. A doctor can only act, under Idaho law, if a woman is going to die.
Of course, this is not how healthcare works in the real world.
There are no guarantees in medicine, and even odds can be difficult to calculate. Bodies are different, and pregnancy is a notoriously perilous and unstable condition. A pregnant woman who is in stable condition one minute can take a major turn the next; sepsis infections can take over swiftly, at which point an abortion might be too late. There is simply not a clear line between “preserving health” and “preventing death.”
And many women do need abortions to preserve their health, whether it’s to avoid a hysterectomy and an end to their fertility, or a massive infection that shortens their lives, or catastrophic hemorrhaging that damages their organs and may put them on a ventilator, or one of the many pregnancy complications that can cause severe organ damage and organ failure and brain injury.
Pregnancy is not the only complex health condition. There are so many ways the human body becomes ill, deteriorates, and breaks down. That’s why federal law governing emergency room treatment in hospitals that receive federal dollars calls in a general principle, rather than trying to adjudicate each possible scenario: Doctors need to treat patients, regardless of whether those patients can pay, and they need to not just keep patients from dying, but are obligated to do their best to get patients back into a stable and sound condition.
I’m far from an expert here, but my guess is that if doctors generally did to non-pregnant patients what anti-abortion legislators are asking them to do to pregnant ones—waited until those sick patients’ health deteriorated so badly that they nearly died, and perhaps lost a limb or an organ or saw their lives shortened because of the waiting—they would be in violation of federal law, hospital policy, their professional oath, and basic human decency. If a patient did die because a doctor was waiting for them to be on death’s door before offering treatment but the doctor got the calculus wrong, that would be indefensible.
Pregnant women are the exception, in a league of their own.
There is no other way to understand this, other than as an attempt to make pregnant women a special class under the law, with fewer rights and fewer protections. Because if pregnant women are people with a full range of rights and privileges, then under federal law, they should be treated with the same care at hospitals as anyone else. On the other hand, if pregnant women are primarily understood life support machines for fetuses, then they will be treated as such.
The same Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade will now be asked to answer the question: Are pregnant women full people under the law?
I don’t like to make predictions, and I won’t make one here. But given that this Court has already stripped women of our fundamental bodily autonomy, I don’t like where this is headed.
Opinion: Maine’s Constitution must be clear: Reproductive freedom is a human right
The U.S. Supreme Court kicked the duty to fight for reproductive rights back to states. So let's fight.
Most Americans go through life believing that the Constitution was designed to protect our rights as individuals.
We fervently trust that the foundations of our laws, at their core, address our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and include our right to bodily autonomy.
The ability to control one’s reproductive health is vital to controlling one’s financial destiny and to being a full participant in society. The ability to make decisions about your own health, and to access health care from a provider you trust when you need it, is a fundamental right. This includes the right to access abortion care.
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we were shown that we can’t take for granted that this right is protected.
I am old enough to remember a time before Roe v. Wade. I remember when people were forced to go underground and put their lives on the line to access an abortion. Far too many of us know far too well that banning abortion doesn’t stop people from getting abortions – it just stops people from getting safe abortions.
The fact is, most people in our country agree: A 2021 national survey showed that 80% of Americans support legal abortion access. One in 4 women in our country has had an abortion. People seek abortion care for reasons that are varied and highly personal.
But the right to control one’s reproductive health covers much more than accessing safe and legal abortion care. The right to access birth control – which is used to prevent pregnancies, as well as manage chronic conditions such as endometriosis and ovarian cysts – is also covered under this umbrella. Reproductive freedom is an issue that cuts both ways: it’s also about being protected against forced sterilization or from being coerced into an abortion.
Watching Roe v. Wade being overturned by an activist Supreme Court left me feeling outraged and disheartened. I thought back to the women who risked their lives and well-being in order to get an illegal, unsafe abortion – and those who will once again be put in such a painful position. Just as my generation fought for our neighbors to have control over their lives, bodies and destinies then, the fight continues now.
The U.S. Supreme Court kicked the duty to fight for reproductive rights back to states in 2022. It is now incumbent on individual states to make sure their Constitution states clearly, directly, and irrefutably: Reproductive freedom is a fundamental human right.
2.8 Abortion is a POLITICAL issue
“The
vicissitudes of the political winds are ones that our rights and freedoms should not rest on.”
- Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, a national advocacy group.174
The use of reproductive rights as a political football is legendary and longstanding. We only have to follow the news to see that abortion is very much a political issue in the States, a vehicle used to harvest votes, divide and conquer. North of the border, less so:
“There is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”
- Noted then-Canadian Justice Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau when he introduced modernizing reforms to the Criminal Code in 1967 that proposed to revise abortion laws, legalize lotteries, restrict gun ownership and allow police breathalyzer checks.175
Trudeau’s phrase captured the zeitgeist of a new, more permissive era. It was a harbinger of progressive Canadian thinking on subjects of “morality” through subsequent years, and its sentiment runs through the creation of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the early 1980s and the embrace of gay marriage in the early years of the 21st Century.
"It's bringing the laws of the land up to contemporary society," said Trudeau, explaining the bill.
In the US, though, progress has taken a hit on, amongst other things, abortion. For years, the Republicans have been pushing to put the kibosh on abortion, even escalating their campaign to include the removal of exceptions for rape and incest in the new state laws, banning the distribution of medication abortion through the mail, creating “vigilante” lawsuit systems that authorizes private litigation against anyone who assists or provides an abortion, seeking ways to extend the reach of their restrictions beyond their borders170 and even altering voting rules – essentially rigging the system - to require Democrats to win supermajority support to change state constitutions. As a means of fighting for an abortion ban, Republicans work at the federal level to defund abortion, and have even reached into the private sector by encouraging health insurance providers to not cover abortions. They seek the appointment of judges who hold the same views on abortion, and will uphold these ideals when looking at the constitutionality of abortion and push for incremental laws that are progressively stronger, hoping to begin a sway in public opinion. At the state level, they also seek incrementally stronger restriction laws.171
Is there no limit to Republican skullduggery? And really, to what end?
According to an article on CNN170, the GOP’s rising militancy on the issue is due to political and legal calculations. I’d love to see the math on this.
How did we get here?
Well, in the mid-1970s, the religious right became heavily involved in electoral politics and a driving force within the Republican Party. By the end of the decade, abortion had emerged as the dominant issue in the religious right’s quest for power and influence. 172 A chief figure promoting this change that would capture the Republican Party was Paul Weyrich, a conservative political activist, who believed the key to success would be combining old conservative issues such as taxation with religious moralism.172
In 1979, Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority to support candidates for public office. Weyrich and Falwell realized that the tax exemption issue based on racial discrimination had limited value, but opposing abortion was a moral issue cutting across racial and religious lines. That was their thinking on the eve of the 1980 elections.172
When Ronald Reagan emerged as the putative nominee in the primaries, he won the endorsement of the religious right with a goal of outlawing abortion. The Republican Party would from then on be an anti-abortion party in its national platforms and legislative agenda.172
And their success in remaking the federal bench and appointing justices who are against abortion is another blatant example of this - which is why and how the Supreme Court recently reached a different decision, overturning a 5-decade old law, following which 14 states now ban abortion. Some have gone further, passing laws allowing criminal prosecution of anyone who helps a minor cross state lines to obtain an abortion without parental consent. Some have introduced pro-life bills intended to protect the unborn as well as medical providers who have ethical objections to abortion.
For decades, Republicans had bamboozled the press into believing that the country was "bitterly divided" over abortion. Mainstream media misled Americans into believing that this was practically a 50/50 issue nationally and that abortion rights were deeply unpopular in the red states. Responsible pollsters kept trying to correct the narrative, pointing out that strong majorities of Americans believed it should be a right. But Republicans and their handmaidens in the "both sides"-obsessed press kept relying on shoddier polls that used ambiguous or misleading language to exaggerate the opposition to abortion. Republicans started to believe their own B.S., convincing themselves that the public, at least in red states, would be fine with abortion bans.177
Well, ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, bringing a flood of statelevel abortion bans, both Republicans and the press have quickly learned what the better pollsters had been trying to tell them: Americans do not like abortion bans. In every state where abortion rights have been put on the ballot, no matter how red, voters have turned out to protect their rights. As many pro-choicers have been saying for years, people may vaguely say they're "against" abortion when the idea is abstract, but they sure as hell want the keep the option open in case they're the ones facing an unwanted pregnancy.177
The press often treats the struggle over abortion rights and the struggle over voting rights as two discrete issues, but in ways large and small, they're the same issue.
In the grand scheme of things, both are ultimately a question about autonomy and self-governance.
177
Republicans don't believe ordinary people should be allowed choices, whether it's over the choice to reproduce or a choice at the ballot box. It's also psychological. Conservative bitterness over abortion rights has come to justify their assaults on democracy. But, as these follow-the-money patterns show, it's also that anti-democratic forces exploit the abortion issue to drum up support for anti-democratic initiatives that end up having negative impacts on every aspect of life, from worker rights to environmental regulation.177
Which begs the questions: Were the Republicans just using the abortion debate as a political football to sway opinion with no real concern for reproductive rights? To what extent is the government focused on principle versus power and partisanship?
Republican views on abortion are seemingly rooted firmly in the belief that an unborn child, like any individual in this country, has an individual right to life that should not be infringed upon by others. The party adamantly believes that the rights guaranteed to all Americans in the Fourteenth Amendment apply to unborn children as well. Republicans oppose using public revenues to promote or carry out abortions, and also oppose any health care options that include the coverage of abortion.171
I am perplexed about who is really being helped here.
Upon his signing of 5 new pro-life bills, Republican Montana Governor Greg Gianforte offered the following remark, essentially summarizing the Republican party line:
"Today, we are protecting the lives of the most vulnerable amongst us: unborn children."
I submit that the most vulnerable among us are in fact the marginalized who are very much alive, namely women, and in particular, those who are unprepared to have a child and who must deal with trying short- and long-term repercussions.
BUT, as states continue to bring in tighter restrictions on abortion following the fall of Roe v. Wade, internal divisions within the Republican party on the issue are starting to show as they are seeing that the galvanization of their base on this matter is potentially not politically expedient. Ohhh!
Republicans, who for decades championed the anti-abortion agenda of the religious right, are now wavering on their positions, no longer sure of how to navigate an abiding principle of American conservatism in their quest to win control of the White House and Congress.
Some point the finger at stingy donors and disengaged GOP leaders for the anti-abortion side getting massively outspent. Others say anti-abortion advocates need to soften their hardline positions and move away from near-total bans without exemptions to stave off electoral disaster. And still others argue the results are a rebuke for the leave-abortionto-the-states argument many conservatives make and a demonstration of why federal restrictions are needed. While some anti-abortion activists urge a full-scale revamp of their messaging, policies or both, many anti-abortion leaders say they want to stay the course going into November.176
Quite a conundrum!
But, no matter, they soldier on.
It seems to me that this is all really more about power than a compassionate attempt to serve the greater good. I hope I’m wrong.
Regardless, one thing is certain. The 2024 election will be, amongst other things, a referendum on abortion.
Because it looks like the proverbial sleeping bear has indeed been poked
So why do Republicans continue to push for the reduction of reproductive rights all the while knowing that it is counter to the majority view and not even politically expedient?
A few key reasons might include the following:
1. Republican voters are more socially conservative and anti-abortion compared to voters in other Western democracies.179 The search results indicate that "compared to voters across almost all other Western democracies, however, Republican supporters prove exceptionally socially conservative, anti-abortion, and authoritarian in their values." This creates strong political pressure for Republican lawmakers to restrict abortion rights.
2. The Republican party's platform and leadership have made restricting abortion a key priority, even though it may not align with the majority public opinion.179 The search results note that "the Republican backlash against reproductive rights has clearly been mobilized by the actions of faith-based social movements the GOP party leadership in Congress and state legislatures."
3. Republican-controlled states have been able to implement restrictive abortion laws due to structural and geographic biases in institutions like the Senate and Electoral College that give them disproportionate power.179 This has allowed them to enact policies that are out of step with national public opinion.
4. There is a significant divide within the Republican party, with more conservative and religious Republicans being much more opposed to abortion rights compared to moderate and liberal Republicans.181 This creates pressure for the party to take a hardline stance.
In summary, it would appear that the Republican party's push to restrict abortion rights is driven by the views of their socially conservative base, the priorities of party leadership, and structural political advantages - even though it goes against the majority opinion in the country.178-181
I’m not seeing anything about the common good.
ON THE POLITICIZATION OF BIRTH CONTROL AND ABORTION
"I really do think that it is the great tragedy of American politics that this issue divides us so profoundly. It's a very painful issue to talk to just about anybody with, and I think there's a surprising lack of basic human charity when people talk about this issue, no matter what their position. I feel that so much of the kind of murderous rhetoric of American politics and what we decry as the 'decline of civility' or 'hyperpartisanship' are really troubling as a citizen to watch. And I do think that even when we're not talking about abortion, we are talking about abortion."
- Jill Lepore is a professor of American history at Harvard University and a staff writer for The New Yorker.
Source:
(170) Brownstein, Ronald. Why the Republican offensive on abortion is escalating https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/politics/abortion-laws-red-states-republicans/index.html
(171) Republican Views. Republican Views on Abortion https://www.republicanviews.org/republican-views-on-abortion/
(172) Levy, Donna. How the Republicans Became the Anti-Abortion Party, and What it Means for the GOP Today https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/181629
(173) Marcotte, Amanda. Why are Republicans taking away birth control? Because they don't want women to have it
(175) CBC News. 'No place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation' https://www.cbc.ca/archives/no-place-for-the-state-in-the-bedrooms-of-the-nation-1.4681298
(176) Cirruzzo, Chelea and Leonard, Leonard. Anti-abortion activists rethink state approach https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-pulse/2023/08/10/anti-abortion-activists-rethink-state-approach00110560
(177) Marcotte, Amanda. Not just Trump: The Ohio abortion vote exposes the bitterness fueling the GOP war on democracy. https://www.salon.com/2023/08/09/not-just-trump-the-ohio-abortion-vote-exposes-the-bitternessfueling-the-on-democracy/
(178) Montanaro, Domenico. Poll: Majority Want To Keep Abortion Legal, But They Also Want Restrictions https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730183531/poll-majority-want-to-keep-abortion-legal-but-they-also-wantrestrictions
(179) Norris, Pippa. The reversal of reproductive rights in America is contrary to global trends. Why?
(180) Pew Research Center. Majority of Public Disapproves of Supreme Court’s Decision to Overturn Roe v. Wade. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-courts-decisionto-overturn-roe-v-wade/
(181) Lipka, Michael. A closer look at Republicans who favor legal abortion and Democrats who oppose it https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/17/a-closer-look-at-republicans-who-favor-legal-abortionand-democrats-who-oppose-it/
Excerpt from
The ‘Invent-Your-Own-Facts Approach’: Many Abortion Laws Use
Medically Incorrect Language
Appeals to pseudoscience have undermined true reproductive autonomy on all sides
Policymaking informed by rigorous scientific research is critical to building a democratic system that responds to people’s needs for health, safety and economic stability.
More fundamentally, we need to hold policymakers at all levels of government accountable, through legislation, the courts and public opinion, for their use, and abuse, of pseudoscience to justify policies that are ideologically driven and lack popular support. Democratic accountability, public health and reproductive autonomy are all at stake.
POLITICS is the absolute worst place to talk about abortion.
And yet that’s the primary arena in which we debate it. Life after Roe v. Wade means that just about every election is about abortion. And that hurts people because many people have been involved in abortions, one way or another. It’s necessary because we must debate law and policy. But how can the debate become more compassionate? How can it become more humane?
AMERICAN VOICES
Jennifer Rubin: Republicans reveal contempt for Americans’ intelligence
MSNBC political analyst and Washington Post opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin points out that republicans branding themselves as “pro-baby” but not doing what’s necessary for children and families is one of the many examples of the party’s contempt for Americans’ Intelligence. Rubin joined American Voices host Alicia Menendez to discuss.
Ohio Vote Shows Abortion’s Potency to Reshape Elections
The Dobbs ruling has turned a coalition of liberal, swing and moderate Republican voters into a political force. Even in August in Ohio.
For decades, a majority of Americans supported some form of legalized abortion. But the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade has shifted the political intensity on the issue, reshaping a once mostly silent coalition of liberal, swing and moderate Republican voters into a political force. It’s a force Democrats are working hard to harness in elections across the country next year, often with ballot measures, and it’s a power Republicans have yet to figure out how to match, or at least manage.
Officially, Ohio voters were being asked whether to make it harder to amend the State Constitution by raising the threshold to enact a new constitutional amendment from a simple majority to 60 percent and increase the requirements to get such initiatives on the ballot.
In remarks before party activists and in strategy memos, Republican officials acknowledged that the measure was an attempt to make it harder for abortion rights supporters to pass a ballot measure scheduled for November that would add an amendment protecting abortion rights to the State Constitution.
Those private comments fueled a firestorm of national media coverage, nearly $20 million in political spending and surprisingly high turnout for an election in the dead of summer.
The power of abortion to mobilize a majority coalition has armed Democrats with a potent new political tool, particularly in crucial battlegrounds like Michigan, Ohio and Arizona where Republican legislatures moved quickly to restrict abortion rights. Already, Democrats are looking ahead to 2024, with activists in around 10 states considering efforts to put abortion protections in state constitutions.
“We’ve never seen this amount of spending or attention on an issue related to ballot measure processes and I can tell you it’s not because everyone inherently cares about what the rules are on ballot issues,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which has helped run nearly three dozen ballot measures. “The attention from both sides can only be attributed to the implications for the abortion issue.”
After spending nearly a half century pushing against Roe, Republicans have struggled to adapt, trapped between a party base that still largely opposes abortion rights and a country that broadly supports them.
With Tuesday’s referendum, Republican lawmakers attempted a version of the kind of twotrack strategy their party had done successfully for years. To conservative voters, they emphasized the measure’s role in raising the bar for the abortion amendment while, to other audiences, they talked about other potential impacts.
Republicans are unlikely to evade the topic in the general election.
Trump's dogwhistle to the Christian right is a permission slip to openly hate women
Christian conservatives have long claimed they are motivated not by misogyny, but by other, more noble concerns. They claim to oppose abortion rights because of "life" or, in more recent years, they have feigned interest in "protecting" women from the supposed "abortion industry." Similar efforts to stigmatize premarital sex or restrict access to contraception were marketed as "pro-woman," on the assumption that women are asexual creatures who must be shielded from the perverted ways of men. Feminists have long argued these religious right claims are lies, mere pretexts propped up to conceal the right's true interest, which is in preserving male dominance over women.
Recently, the Christian right has been letting the "pro-woman" mask slip, sometimes all the way off, revealing the truth too many in the mainstream press would rather ignore: The Christian right is about misogyny. It was always about misogyny.
Last week, Democrats in Louisiana introduced a bill to add rape and incest exceptions to the state's abortion ban. Republicans didn't just kill the bill, they went out of their way to broadcast their contempt for the rape survivors who showed up to testify in favor of it.
In Texas, the lawyer who wrote the state's "bounty hunter" abortion ban, Republican activist and former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell, has rolled out the first major test case of the law. The plaintiff, Marcus Silva is clearly angry that his ex-wife thought she had a right to leave him. To get his revenge, he is suing her two good friends because they helped her abort a pregnancy. Silva claims to believe he "lost" a child, but the countersuit filed by her friends tells a different story. By taking up this suit, Mitchell is revealing the real purpose of the Texas abortion ban. It's not about "life" or "protecting women." It's about cementing male control over women, even when such men are horrible and abusive.
A Fox News article addresses "'Disenfranchised grief': The quiet pain of men who experience abortion." Which, as one can guess, is mostly about putting a sympathetic gloss on a deeply ugly desire of men to claim women's bodies as property. The clear implication is that it's a travesty that the person with the uterus decided what was done with it. Clearly, the authors feel the man who impregnated her should have the final word over her body.
This is, of course, what has always been at the heart of the anti-abortion movement: A belief that women are men's property. But that is widely viewed as a deplorable opinion. For one thing, if you believe men are entitled to force childbirth on women, then it's not much of a leap to argue that they also have a right to lock women up in the house, block them from having jobs, hit them, or hit them, or rape them. So the anti-choice movement has played games for decades, pretending their motive is anything but the misogyny it is. But when the leader of the GOP uses the word "fortunately" to describe a man's privilege to rape, that sends a signal to his followers.
The Christian right base is listening and is done pretending they don't also hate women.
Right-Wing Hubris Puts Ideology Over Medical Expertise— And
Women Suffer
If politicians wish to play doctor, we should hold them to the same standards: First, do no harm.
Back in medical school, I, like most students, envisioned myself caring for people in their worst moments, providing reliable, compassionate guidance amidst the chaos of illness, and prioritizing not merely longevity, but quality of life.
These days, I cannot do that. I cannot provide ethical, optimal care for my patients now that I am a physician if those in positions of power do not respect my medical training.
Lately, I’ve found myself using the words “obtuse” and “U.S Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit” in the same sentence with increasing frequency. To that mix, I offer more: “misogynistic” and “dangerous.”
The latest misadventures from the Fifth Circuit include a ruling in favor of Attorney General Ken Paxton and anti-abortion groups that hospitals receiving Medicare cannot be required to perform emergency abortions to stabilize patients, despite federal guidance.
This grim beginning to 2024 comes on the heels of the Kate Cox fiasco, one that Paxton pursued with a fervor bordering on the fanatic, devoid of empathy and reason.
The same day that a lower court granted Cox the right to abortion for an unviable and complicated pregnancy that threatened her health and future fertility, Paxton fought the decision and intimidated physicians and hospitals with a threat that the ruling would not shield them from criminal charges for violating Texas’ abortion laws, should they involve in Cox’s care. He was alarmingly successful
I worry that anti-abortion zealots will consequently feel emboldened to come out of the woodwork to terrorize women.
“If [politicians] can undermine our careful decision-making with brute force and no medical qualifications, then what is the point of our expertise?”
In his argument, Paxton belittled the original ruling: “Judge Guerra Gamble is not medically qualified to make this determination.”
To which I say: AG Paxton, neither are you.
I interpret these decisions as overt hubris by Texas politicians who are dictating medical care without adequate training or licensure. Had Paxton been genuinely concerned with medical expertise here, he would have respected the professional opinions of Cox’s physicians and would not need to threaten them with litigation.
These politicians’ control over medical practice is decidedly antithetical to the practice of medicine that I was taught. Our Hippocratic oath is succinctly distilled into the phrase: “First, do no harm.”
I do not see Paxton abiding by that credo neither in his challenge to the federal guidelines on emergency abortions, nor in his efforts against Cox, nor bullying of patients by weaponizing the legal system against them nor prioritizing personal ideology over scientific evidence are considered good medical care. Denying an emergency abortion to a medically unstable patient who needs one is the exact opposite of preserving life.
The Fifth Circuit’s appalling attempts to control medicine continue with further frivolous barriers to care. The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to review a decision by the court limiting access to mifepristone and imposing wholly unnecessary burdens for patients who need this medication. These restrictive requirements do nothing to improve patient outcomes or experience with mifepristone and are entrenched in inflexible and harmful ideology.
“The mother is not, in fact, a priority in the eyes of the law.”
As physicians, we can follow neither our ethics nor appropriate standard of care if uninformed politicians flagrantly disrespect our training. If they can undermine our careful decision-making with brute force and no medical qualifications, then what is the point of our expertise?
As a psychiatry resident, I have clinical teaching responsibilities. I can see my medical students fearfully considering the extremism creeping into their fields. Despite OB-GYN becoming more competitive, many are reluctant to consider residency in states where ideology infringes upon healthcare.
“I would like to train at an institution that teaches family planning. And I don’t think I’ll apply to [OB-GYN residency] programs in states where there are restrictions or bans on abortion,” said one of my third-years, who is already a valuable asset to the medical team.
If you drive away physicians with the threat of criminal charges when they don’t practice according to your personal beliefs, they will not come to your state. Another casualty of extremism: women’s access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare.
Anti-abortion advocates will inevitably challenge me on this with any number of ludicrous extremes. I cannot count the number of times an infuriated idealogue has sanctimoniously asked me, “So, that means that you’re fine with aborting a perfectly healthy baby up until the day of birth?” or “What’ll you do when a dumb teenager who had sex shows up at 38 weeks wanting to abort?”
No one in medicine with any amount of common sense or decency is advocating murder, and this argument is an egregious misrepresentation and oversimplification of healthcare decisions in which abortion is determined to be the best option for the patient.
This misogynistic position suggests that hordes of callous and irresponsible women will casually line up to dispose of infant children, given the opportunity. That is not happening. Nor is Texas’ misrepresentation of federal guidance on emergency abortions and EMTALA happening: that the guidelines strive to turn emergency departments into abortion clinics.
What is happening?
A group of politicians are dictating healthcare without medical training and endangering the lives of women.
Texas’ decisions seem tantamount to enforcing inferior medical care that harms women, prioritizing personal belief over evidence-based medicine and codifying misogyny into standard of care. This most recent decision by the Fifth Circuit, which allows denial of an emergency abortion to a critically ill pregnant patient, highlights the chilling truth that the life of the mother is not, in fact, a priority in the eyes of the law.
For a group that professes to value life, the politicians of Texas are demonstrating otherwise with unyielding dedication to preserving an inflexible ideology, enforcing it without nuance or compassion, without firm grounding in scientific evidence, and even at the expense of women’s lives.
I would lose my job very quickly if I practiced medicine this way.
If politicians wish to play doctor, we should hold them to the same standard. The situation has become dire for too many innocent people.
Excerpt from
Republicans Are in Panic Mode After Alabama IVF Ruling
The Republican Senate campaign arm put out a memo urging everyone to get their story straight on the Alabama Supreme Court’s embryo ruling.
By ELLIE QUINLAN HOUGHTALING https://newrepublic.com/post/179263/republicans-panic-mode-alabama-ivf-embryo-court-ruling
Republicans are frantically scrambling to save face as an allegedly pro-family party, following a devastating ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court that has effectively restricted in vitro fertilization across the state.
The Senate Republican campaign arm issued a memo urging its political candidates to “clearly and concisely reject efforts by the government to restrict IVF.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee derided the all-conservative court’s decision in a deep red state as “fodder for Democrats hoping to manipulate the abortion issue for electoral gain,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Axios.
Learn more:
The politics of abortion: a historical perspective
In addition to their views on abortion, many who cast ballots in Ohio’s referendum on Tuesday said they felt the measure’s backers weren’t being honest about its purpose.
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, RACHEL RICHARDSON and DANIEL MCGRAW
At a time when Republican-led states are restricting or banning abortion and limiting gender-affirming care, Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) has signed several bills to protect abortion rights and expand Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming treatment in the heavily Democratic state. Meanwhile, Oregon House passes sweeping bill to guarantee access to abortion, gender-affirming care. The bill stands in opposition to legislation in Republican-led states blocking access and criminalizing care.
A Canadian Perspective:
As Congress and courts threatened to roll back abortion rights, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used the stage at the Global Citizen summit to declare his unequivocal support for doing the opposite. “When do we get to stop having to relitigate this?” the prime minister asked. “Women are still having to stand up for basic rights that should have been and have been recognized long ago With attacks on reproductive rights around the world, it’s really important that we not take things for granted that we continue to stand up unequivocally,” he said in a video on social media. “This government will never tell a woman what to do with her body, we are unequivocally and proudly pro-choice and always will be.”
How Arizona Became Ground Zero for the Abortion Rights Battle
Abortion changes the equation. Whatever qualms voters might have are outweighed by their anger over the loss of Roe. “Before Dobbs, the pro-life side could frame the issue to their advantage. Since Dobbs, the framing has shifted to whether abortion should be legal at all,” a position so alarming to most Americans that support for abortion in at least some circumstances soared to 85% in a Gallup poll, with 69% saying it should be legal in the first three months, a record high. Until the repeal of Roe, the underlying procedure was presumed legitimate, and the debate was about regulations at the margin.
Women’s Rights Are Being Rolled Back to a Time Before Women Could Vote
Remarkably (or maybe not), in May 2023, twice-impeached ex-president and self-proclaimed GOP front runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, Donald Trump crowed, on his own social media channel, that he was uniquely responsible for killing Roe v Wade and ending the national right to an abortion. Amid all of the lies, excusals for insurrectionists, and mockery of the woman he was found liable for sexually assaulting, Trump’s statement about Roe is likely to stand as the defining moment in his first foray out of the conservative media ecosystem for the 2024 election cycle.
When Voters Vote, They Vote for Abortion-So Republicans Want to Make It Harder to Vote
By JILL FILIPOVIC
Where voters are allowed to have a say, they give a resounding “yes” to abortion rights. Instead of adjusting their politics accordingly, the GOP just makes it harder for voters to vote. https://msmagazine.com/2023/05/15/republicans-voting-rights-abortion/
How Republicans turned a must-pass defense bill into an “extremist manifesto”
House Narrowly Passes Defense Bill, Setting Up Showdown Over Social Issues
Republicans loaded the measure with a raft of social policy provisions including limits on abortions, gender transition procedures and diversity training that have little chance of surviving in the Senate.
Courtney Rice, the spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said G.O.P. lawmakers were “so hellbent on enacting their extreme agenda, including a nationwide abortion ban, that they’re willing to hijack an historically bipartisan bill that authorizes essential national defense programs and pay raises to the brave men and women that protect our country.”
‘5-alarm fire’ for GOP: Abortion rights have won in every post-Roe election
Abortion is the common thread in 2023 elections. That’s bad news for Republicans. The GOP still hopes that the only voters who care about abortion rights are women.
Hardest hit by the decision of the top judicial body of the U.S. to overturn Roe v Wade were poor women of colour, such being the institutionalized inequality that prevails in the world’s self-appointed paragon of justice.182
Given the pervasiveness of racist attitudes and policies - systemic racism is still alive and well though there is increasing pressure to change this - one might wonder why there was not an appetite to encourage abortion in marginalized groups.
Some might see this as a real conundrum between:
• further discouraging augmenting populations of marginalized groups
• further handicapping marginalized populations
It seems apparent that there are a variety of societal systems that are set up to make abortions far more difficult for marginalized women with the result, of course, being more unwanted, largely non-white, babies who cannot be properly cared for and who, in addition, are typically less desirable when it comes to an adoption option, thus boosting the foster home population The whole scenario results in more headaches and costs which weigh heavily on societal structures.
So, no winners here either.
Source:
(182) Fernández, Belén SCOTUS is ramping up oppression in ‘the land of the free’ https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/7/2/scotus-is-ramping-up-oppression-in-the-land-of-the-free
2.10 Other options: ADOPTION AND FOSTERING IMPACTS
Pro-life advocates see adoption and fostering as the silver bullet in the abortion debate. In fact, people who call themselves “pro-life” claim to support choices, namely parenting and adoption (and, as a last resort, fostering) which are not just accepted but championed by pro-life advocates.183 Adoption, they claim, is a positive alternative to abortion that is often overlooked.
WHAT?
Having a baby and giving it up for adoption is certainly not seen by most pro-choice people as a moral solution to the abortion problem. To transform a fetus into a baby and then send it out into a world where the parents can have no assurance that it will be wellloved and cared for is, for pro-choice people, the height of moral irresponsibility.184 Moreover, pro-life advocates also do not seem to fully comprehend the heartlessness, cruelty, and sadism that the pregnant woman so frequently senses - perhaps correctly, perhaps mistakenly - when the physician, minister, or lawyer suggest to her that she carry the child to term and then hand it over, never to see it again, to someone else to rear.184
But let’s be clear:
1. Adoption is often difficult and traumatic for birth parents, including:
a. medical risks
b. negatives social consequences
c. pregnancy discrimination
d. emotional toll
Many children who are adopted face long-term barriers to well-being including emotional, behavioural and academic challenges. Pregnant people often anticipate some of this, which is why adoption is a relatively rare choice in America. They may know, too, that their child may not find a home quickly there are more than 400,000 children in foster care in the US, and the average child spends nearly two years in the system.185
2. It’s not a panacea for children, either, due to such issues as:
a. Potential trauma typically related to “lifelong issues of feeling abandoned,” as well as “a lifelong search for identity.”
b. Discrimination and racism
Research shows that Black children take longer to be adopted than white children, and dark-skinned Black children take longer than children with lighter skin, Howell said. Choosing adoption, then, is no guarantee that a child will soon find a permanent home.185
Adoption is a substitute for parenting, while abortion is an alternative to pregnancy.
When a person chooses to get an abortion, the decision is not taken lightly.184
But during oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that would end 50 years of protections for abortion rights in the U.S., Justice Amy Coney Barrett suggested that adoption is a foolproof substitution for abortion.
Sadly, the rhetoric around adoption too rarely takes into consideration the person having the baby who will be adopted.190
Justice Amy Coney Barrett also queried lawyers for a Mississippi clinic, asking “Why don’t safe-haven192 laws take care of that problem?”
“That problem” would be the burden of childbirth and parenting forced onto women when states outlaw abortion not an issue now, Coney Barrett contended, because women can easily relinquish parental rights at birth.191
Sounds so simple and risk-free.
And as for the fate of the infants who are surrendered? No difficulty there, either, according to Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote in a footnote to the Dobbs decision that “a woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home,” citing a 2008 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the low domestic supply of infants.191
Ignored by the justices was extensive research showing that forced birth has consequences—devastating ones—for the woman, for the infant and for the communities where they live.191
Coney Barrett’s safe-haven suggestion is “morally repugnant,” said Wisconsin state Sen. Kelda Roys. “Horrific. Brutal. Cruel. The real disconnect is that abortion is an alternative to pregnancy. Adoption is an alternative to parenting. Nothing makes my pro-choice conviction stronger than each of my three children and knowing what it is to be pregnant and be a parent, how it changes your life and your body and your work and everything forever.”191
Diana Greene Foster, the director of research for the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco, agreed. “Maybe people who adopt kids want to think that it’s easy on the birth mom, but the physical experience of giving birth is so massive and was so grossly ignored in that Supreme Court case,” she said. “As if babies just pop out and then you just go to the local firehouse and drop the kid off. As if it’s that simple and not … a massive shock to one’s entire physiology not just while they’re pregnant or during birth, but for years after. The callousness with which motherhood was considered there was really shocking.”191
“Very, very few people have adoption as their first choice. Adoption is effectively a failure of the social safety net. Adoption is what happens when you have rendered people choiceless and you have made abortion inaccessible and you have made parenting untenable or impossible.”191
- Gretchen Sisson, a sociologist who studies abortion and adoption
It’s an impossible situation made worse when women are forced to have more children. “When you do that, it’s a no-brainer that you’re forcing them into a child welfare system that is … ill-equipped to meet the needs of the people that we’re already serving,” said Shawnte West, a social worker with the Kentucky Department for Community Based Services.191
“Let me tell you, not everybody wants a Black baby,” West said. “Some people come into this and they’re very specific about what type of babies that they want or that they don’t want. When we think of a system that’s disproportionately impacting children of color, what happens to all those kids who don’t get adopted?”191
Coney Barrett’s and Alito’s assertions that adoptions are a solution to abortion are baseless, according to Addie Wyman-Battalen, who has an academic appointment at the Boston College School of Social Work and who specializes in adoption. “It’s concerning because it’s not based in data. We have over a hundred thousand children waiting to be adopted, so it’s not working. … It’s really scary when the people who are making decisions for [children] are not taking into consideration the current situation.”191
In this regard, it should be noted that all the people interviewed for this article described state child welfare agencies that are ill-equipped to handle current caseloads, much less an increase in the near future, citing a dearth of social workers, foster homes for placement, adequate funding and competitive salaries.191
The overturning of Roe v. Wade could pose a serious problem for the adoption industry, which is highly unregulated and often lacks adequate funding, staff, counseling and support for birth mothers, adoptive families and adopted children. Some adoption agencies are already preparing for this scenario by raising money and expanding their programs, while others are hoping that the pro-life and Christian communities will step up and adopt more children. However, there is no guarantee that there will be enough resources or willing families to meet the potential surge in adoption needs.192
Moreover, some advocates warn that the overturning of Roe v. Wade could also lead to more "coercive adoptions", where women are pressured or manipulated into giving up their children against their will or without proper information or consent. This could have devastating consequences for the mental and emotional health of both birth mothers and adopted children, who often struggle with trauma, loss, identity and attachment issues.192
Once in foster care, most children languish in the system: More than 114,000 children are currently waiting to be adopted, according to the U.S. Children’s Bureau.191
Another area that could be impacted by the reversal of Roe v. Wade is the foster care system, which is already overwhelmed by more than 114,000 children in need of temporary or permanent care. Many of these children have experienced abuse, neglect, violence or instability in their lives, and face multiple barriers to finding a safe and loving home. If more women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, some of them may end up placing their children in foster care, either voluntarily or involuntarily due to poverty, addiction, incarceration or other factors. This could add more strain to an already strained system, and reduce the chances of finding positive outcomes for these children.192
Therefore, it is clear that the overturning of Roe v. Wade could have serious implications for the adoption and foster care systems, neither of which is a panacea for forced childbirth or shall we call them, unintended pregnancies.
When it comes to protecting life, Republicans urge the United States to keep pace with its “civilized” European peers.
But Republicans are seemingly interested in only one part of the European approach to protecting life—the abortion restrictions.192
They seem to forget that every European country that protects unborn life by restricting abortion after the first trimester protects born life too, through prenatal health care, paid maternity leave, and a public infrastructure for child care and preschool. If Republicans are sincere in invoking Europe as a model, proponents of abortion access should seize this chance to find common ground on policies that would substantially improve the lives of mothers and children in the country.
Pro-life Republicans have long liked to criticize the United States as an outlier for legalizing pre-viability abortion without significant restriction under Roe v. Wade. But the country is an outlier in another sense as well: its abject failure to protect born, living children and the people who birth them.192
Source:
(183) Pro-Life Meaning | Alliance Defending Freedom. https://adflegal.org/article/what-does-it-mean-be-pro-life.
(184) Adoption: The Viable Alternative to Abortion | EWTN. https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/adoption-the-viable-alternative-to-abortion-9572.
(185) Why adoption isn’t a replacement for abortion rights - Vox. https://www.vox.com/2021/12/8/22822854/abortion-roe-wade-adoption-supreme-court-barrett.
(186) United States anti-abortion movement - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_anti-abortion_movement.
(187) ‘The Pro-Life Generation’: Young Women Fight Against Abortion Rights. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/03/us/pro-life-young-women-roe-abortion.html.
(188) Why adoption is a redemptive pro-life option - ERLC. https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/whyadoption-is-a-redemptive-pro-life-option/.
(189) Why adoption isn’t a suitable solution for the loss of abortion rights .... https://www.vox.com/policy-andpolitics/23200880/adoption-abortion-roe-we-will-adopt-your-baby-kathryn-joyce.
(190) Murray, Laura Rena. The Truth About the Adoption Option https://msmagazine.com/2023/04/05/adoption-abortion-forced-birth-supreme-court/
(191) Safe-haven laws (also known in some states as "Baby Moses laws", in reference to the religious scripture) are statutes that decriminalize the leaving of unharmed infants with statutorily designated private persons so that the child becomes a ward of the state
Safe Haven Laws provide a protective refuge for newborn babies that otherwise might be abandoned in an unsafe manner
(192) Suk, Julie C. Don’t Forget the Other Half of Europe’s Abortion Compromise
Yes, many countries in Europe restrict abortion far more than America did under Roe. But they also do a lot more to support women and children, once those children are out of the womb. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/abortion-ban-first-trimester-12-weeks-northcarolina/674297/
Learn more:
Adoption Is Not a Solution for Abortion | Psychology Today
By JOANNE BAGSHAW
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-third-wave/201905/adoption-is-not-solution-abortion Post-Roe abortion access could overwhelm U.S. foster care systems – Axios
Did Abortion Legalization Reduce the Number Of Unwanted Children?
By MARIANNE BITLER and MADELINE ZAVODNY https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2003/01/didabortion-legalization-reduce-number-unwanted-children-evidence-adoptions
Adopted and Pro-Choice: Why Adoption is not a Replacement for Abortion
By JULIA RUBINO https://www.hercampus.com/school/uwindsor/adopted-and-pro-choice-why-adoption-is-nota-replacement-for-abortion/.
Why adoption won’t fill the gaps of a Roe-less America
Demonstrators hold signs outside the legislature auditorium where a House Rules meeting was underway, May 3, 2023 at the Legislative Building. Republican state lawmakers announced their plan to limit abortion rights across the state. Travis Long tlong@newsobserver.com
Part 3
LOOKING AT THE SITUATION A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY
Framing the abortion issue in different ways may help to provide some context and clarity in the debate. It may, in fact, even offer some insight into why it might be a legitimate alternative and what’s at stake. After perusing a whole host of documents and articles, and even questioning ChatGPT, it would appear that much of the conversation about abortion revolves around the fate of a yet unborn fetus and what it represents. More importantly, much of the chatter stems from many who are not directly involved with, or related to, the person ultimately making the very difficult decision.
For me, this begs a whole bunch of other questions like:
1. What are we to make of the overturning of Roe v Wade?
2. What is the fall-out from the overturning of Roe v Wade?
3. If there are no clear benefits to the overturning of Roe v Wade, why bother?
4. What’s really driving the anti-abortion zeal?
5. What gives us the right to dictate what other people do with their bodies?
6. Why should we care if someone else wants an abortion?
7. Why are so many people concerned about killing unborn babies?
8. Why are so many politicians and courts intent on anti-abortion legislation when there doesn’t appear to be an overwhelming appetite for it?
9. Do Pro-Lifers really care about life?
10. Why are so many women against abortion?
11. What role might men play in the abortion debate and what are the limits of their responsibility?
12. In the case where an abortion is denied, both mother and child risk being handicapped in the long-term. Do we really want to disadvantage both mother and child before it’s ‘go-time’ when there might be a better alternative?
13. In the case where an abortion is denied,
.1 who will pay for the unwanted babies?
.2 who will care for the unable-to-be-properly-cared-for children?
.3 who will pay for the collateral damage for years to come?
14. Who benefits from the forcing of pregnant women, unwilling or unprepared to give birth, to do so?
15. What does the abortion issue tell us about our democracy?
16. How might the anti-abortion movement actually be a religion?
17. What abortion scenario would yield the most benefits to society?
Any true discussion about the issue of abortion really needs to focus on answering the big questions, the deeper questions. Because life-changing decisions like this warrant studied analysis and thought, well beyond a tantrum about the fate of fetuses.
I’m not seeing much in the way of such broad, considered thought in our regular media feeds, and even less out of the mouths of our politicians.
In this section, I try to address some bigger questions and offer some insight that will hopefully work to generate further discussion and, more importantly, help to understand what’s going on and what’s at stake.
3.1 SO WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE OF THE OVERTURNING OF ROE v WADE?
Remarkably, in 2022, the highest court in the land overturned the 1973 Roe ruling, which had established a federal constitutional right to abortion, noting that “there is no inherent right to privacy or personal autonomy in various provisions of the Constitution” and that “the Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision…”
The key points noted were:
• The Court held that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion, and that Roe v. Wade and subsequent case law were wrongly decided.193
• The Court found that the right to abortion is not "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" nor "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty", and therefore is not protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.193
• The Court emphasized that the Constitution makes no express reference to a right to abortion, and that those claiming such a right must show it is somehow implicit in the constitutional text, which Roe failed to do.193
As for what rights the Constitution does protect, the Court recognized that the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause protects certain unenumerated rights that are "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" and "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty."193 These include rights related to marriage, family, procreation, contraception, and child rearing.
However, the Court found that the right to abortion does not fall into this category of protected rights.193-197
You gotta be kidding me! Apparently, the protection of women’s reproductive rights and their bodily autonomy are not deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition nor recognized as a fundamental liberty.*
WHAT?
How, pray tell, did some of our supremist of judges, you know, the ones who are supposed to be looking out for our best interests, come to this stunning conclusion?
Especially, when these rights DO INCLUDE such matters as marriage, family, procreation, contraception, and child rearing.
In its landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), the Supreme Court recognized that the right to abortion is a fundamental liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Since Roe, the Court has repeatedly reaffirmed the Constitution’s protection for this essential liberty, which guarantees each individual the right to make personal decisions about family and childbearing.197
To their credit, the dissenting justices argued that the majority’s decision curtailed women’s rights and their status as free and equal citizens.198
Check out the Supreme Court logic as well as the shocking reintroduction of Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban
The right to decide whether to continue a pregnancy is core to life, liberty, and equality—all rights protected under the U.S. Constitution. Human rights principles and international and comparative law recognize that abortion must be legal and accessible. 194
“[T]he "liberty" protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment covers more than those freedoms explicitly named in the Bill of Rights… Several decisions of this Court make clear that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment… That right [to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion] necessarily includes the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”
- Concurring Opinion in Roe v. Wade, by Justice Potter Stewart (Jan. 22, 1973)
So what happened here?
It seems clear that the Court was not guided by reason, nature, or humanity or even how individuals might improve their condition, nor did it base its decision on knowledge, freedom, and happiness.
Instead, the Justices based their salvo on the tyranny of Christian nationalist autocracy and the full merging of church and state.
The court’s decision not only removed the constitutional right to abortion but also arguably conflicts with constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment and due process, particularly in cases of rape and incest. That ruling forces victims to carry pregnancies to term, often seen as an unjust punishment without due process, suggesting decisions on abortion should be private and involve only those directly affected.
The author of the majority opinion, Justice Sam Alito, seemingly endeavoured to undertake all kinds of legal gymnastics to come up with this shocking conclusion which a number of legal scholars have deemed “doctrinally unsound,” arguing that it departs from established principles of constitutional interpretation and the Court's own precedents on substantive due process. The dissenting justices, meanwhile, accused the majority of an "exercise of raw judicial power" that will have devastating consequences for women's rights and equality.
It's almost like the Supreme Court went out of their way to put the kibosh of women’s rights, disregarding any attempt to safeguard human rights (including the right to reproductive autonomy per the 14th amendment) and personal autonomy and privacy (per the 4th amendment) in one fell swoop.
I always thought the primary role of the chief judiciary was to protect rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Instead, it sheepishly transferred the matter to the states and their voters, thereby instantly throwing reproductive health services into complete turmoil nation-wide, and unleashing a frightening cascade of medical, legal, and political uncertainty.
How, pray tell, did they think this was going to be helpful?
Millions
of women now face restrictions on their ability to access abortion services.
State-level bans have been enacted, affecting approximately 22 million women of reproductive age in states with near-total abortion bans. The ruling didn’t only affect those seeking abortions to end unwanted pregnancies. Women who never intended to end their pregnancies have nearly died because they could not get emergency treatment. Miscarriage care has been delayed. Routine reproductive medical care is drying up in states with strict bans. Fertility treatments were even temporarily paused in Alabama.
For the record and the edification of most of the Supreme Court judges as well as all others who think this move is a step in the right direction, let’s delve into some of the implications:
1. Erosion of Precedent:
o The characterization of the Roe v. Wade ruling as “egregiously wrong” and “damaging” reflects a significant shift in the interpretation of constitutional rights.
o By challenging the established precedent, the Supreme Court has signaled a willingness to reconsider foundational decisions related to privacy and autonomy. Worse yet, they also left the door open to overturn other major cases, including those that legalized gay marriage, barred the criminalization of consensual homosexual conduct, and protected the rights of married people to have access to contraception.
2. State-Level Discretion:
o Access to abortion now varies significantly depending on the state’s political climate.
o The decision to leave the matter to individual states and their voters has profound implications. It effectively decentralizes abortion policy, allowing states to enact their own regulations and restrictions.
o Some states have already taken steps to limit or ban abortion, while others have reaffirmed access to reproductive health services.
3. Impact on Reproductive Health:
o The uncertainty resulting from the decision has created a turbulent environment for reproductive health providers.
o Clinics and organizations that offer abortion services face legal challenges, changing regulations, and potential closures.
o Patients seeking abortion now encounter varying restrictions depending on their state of residence.
4. Medical and Legal Uncertainty:
o The shift in legal landscape has led to confusion and uncertainty for medical and legal professionals as well as patients.
o Physicians may grapple with interpreting state-specific laws and navigating ethical dilemmas.
o Individuals seeking abortion may face logistical hurdles, including travel to neighboring states with more permissive laws.
o Reduced access to safe and legal abortion could lead to unsafe procedures.
o Women may face health risks, especially in states with restrictive laws.
o Maternal mortality rates could rise if abortion becomes less accessible.
o Fertility treatment, contraception, and cancer care may also be affected.
5. Political and Social Implications:
o The decision has intensified political polarization and mobilized advocacy groups on both sides.
o Debates over reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, and the role of government continue to shape public discourse.
o The issue remains a flashpoint in elections and policy discussions.
6. Increased Abortion Numbers:
o Contrary to expectations, the number of abortions has increased since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade
o According to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that supports abortion access, there were approximately 1,026,690 abortions in the formal health care system in 2023, the first full calendar year after the decision1 . This represents a 10% increase since 2020, which was the last year for which comprehensive estimates are available.199
o The current abortion rate is also the highest measured in the United States in over a decade.199
o Women facing barriers may seek unsafe alternatives
7. Impact on Vulnerable Populations:
o Poor women and women of color are disproportionately affected by restrictions on abortion access.
o The decision may exacerbate existing health inequities.
Clearly, the overturning of Roe v. Wade has far-reaching consequences, affecting not only abortion rights but also broader aspects of women’s health and well-being.
Regardless, the GOP is largely thrilled with the state of affairs.
Donald Trump, who has boasted about overturning Roe v. Wade noted: "My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state…Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will [be] more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.”200
Except that’s clearly not true.
Trump’s premise that the U.S. had abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint is delusional.
The American people never supported overturning Roe v. Wade 201 Abortion policy in the U.S. has been clearly out of step with the will of the people over the last two years, and the judicial system has helped keep it that way.
The remark that “whatever they decide must be the law of land” is also a red herring as state GOP members continue to actively work to put the kibosh on constitutional abortion reform in a variety of states so even the will of the people may NOT be considered.
Indeed, when it comes to abortion, partisan politics often create a contentious landscape. State governments and judiciaries find themselves at odds, sometimes directly opposing the will of their own citizens who are facing resistance even when they go through legitimate means to modify state constitutions, clearly highlighting the bizarre tension between individual rights, legal frameworks, and political ideologies.
The GOP can barely hide their disdain for women.
Spring 2024 rulings in Florida and Arizona are a couple of recent examples of how access to reproductive freedom continues to be restricted by far-right judges appointed by Republicans.202
Let’s not forget the Alabama state Supreme Court decision in February 2024 that invoked God to claim that frozen embryos count as “children” under state law.203 This “fetal personhood” ideology204 is being promoted by other judges too, like in Florida, where the state’s Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz recently suggested205 that abortion “take[s] a whole class of human beings and put[s] them outside the protection of the law.”
These are state-level decisions, the result of state GOP politicians’ appointments. But judges on the federal bench have also used their positions to restrict abortion rights.
Trump’s appointment of Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to a federal district court in Texas, for example, led to the brazen effort to restrict medication abortion nationwide. Two more Trump-appointed judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled in favor of restricting access to the abortion pill.206
As recently as March 2024, 145 congressional Republicans signed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, urging it to revive enforcement of the Comstock Act of 1873. That 150year-old law could ban the mailing of pills prescribed for the most widely used method of medication abortion.207 If Donald Trump reaches the White House again, his administration could begin enforcing the Comstock Act with no input from Congress or the nation’s highest court.
Trump is why half of America now lives in a ‘reproductive prison’208
Trump himself boasted “I was able to kill Roe v. Wade” and “I was proudly the person responsible.” As a result of his achievement, conservatives on Arizona’s Supreme Court, freed by Roe’s demise, resurrected an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest, from the moment of conception. Trump invited just such Wild West jurisprudence the day before, when he said abortion policy should be left “up to the states.” Now, Arizona has restored women’s health care to an era when bloodletting and mercury pills were the standard of care, and patients had limbs sawed off without anesthesia. The man behind the Arizona ban, William Claude Jones, spent his life wielding his power over women and over girls and their bodies with complete tyrannical domination.209 And that is exactly the kind of ‘history and tradition’ that Samuel Alito and the Supreme Court have brought back to the 21st century.
Trump also once said women must be punished for seeking reproductive health care—and he’s gotten his wish.
Women are being turned away from emergency rooms, forced to go to court to seek permission for the medical attention they need, and left to travel hundreds of miles for health care.210
Conservatives’ abortion plan for a second Trump administration has never been reliant on a national ban, because they know they might not be able to get the votes. Instead, the focus is on using control of the FDA and the DOJ to implement backdoor bans.211 For decades, the Republican Party has accommodated forced-birth extremism within its ranks and explicitly promoted anti-abortion advocates to leadership.212 They have said in closed rooms and open forums that they had Roe v. Wade in their sights, and then dismissed or undermined anyone who pointed this out. In every confirmation hearing, in every campaign, Republican-aligned jurists, candidates, and elected officials insisted that there was nothing to worry about they believed in precedent and precedent protected abortion, even if they disagreed.
The GOP had no interest, no investment, no plans, no effort to eradicate abortion protections…until they did.
And now they say the same thing about contraceptives and family planning. Recently, in oral arguments over the outrageous effort to ban mifepristone, the main form of medicine abortion in the country, both Justices Thomas and Alito mentioned the Comstock Act (a 19th century law that has gone unenforced for decades, since it was designed to make the transmission of abortion pills, birth control, and even family planning and contraceptive information a crime)
None of this is being shared with voters, of course. It is all being shielded by equivocation or deflection, as Republicans structure a message that sounds compelling while leaving the devil in the details. Just like the assault on abortion, the GOP is going to deny their intentions until it is too late to stop them, and tell every skeptic along the way that we are prone to paranoid and overactive imaginations.
And their track record on action isn’t pretty. Even leaving aside the long list of lies from before the Dobbs decision demolished the inferred right to bodily autonomy, Republican legislators and functionaries have stymied popular will at every turn where pregnancy rights are concerned.
At the national level, that has included a constant feed of cases crafted by well-placed GOP ideologues to Republican-appointed federal judges, regardless of standing or injury, including the frankly bizarre argument made by Josh Hawley’s wife that forcedbirth doctors would or could be emotionally harmed by the results of someone, somewhere was taking mifepristone to end their pregnancy.
At the state level, it’s no better. In Ohio, the brutally gerrymandered GOP majority illegally tried to change the rules of state constitutional amendments when activists successfully got an affirmation of bodily autonomy onto the ballot, and when the amendment was added, have done their utmost to prevent it from taking effect. Similar Calvinball rule changes are being litigated by GOP officials in Missouri, Florida, Montana, and Arizona where activists see opportunities to put abortion rights up for a vote, knowing that they are significantly more popular than the restrictions legislators have imposed.
All of this is done under the auspices of “protecting” voters from confusion or complicated language, instead of explicitly saying that the state has a greater interest in pregnant people giving birth than letting those people have the right to handle their pregnancies for themselves.
Clearly, Republicans display an uncanny zealotry for forced-birth laws.
To further prove the point, Jill Lawrence addressed some pointed questions in her article, The GOP’s Women Problem, 213 which demonstrate how some Republicans are working to reinforce outdated gender stereotypes, considering reviving antiquated "chastity laws" and otherwise escalating threats to reproductive rights.
So who, I would ask, benefits from this mess?
And who’s going to pay for it?
Source:
(193) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. DOBBS, STATE HEALTH OFFICER OF THE MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL. v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION ET AL
(194) CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS. State Constitutions and Abortion Rights: Building Protections for Reproductive Autonomy. https://reproductiverights.org/state-constitutions-abortion-rights/
(195) CONSTITUION ANNOTED: Analysis and interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, Amdt14.S1.6.4.1 Abortion, Roe v. Wade, and Pre-Dobbs Doctrine
(196) Planned Parenthood, Roe v. Wade Overturned: How the Supreme Court Let Politicians Outlaw Abortion https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/issues/abortion/roe-v-wade
(197) CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS. Constitutional Protection for the Right to Abortion: From Roe to Casey to Whole Woman’s Health
(199) Brown. Lauretta. Abortions hit highest number in over a decade after fall of Roe v. Wade https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/03/22/abortion-post-dobbs-guttmacher-institute-study247561
(200) Sullivan, K., Holmes, K., Contorno, S. & Dale, D. Trump says abortion legislation should be left to states https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/08/politics/donald-trump-abortion-2024/index.html
(201) Pew Research Center. Majority of Public Disapproves of Supreme Court’s Decision to Overturn Roe v. Wade https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-courtsdecision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/
(202) Cohen, Rachel M. Florida and Arizona show why abortion attacks are not slowing down https://www.vox.com/2024/4/11/24126617/florida-arizona-abortion-rights-trump-2024
(203) Cohen, Rachel M. Alabama’s IVF warning to the country https://www.vox.com/24080428/alabama-ivf-embryo-abortion-women-fertility
(204) North, Anna. Fetal personhood laws, explained https://www.vox.com/policy/24090347/alabama-ivf-ruling-fetal-personhood-abortion-embryos (205) Moline, Michael. FL Supreme Court hears arguments over the future of abortion in this state https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/09/08/fl-supreme-court-hears-arguments-over-the-future-of-abortion-inthis-state/
(206) VOX Staff. Abortion medication in America: News and updates https://www.vox.com/2023/4/10/23677220/texas-abortion-pills-usa-updates-mifepristone-misoprostolkacsmaryk
(207) Associated Press. Over half of U.S. abortions done with pills, survey finds https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/half-us-abortions-done-pills-survey-finds-rcna17546
(208) Joy: Trump is why half of America now lives in a ‘reproductive prison’ https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/watch/trump-bears-all-responsibility-for-u-s-abortion-bans-joy-reidsays-208834117646
(209) Fernando, Christine. The Civil War raged and fortune-seekers hunted for gold. This era produced Arizona’s abortion ban
(210) Lowkell. President Biden: “Having created the chaos of overturning Roe, [Trump]’s trying to say, ‘Oh, never mind. Don’t punish me for that. I just want to win.’”
https://bluevirginia.us/2024/04/president-biden-having-created-the-chaos-of-overturning-roe-trumpstrying-to-say-oh-never-mind-dont-punish-me-for-that-i-just-want-to-win (211) Valenti, Jessica. Trump's Abortion Announcement https://jessica.substack.com/p/trumps-abortion-announcement?utm_source=post-emailtitle&publication_id=11153&post_id=143385551&utm_campaign=email-posttitle&isFreemail=true&r=2o5ngb&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email (212) Byrd, Kaitlin. The GOP’s Actions Speak Louder Than Words On Reproductive Rights https://betches.com/the-gops-actions-speak-louder-than-words/ (213) Lawrence, Jill. The GOP’s Women Problem https://www.thebulwark.com/p/gop-and-trump-women-problem
The freedom to control if and when to have children is globally recognized as a fundamental human right.*
For an example of the application of a human rights framework to reproductive healthcare, see Maria Isabel, Jane Cottingham, and Eszter Kismodi, “Ensuring Human Rights in the Provision of Contraceptive Information and Services: Guidance and Recommendations,” Geneva: World Health Organization, 2014.
Excerpt from
THE STATE OF REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH IN THE UNITED STATES: The End of Roe and the Perilous Road Ahead for Women in the Dobbs Era
3.2 WHAT IS THE FALL-OUT FROM THE OVERTURNING OF ROE v WADE?
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned the constitutional right to abortion that had been upheld for nearly 50 years under Roe v. Wade. In so doing, they unleashed a Pandora’s box of horrors. 214,216 The consequences are expected to disproportionately impact poor women, women of color, and midlife women, who may face increased rates of unintended pregnancy and limited access to the full range of reproductive health services.215
While some state courts have recognized a right to abortion under their state constitutions, providing a backstop against the most restrictive laws, the overall legal landscape remains uncertain and fluid.217
That said, the decision did not result in any clear benefits. Instead, it has only led to a host of negative consequences:
1. Reduced reproductive autonomy: The Dobbs decision has led to a dramatic rollback of abortion rights across much of the U.S., with significant impacts on women's health, autonomy, and access to reproductive care.214-217 By eliminating the federal constitutional right to abortion, the ruling has thrown reproductive rights into "complete disarray" and undermined the ability of women to make decisions about their own bodies and futures.219
2. Suspension or limitation of abortion services: The Dobbs decision is forcing some women to travel long distances to access abortion care. Clinics in states where abortion remains legal have seen a spike in patients from neighboring states with bans.216,217 Several states are threatening to ban travel to get abortion care. For example, Idaho signed a bill into law that makes it a felony to help a minor obtain an abortion, which includes transportation.
3. Detrimental impacts on women’s health:
• The Dobbs decision will lead to an increase in maternal mortality rates, which are already high in the U.S. compared to other developed countries, especially among marginalized communities.
• It will force some women to seek unsafe, illegal abortions, putting their health at risk.
• It will deny women access to essential reproductive healthcare, with significant longterm consequences for their physical and mental wellbeing.219
• Clinics that also provide contraception and cancer screenings have closed.
• Hospitals are telling women with nonviable pregnancies to wait in parking lots until their conditions become critical, after which they may be eligible for lifesaving care.
• Women are being denied medications they have long taken and need because those meds can result in abortion.
• Medication abortion is under attack.223
4. Exacerbated health disparities: The loss of abortion access disproportionately will impact low-income women and women of color, further widening existing racial and socioeconomic disparities in maternal health outcomes.221
5. Decreased economic opportunities: Restrictions on abortion access will limit women's educational and career opportunities, negatively impacting their long-term economic security and wellbeing.221
• It will decrease female labor force participation and opportunities for career advancement, as access to abortion services is linked to increased workforce participation and earnings potential for women.
• It will reduce women's educational attainment and earning potential, as access to abortion has been shown to increase the probability of women working full-time.
• It will disproportionately harm low-income women and women of color, who are more likely to face barriers to accessing abortion services.
6. Erosion of judicial legitimacy: The Dobbs decision, which overturned decades of precedent, has been criticized as undermining the Supreme Court's own legitimacy in the eyes of the public.219
7. Legal chaos: The Dobbs decision has led to a cascade of new state laws banning or severely restricting abortion access across the country, with injunctions against state abortion laws being lifted and pre-Roe bans being reinstated. At least 25 states have either near-total abortion bans or new laws limiting access. This has left many women scrambling to find abortion appointments before the new restrictions take effect.214,216,217
Overall, the repercussions of overturning Roe v Wade represent a healthcare, legal and economic fiasco with absolutely no winners. Or perhaps it is a fiasco BECAUSE there are no winners. Sadly, in the wake of the ruling, all we are left with is a patchwork of laws, medical and legal uncertainty, and increased barriers to care.
I’m simply dumbfounded.
Source:
(214) Totenberg, Nina. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ending right to abortion upheld for decades https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-decision-overturn
(215) Berg, Judith A. & Fugate Woods, Nancy. Overturning Roe v. Wade: consequences for midlife women’s health and well-being, National Library of Medicine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9824972/
(216) Housman, Patty. Roe v Wade Overturned: What It Means, What’s Next https://www.american.edu/cas/news/roe-v-wade-overturned-what-it-means-whats-next.cfm
(217) Quinn, Melissa. One year after Roe v. Wade's reversal, warnings about abortion become reality https://www.cbsnews.com/news/one-year-roe-v-wade-reversal-dobbs-decision-warnings-about-abortionbecome-reality/
(218) Farin, S.M., Hoehn-Velasco, L. & Pesko, M.F. The Impact of Legal Abortion on Maternal Mortality https://docs.iza.org/dp15657.pdf
(219) Machalow, Deborah. Screwed But Not Even Kissed: The Parade of Reproductive and Economic Horribles Likely to Follow Dobbs https://jgrj.law.uiowa.edu/sites/jgrj.law.uiowa.edu/files/2023-01/3%20Machalow.formatted.pdf
(220) Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Health_Organization
(221) Gender Equity Policy Institute. THE STATE OF REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH IN THE UNITED STATES: The End of Roe and the Perilous Road Ahead for Women in the Dobbs Era https://thegepi.org/reports/GEPI-State-of-Repro-Health-Report-US.pdf
(222) Clarke, E.V., Sibley, C.G. & Osborne, D. Examining Changes in Abortion Attitudes Following the Transition to Parenthood https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-023-01408-3
(223) Sherman, Tina. They Never Deserved to Be Called ‘Pro-Life’ Protecting and supporting families is not the focus of the Republican Party. https://msmagazine.com/2024/03/22/republicans-pro-life/
“The individual right to get an abortion, to terminate an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy safely and legally and freely, is a right that should be protected by the state, as all human rights should be.”
- Jane Carnal (Examining Changes in Abortion Attitudes Following the Transition to Parenthood, 2021, p.2)
Learn more: Screwed But Not Even Kissed: The Parade of Reproductive and Economic Horribles Likely to Follow Dobbs
The end of Roe v. Wade was a catastrophe. It could still get much worse. Republicans intend to enact a nationwide ban on abortion that voids any state law codifying reproductive rights.
Medical nightmares are happening before our eyes, and even as Americans in red and blue states express support for abortion rights, the GOP seems determined to crack down further.
Needless to say, this begs this follow-up question:
3.3 IF THERE ARE NO CLEAR BENEFITS TO THE OVERTURNING OF ROE v WADE, WHY BOTHER?
What really was the point of creating all the havoc?
As previously noted, the overturning of Roe v. Wade creates significant harm and disruption without clear societal benefits In fact, the decision appears to be opposed by a majority of Americans, who favor maintaining a national standard protecting abortion rights rather than leaving it up to individual states.
Now one might think – or hope – that their government legislators, and especially their Supreme Courts, were working to pass laws that worked to improve the lot of the majority.
In this case, we’re simply left scratching our heads.
What are we to think?
Was the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade driven by a moral and ideological agenda, and NOT an evidence-based assessment of its impacts?
Does the ruling reflect a desire to impose a particular set of values and beliefs, even at the expense of women's rights, economic opportunities, and health?
Was it merely a decision that prioritizes a narrow ideological agenda over the wellbeing of women and the broader economy?
Was the havoc created really worth it?
To me, the great tragedy is that it would appear that what we are really dealing with is a misguided and harmful ruling that came as a result of a political agenda. Period.
The proof??
• A majority of Americans (over 50%) oppose the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and nearly 60% say the ruling was based more on politics than on the law.180, 224, 226
• The decision came after years of efforts by anti-abortion activists and politicians to install Supreme Court justices hostile to abortion rights.225 This suggests the ruling was the result of a political agenda rather than a neutral interpretation of the law.
• Experts note that the overturning of Roe v. Wade marks the first time in U.S. history where a major constitutional right has been taken away, indicating the ruling was a significant departure from precedent.224
• Search results indicate that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was an unpopular and politically charged decision that appears to have been driven more by a conservative political agenda than by sound legal reasoning. The ruling has undermined public confidence in the Supreme Court's impartiality.224
Seems like clear evidence of Schadenfreude, a feeling of satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.
Not a good look for our top legislators.
That said, at the end of the day, I must ask, who exactly is benefitting from the overturning of Roe v Wade?
Source:
(224) Santhanam, Laura. Majority of Americans think Supreme Court overturning Roe was more about politics than law
(225) Planned Parenthood. Roe v. Wade Overturned: How the Supreme Court Let Politicians Outlaw Abortion https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/issues/abortion/roe-v-wade
(226) Pew Research Center. U.S. Public Continues to Favor Legal Abortion, Oppose Overturning Roe v. Wade https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/08/29/u-s-public-continues-to-favor-legal-abortion-opposeoverturning-roe-v-wade/
OR, put another way, why is America so obsessed with abortion?
Certainly, the #1 burning question in the abortion debate.
Many people have strong opinions about abortion especially in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, revoking a constitutional right previously held by more than 165 million Americans.
But what really drives people’s abortion attitudes?
It’s common to hear religious, political and other ideologically driven explanations for example, about the sanctity of life. If such beliefs were really driving anti-abortion attitudes, though, then people who oppose abortion might not support the death penalty (many do), and they would support social safety net measures that could save newborns’ lives (many don’t).231
Abortion is among the most intractable issues dividing the parties, with little or no room for compromise.
No issue in American life is more emotional, divisive and personal - and therefore easier to manipulate by cynical politicians of all parties and ideological affiliations - than abortion.227
It is an obsession at the edges of politics, but it is the passion of the edges that controls U.S. public life.227
On one side, opponents of the procedure argue that “at the moment of fusion of human sperm and egg, a new entity comes into existence which is distinctly human, alive, and an individual organism a living, and fully human, being,” as the Center for Human Dignity puts it in the pamphlet “The Best Pro-Life Arguments for Secular Audiences.” 5
On the other side, abortion rights proponents contend, in the words of the Center for Reproductive Rights: “Laws that restrict abortion have the effect and purpose of preventing a woman from exercising any of her human rights or fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men.” 5
So why is abortion such a hot-button issue in the U.S.?
The answer seems to be embedded in America's unique cultural and historic baggage, which includes:
1. Racism
According to many historians, racist concerns about white supremacy fed much of the U S 's early anti-abortion culture.
In the 19th century, many white American anti-abortion activists thought the problem with abortion was less about violating laws or committing a Christian "sin," and more about trying to maintain high birth rates for white Americans.109
2. Ideas about sexuality
According to many historians, U.S. attitudes about sexuality (which are often intertwined with racist thought) also played a huge role in the development of our abortion culture.
Gilda Sedgh, a principal research scientist with the Guttmacher Institute, told Foreign Policy that the difference between US and European attitudes towards abortion is tied to Europe's “social acceptance of premarital sexual activity and contraceptive use.” American anti-abortionists instead put forth an image of women who procured abortions as frivolous and promiscuous."109
Ever since 1973, abortion has become a symbol of women’ freedom to control their bodies and their reproductive choices and their growing economic independence. Their sexual freedom is not new; but it still symbolizes the fact that men can no longer control their bodies or their choices to have children. They can control their own destiny, and that is what Republicans would like to end.231
The fact is, American culture is highly sexualized, but its people are still profoundly uncomfortable about sex in general, and with women's sexuality, in particular.231
3. Feminism
American pro-choice feminism talked about women's rights to control their own bodies though, as professor Leslie Reagan noted, a lot of early American feminists weren't pro-abortion at all, or only accepted that the procedure might occur when women were abandoned by men or were "loose."
By contrast, European feminist thinking framed the abortion debate in terms of "public health and humanitarianism," arguing that legal abortion was necessary for every woman to have the best chance at health.
4. The Religious Right
As evangelical Christians became involved, the anti-abortion movement attained more political power and reach. Amanda Marcotte noted in Slate in 2013 that the religious right's influence on the abortion debate in America was what really distinguished it, in the late 20th and early 21st century, from European abortion discussions. America's very strong Christian Right, with its focus on "family values," has shaped American discourse through its use of political capital and resources.
5. Anti-abortion violence
Though other countries have been the site of some anti-abortion violence and murders, their numbers pale in comparison with the U S
6. Medical technology
With the advanced technology of sonograms, both women and men can see that the fetus is not an abstraction, but an actual growing life. The question for many, then, is when do the rights of the growing fetus trump the right of a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy? Is it at 12 weeks? 24 weeks? Always? Or never?231
7. Misinformation and Disinformation
Numerous false and mis-leading anti-abortion statements continue to be propagated, not the least of which is the conflation of all abortions with the lateterm, procedures performed during the third trimester.231
8. The Gosnell Horror
The nation watched in horror as prosecutors described how Dr. Kermit Gosnell essentially murdered babies. According to an article from Catholic News Agency, Gosnell’s related trial showed the difficulty of separating abortion from infanticide, in theory and in practice 231
9. Politics
Or more specifically, the politicization of the issue to rile up the electorate. This is less about policy and more about pure and simple voting harvesting. Politicians have, for decades now, used abortion to amp up culture wars, and foment division in the country.
Anti-abortion Republicans which is to say nearly all Republicans want to score points with their own supporters by trying to cut off government funding for Planned Parenthood, and GOP presidential candidates will be at the forefront of doing so in Congress.
Pro-abortion rights Democrats which is to say nearly all Democrats want to score points with their own supporters by defending Planned Parenthood and are eager to portray the GOP as a cadre of irresponsible zealots eager to hold government hostage.227
It’s a perfect fundraising and theatrical opportunity for both parties, even though most voters find the spectacle outrageous.227
So again, why is abortion the most divisive issue in American politics?
Because Americans are fundamentally compassionate and fair-minded people. They don’t want to bully pregnant women, and they don’t want to hurt babies. What decent person wants to impose (as pro-choice advocates put it) a “forced birth” on a woman? And what caring human being wants to (as pro-lifers say) “stop a beating heart”?229
No wonder Americans are so divided on abortion. Except… they’re not.
As Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute said in a recent podcast interview, the center of the bell curve on abortion for American voters is for it to be legal during the first trimester and restricted after that. “A very small, small percentage of Americans believe abortion should be legal in the third trimester.”229
Ask Americans if they agree with pro-choice absolutists that abortion should be legal all the way through pregnancy, and only 19 percent say yes. That’s in a Pew Research poll from March 2021, as well as in Gallup’s polling going back two decades. Support for Planned Parenthood’s position has rarely broken the 20 percent mark.229
But when Pew asked Americans if they share the pro-life absolutists’ view that all abortions should be illegal, just 8 percent agreed. Gallup’s number is higher, with around 20 percent supporting a complete ban, but still a distinct minority.
Meanwhile, in poll after poll, 60 percent or more of Americans say abortion should generally be legal in the early days of pregnancy particularly the first trimester but banned later in the pregnancy. Once the third trimester is reached, 80 percent of Americans oppose abortion.229 Eighty percent.
How many “80 percent” issues are there in the current political climate?
A Marist poll released in January lays out Americans’ views in more detail. It gave respondents a range of six views on abortion, from always legal to never allowed. “Always” got just 17 percent and “never” a mere 12 percent. That leaves 71 percent of respondents somewhere in between.229
Which begs the question:
If 60 percent to 70 percent of Americans are “in-between” on abortion, why aren’t more politicians in there with them?
On abortion, voters are overwhelmingly opposed to extremism. Politicians in both parties, however, embrace it at their peril.
How did America get to this place? And what does it mean for the way politics and government work -- or rather don’t work -- in the world’s only democratic superpower? 227
One reason is that the whole debate has been conducted in the context of the U.S. Constitution, which means the courts. The result is a deadly mix of intensity, unreality and instability.227
The Constitution is designed to enshrine and protect individual rights. But who is an individual worthy of protection?
Many African-Americans argue that they remain second-class citizens, in reality if not law. The women’s rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s successfully argued in court that freedom and dignity required that women be allowed to control their own bodies, including whether they could abort a fetus. The Supreme Court agreed in the famous Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.227
Now, citing the same theory of individual rights, anti-abortion forces argue vehemently, and with increasing success, for the “pre-born.” Modern diagnostic technology and advances in genetics help in two ways: by showing what a fetus looks like in utero, and by raising concerns that abortion is just the top of a vast slippery slope, the bottom of which is a hell of artificially created mutants.227
In other countries, legislatures are forums for debate and compromise. But in America, the power as opposed to the theater is in the courts. As a result, legislators are free to be irresponsibly extreme, knowing that in the end they won’t, in fact, decide the final outcome.227
Abortion is a cause and symbol of the ruination of American politics. It was the first shot in a culture war that has turned the two-party system into a fractured mess.227
Reforms years ago weakened party bosses and gave primary election voters power to pick presidential candidates. That, in turn, turbocharged activists such as abortion rights and anti-abortion forces in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere. They provide the troops and a good bit of the cash, and they demand absolutism from candidates.227
POLARIZING POLITICS
Ronald Reagan’s advisers were the first to see the possibilities of uniting conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants using abortion. A Protestant pastor in Virginia, Jerry Falwell, made common cause with Catholics a faith that earlier generations of evangelicals had feared and shunned for ethnic as well as theological reasons.227
The reality in the 1970s was that the surging rights movements rights for African Americans, women’s rights, reproductive rights, gay rights, rights for criminal defendants and for the mentally ill had set the stage for what would become an explosive conservative reaction, a reaction that by the 1980 elections put Ronald Reagan in the White House for eight years, wrested control of the Senate from Democrats and elected a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats that wielded tremendous power in the House.5
Today's Republicans do not live by tea alone, as many claim. The script still calls for consistent pandering to an ideological base that continues to battle a culture war — while most Americans worry about the economy, their jobs, the cost of food, energy and health care, and what kind of a future their kids will have.228
Some of the scholars and journalists studying the evolving role of abortion in American politics make the case that key leaders of the conservative movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s among them Richard Viguerie, Paul Weyrich, Phyllis Schlafly and Jerry Falwell Sr — were seeking to expand their base beyond those opposed to the civil rights movement. According to this argument, conservative strategists settled on a concerted effort to politicize abortion in part because it dodged the race issue and offered the opportunity to unify conservative Catholics and Evangelicals.5
After long and contentious debate, conservative strategists came to a consensus, Stewart writes:
“They landed upon the one surprising word that would supply the key to the political puzzle of the age: ‘abortion.’”5
Today, evangelical Christians are the most numerous, and vehemently anti-abortion, cohort of voters in the Republican Party literally the crusaders for GOP election contenders. No candidate dare cross them.227
Led by women’s groups, Democrats have responded in kind. No candidate dare cross them.227
In 2015, 69 percent of Republican voters - and virtually 100 percent of GOP candidatesdescribed themselves as "pro-life"; a mirror percentage of Democrats called themselves "pro-choice." The divide reflected regionally as well, not surprisingly, with anti-abortion views predominating in the South and Midwest, and abortion rights attitudes on the coasts. Overall, 51 percent of all Americans said they viewed themselves as pro-choice. A clear majority of the electorate is female, and a clear majority of females favored abortion rights.227
But American politics doesn’t operate in the “overall.” It operates state by state and district by district. Survey after survey shows that most American voters don’t rank abortion as a crucial issue. It isn’t on most radar screens; climate change, income inequality, education are.227
As for abortion, there is a weird combination of silence and fury. In general election campaigns, candidate will typically not talk about abortion. Why risk alienating what few swing voters there are?
Yet in the legislature, many work tirelessly to pass bills that seek to liberate or handcuff abortion rights.
Almost like they’re ashamed to address the issue, but happy to use it as a political football.
The public dirty work - the appeals to the base and the attacks on the other side - is left to so-called independent groups. They have no trouble spending millions on apocalyptic, inflammatory ads.227
IS MORALITY THE ISSUE OR MIGHT IT BE MORE ABOUT CONTROL?
“The anti-abortion movement has been remarkably successful at convincing observers that the positions individuals take on the abortion issue always follow in a deductive way from their supposed moral principles. They don’t,” Katherine Stewart, the author of the 2019 book “The Power Worshipers,” wrote.5
Stewart expanded on her argument, noting that abortion opponents are more likely to be committed to a patriarchal worldview in which the control of reproduction, and female sexuality in particular, is thought to be central in maintaining a gender hierarchy that (as they see it) sustains the family, which they claim is under threat from secular, modern forces.5
But it seems more devious than that.
From the White House to the Senate, from courthouses to state legislatures, everywhere you look across the country, men in power are simultaneously dismissing women’s experiences of sexual assault and further restricting access to abortion care, part of a scary and a pervasive culture, many claim, that disregards women’s right to control their own bodies.231
Deciding whether and when to have a child and whether or when to consent to sexual activity are both fundamentally about asserting autonomy over women’s own bodies.
And both restrictions on abortion and the dismissal of sexual assault are about people in power — predominantly men — trying to strip away their dignity and roll back their pursuit of equality. We’ve seen it across this country as state legislatures have introduced more than 250 laws restricting abortion access since January 2019.231
Rebecca Kreitzer, a professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and two colleagues argue in “The Evolution of Morality Policy Debate: Moralization and Demoralization” that as an issue becomes both polarized and “moralized,” it become more difficult, if not impossible, to resolve. In contrast, when an issue become “demoralized,” as has been the case with gay marriage over the past two decades, it becomes increasingly likely to reach bipartisan consensus.5
For 20 years, Gallup has asked, “Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general gay and lesbian relations are morally acceptable or morally wrong.” In 2001, 53 percent said morally wrong and 40 percent said morally acceptable. By 2021, however, 69 percent said gay and lesbian relations were morally acceptable compared with 30 percent who described such relations as morally unacceptable. The issue has been “demoralized” and has effectively disappeared from the national debate.5
No such luck in the case of abortion. Over the same 20 years, Gallup asked whether abortion is morally acceptable or unacceptable. In 2001, 42 percent said the procedure is morally acceptable and 45 percent said morally unacceptable. Over those two decades, the numbers varied modestly year to year but effectively changed very little: In 2021, 47 percent said acceptable, 46 percent said unacceptable.5
ABORTION AND BINARY POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES
Ultimately, it’s a matter of divide and conquer.
“There is [also] a persistent association between abortion views and ethnoracial exclusion,” Bart Bonikowski, a professor of sociology at N.Y.U., wrote:
“What has happened is that both issue positions have become increasingly sorted by party, so that being anti-choice or holding exclusionary beliefs is a clear marker of Republican affiliation, whereas being pro-choice or defining the nation in inclusive terms signals Democratic identity. The same has happened to a wide range of other issues, from health care and voting rights to mask-wearing and vaccination during the Covid-19 pandemic across all of these domains, policy views increasingly demarcate partisan identity.”5
It seems clear that America’s obsession with abortion shows no sign of waning, a reflection of the binary political ideologies and the related national battles over choice and control, and this, on a variety of fronts.
Source:
(227) Fineman, Howard. Why U.S. Politics Is Obsessed with Abortion
The issue isn’t a priority for most Americans, yet it’s helped shape and ruin U.S. politics. Here’s how.
(229) Graham, Michael. Americans aren’t divided on abortion; their politicians are https://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/commentary-americans-arent-divided-on-abortion-theirpoliticians-are-2576472/amp/
(230) Tucker, Ebony & Goodman, Shaina. Misogyny is at the Core of the Anti-abortion Movement
(231) Rosen Ruth. Why the relentless assault on abortion in the United States?
Americans have grown more supportive of same-sex marriages, gun control, immigration reform and even taxes on the wealthiest individuals. Why, then, have the cultural and political wars over abortion accelerated?
“To call the anti-abortion cause a “forced birth” movement is too kind, and misses these extremists’ ultimate objective: dominion over impregnatable people. Their preoccupation with fetuses is useful only inasmuch as it facilitates this aim. Why else would they ensure, under pains of criminal law, that pregnant people suffer and die when their sacrifice cannot produce a living child?”
On abortion rights, both the Democrat and Republican parties have a claim on public opinion. Maybe more to the point, both can make a strong case that the other party has an extreme view. Abortion is the relatively rare issue in which the cliché is true: public opinion does actually rest about midway between the parties’ platforms.
Nationwide, polls consistently show that people are no more “pro choice” than “pro life,” when asked to choose a label. More detailed questions yield similar results. And women are no more in favor of abortion rights than men. “Abortion is not heading in either party’s direction,” says Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center.
About 60 percent of Americans favor access to abortion in the first trimester (or first 12 weeks) of pregnancy, but close to 70 percent think it should be illegal in the second trimester, according to Gallup. Likewise, a recent National Journal poll found 48 percent of respondents favoring, and only 44 percent opposing, a House of Representatives bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy except in cases of rape and incest.
Perhaps the best weapon of abortion rights advocates is their opponents’ extremism. In the debate over abortion, unlike the debates over immigration and marriage, both sides can easily claim the mantle of individual rights.
• Supporters can maintain that women deserve the right to make decisions about their bodies at any point in a pregnancy and that many abortion opponents change their position when facing a real-life decision.
• Opponents can counter with increasingly clear images from sonograms, often showing decidedly human forms on the cusp of viability. Opponents can also point to the specter of eugenics: one study has found that prenatal screening caused births of children with Down syndrome to be 49 percent lower than they otherwise would have been, even as medical advances have sharply extended the lives of people with the disorder.
If the issue presents either Republicans or Democrats with a political opportunity, it is one they will both struggle to exploit, given the passionate feelings of their bases. But the opportunity does exist.
Most Americans are uncomfortable with abortion yet believe there are circumstances and not just a narrow few when it should be legal. They believe that women should have control over their bodies and also that an abortion is akin to a death. Where they struggle is in deciding when each principle deserves to take priority.
“About 8 in 10 Americans believe abortion is taking a life. What you then have is a discussion about when it is acceptable.”
- Ed Goeas, president of the Tarrance Group, a Republican polling firm.
There is an unsung dimensionality of shame in the abortion debate in America, an undercurrent so strong that it practically defines the water.
The abortion debate has never been resolved because the issue is not abortion. The issue of abortion is about controlling women. It’s an issue that 100 percent affects women, and it’s an issue that has historically been voted on by an overwhelming majority of men.
How dare they.
Sexual shame proliferates into every aspect of American life, regardless as to if what you’ve seen the inside of a Catholic confession booth. Sex is “naughty.” Women, who have sex? The sexual revolution and most modern narratives promote neutrality or encourage viewing them as empowered, but a 2019 study found that both women and men rated, “women whom they believe are open to casual sex with lower mind and moral capacity” (Kellie et al., 2019). In another study, women to whom participants had assigned a more sexualized appearance were consequently identified as both more responsible for a sexual assault and less likely to have suffered (Loughnan, 2013).
Women are also responsible for obtaining and maintaining birth control, an act that has significant financial and health consequences, and a responsibility in which their partners are very rarely involved (Campo-Engelstein, 2012).
Men and women are both responsible for a pregnancy. But in this country, if there’s an error calculating the risk, women are shouldered with the debt.
• Condoms are only about 85 percent effective at preventing pregnancy with typical use, according to Planned Parenthood.
• An analysis of 50 sexual health studies showed that as many as 40.7 percent of participants had experienced a broken condom during intercourse.
• As many as 44.7 percent of participants had removed a condom before the end of intercourse. Inappropriate use of a condom, such as using latex condoms with an oil-based lubricant (oil degrades latex), failing to leave room for semen, or placing the condom on the wrong way, only to use the same condom for the correct application (after it has come into contact with potential fluids) has also been widely cited (Sanders et al., 2012).
• Sperm can survive in warm, moist environments, such as the mouth and vagina, for days. In a study of 27 male volunteers, 37 percent produced pre-ejaculate containing spermatozoa of “reasonable motility” (Killick et al., 2010).
• Women are responsible for absorbing the majority of the mental and emotional load of fertility awareness and anxiety and fear surrounding a potential pregnancy. Are they also responsible for performing their traumas for the possibility of being heard or feeling seen in relation to their reproductive rights?
Women’s bodies bear the burden of sex
Women not only bear the cognitive burden of pregnancy prevention, they are also more likely to get STIs than their male counterparts (Panchanadeswaran, 2006). They are more likely to be victims of domestic violence (even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, in which domestic violence has increased (United Nations: Women, 2022).
Thirteen percent of women ages 15–49 have experienced physical or sexual violence from their intimate partner. In the United States, 91 percent of sexual assault victims are female, and 1 in 10 has reported rape by an intimate partner (National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2015). Worldwide, 81 million women and girls were killed in 2020, and over half (58 percent) were killed by an intimate partner or family member.
Despite these mental and emotional burdens, more women than men in the United States are attending college (even though a woman with a bachelor’s degree earns approximately the same as a man with an associate’s degree. This also holds true for women with a master’s degree, who earn, on average, the same as men with bachelor’s degrees). This is true for every industry and choice of major; for example, it is estimated that a man with a business degree will make 1.1 million more over the course of his career than a woman with the same degree (Carnevale, 2018).
It also happens that employed women with unemployed partners are more likely to be the victims of spousal abuse (which includes forced sex) when compared with couples where both partners are employed (Macmillan and Gartner, 1999).
While women are playing an increasingly central role in the workforce, and expectations for women to take on leadership roles are surely (but slowly) shifting, deeply internalized notions about caretaking roles have not shifted, and the dual-income household pressure remains strong. Women still do the majority of domestic labor and are more likely to compromise their careers or education to care for aging relatives (The National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, 2015).
Simply put:
Even though women may have adjusted to greater participation in the workforce, this was not concurrent with men becoming similarly empowered to embrace domesticity.
The invisible burden still placed on women is often referred to as the “second shift,” a term coined by Arlie Hochschild in 1989.
In 2016, a study showed that spouses and daughters are more likely to be primary caregivers and men and non-relatives are more likely to play a secondary caregiving role. Many more studies attest women always having been the dominant demographic for caregivers (NAC and AARP Public Policy Institute, 1997, 2004, 2009, 2015a; Penrod et al., 1995; Pinquart and Sörensen, 2006; Yee and Schulz, 200, as cited by Schulz and Eden, 2016). All of this leaves women in a place of excessive social and financial vulnerability in a country that preaches gender equality while uniquely failing to mandate any kind of paid federal maternal or paternal leave whatsoever (note that the Family Leave Medical Act (FMLA) only offers unpaid leave and that this does not cover all workers or all companies).
Even with the pro-choice movement, women in the United States don’t really have the right to choose, especially if you define a right by what is reasonably feasible in average social and economic conditions. They don’t have a right to childcare, education, to steady employment, and they don’t have the right to stop elderly white men (who are not healthcare providers or scientists, by the way) from making laws about what they should be able to do with their body.
The New York Times’ The Daily covered the story of an abortion provider in Knoxville, Tennessee, who was inspired to become an OB/GYN after her own illegal abortion as a teenager after failed birth control. She was the first in her family to go to college, and it’s easy to imagine how her life would have been derailed by teenage pregnancy. There are so many of these stories, and rightfully so. There are overwhelmingly beautiful stories. But need they all be so beautiful? Our acceptance should not be relegated to beautiful stories, it should be predicated upon humanity, as beautiful and ugly as it may come. To accept the principle of something does not mean that you can’t have an opinion. But it does mean that you can’t decide that one person is worthy of having an abortion and another person isn’t. That’s like saying one person‘s life and personal agency is worth more than another’s, which arguably is one of the problems that is spurring this debate in the first place.
In 2022, more than half of those surveyed express support for legal abortion, though women support it more than men (63 percent versus 58 percent, overall), according to the Pew Research Center. More women express support for legal abortion than men in every age bracket and support for abortion increases with the level of education (Pew Research Center, 2022). This may seem like progress, but the same survey demonstrated an overall 60% support rate for legal abortion in the year 1995, and the rate of support actually fell below 60% until 2019 (Pew Research Center, 2022).
Why, then, has abortion remained at center stage as a constant point of contention amongst political candidates?
The undercurrent of misogyny that pervades American culture is not the only force working against a woman’s right to choose. It is widely reported that the religious right and antifeminists have long harnessed the abortion debate as a proxy for anxieties around cultural change, including anxieties fueled by racism (The Guardian, 2021). Such movements would have little traction if not for the underlying sexism that continues to proliferate into every aspect of American culture.
We can’t refute the anti-abortion argument by telling stories of wildly accomplished women and beautiful now-mothers who have had an abortion. Bias against women is what has brought this issue to a breaking point, so putting forth “model abortion” scenarios is not going to help. Even if, in the short term, it convinces someone of the merits of abortion, it will not go far in convincing them of women’s innate personal agency and dignity.
Women do not earn their right to bodily autonomy through achievements or through photos of their beautiful families. At least, they shouldn’t. Isn’t that what this argument is about?
Sharing these stories reinforces the idea that we need to earn the right to autonomy. The very reality that oppressed persons feel the need to perform their trauma is a symptom of sickness and seems to do more to fuel emotional outrage culture than to change anyone’s mind. Emotional pleas only further subjugate women to a status of oppression.
Logical pleas about the science of abortion and the economics of Planned Parenthood funding also have limited impact because, again, abortion isn’t actually the issue at hand here. Abortion is a proxy for America’s swamp of shame around sex, women, bodily autonomy, and moral agency.
The false dichotomy of “pro-life” and “pro-choice” should be a clear indicator that this game is rigged. Not only is there the irony that many of the “pro-lifers” (“anti-choice”) support lax gun laws (Washington Post, 2022), but there’s also the reality that (I hope) the majority of us are both pro-life and pro-choice, in the literal (logical) sense of the words.
We don’t need to show that women have feelings, that abortion is hard, that women can be mothers after an abortion, or that abortion itself can give someone a new life when they could have been thrown into poverty.
This debate is a symptom of a larger illness in our attitudes towards women in general. What we do need to show is that women are people.
The Conservative War on Sex
It's not about abortion; it's about pleasure and freedom.
One somewhat satisfying outcome of America’s very indiscreet political present is that the dog whistle has died. Subtext is now just text. Conservatives especially are simply saying exactly what they think and what they aim to achieve, whether that’s ending American democracy (“Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely,” Jack Posobiec said in his welcome speech at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which no prominent Republicans have rejected) or outlawing divorce (“rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws and support covenant marriage” reads the Texas Republican Party’s 20222 platform) or discriminating against LGBTQ people (“We are a religious state and we are going to fight it to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma,” Oklahoma state Sen. Tom Woods said at a public event).
And now they’re being increasingly honest about what sex is like in a conservative paradise: Definitely not for fun.
The Heritage Foundation - the group crafting policy for a Donald Trump presidency - tweeted: “Conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose, and ending recreational sex and senseless use of birth control pills.”
When science writer Michael Shermer tweeted (rightly) that conservatives were coming for IVF, birth control pills, and an end to recreational sex, conservative activist Christopher Rufo, most famous for starting the war on “woke” and anti-DEI hysteria, responded with, “So what? The pill causes health problems for many women. ‘Recreational sex’ is a large part of the reason we have so many single-mother households, which drives poverty, crime, and dysfunction. The point of sex is to create children this is natural, normal, and good.”
This doesn’t really make sense if the point of sex is to create children, then those singlemother households seem to be doing it right but his ultimate point is that sex is to be done within the confines of marriage, and for the purpose of marital childbearing. Which is not how the vast majority of people in the US have sex, whether they’re married or not.
But the goal is to make it incredibly difficult to have sex for pleasure alone by limiting the tools available to prevent unintended pregnancy, which in turn will make sex more anxietyinducing and perilous, and to also limit the tools to have children that don’t involve sex at a young age.
Make no mistake. They are coming for IVF. They are coming for birth control pills (and other forms of contraception). They are coming for the very concept of recreational sex sex for fun (which, yes, partnered and married people do too!).
Sex, they argue, should come with “consequences.” Or, as the Heritage Foundation put it, conservatives should focus on “restoring the consequentiality to sex.”
3.5 WHAT GIVES ONE THE RIGHT TO DICTATE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DO WITH THEIR BODIES?
OR, put another way, why are there still so many who are intent on putting the kibosh on the reproductive rights of others?
OR, put even more simply, why is abortion not solely a private matter?
What
business of this is yours?
I would expect this to be the #2 burning question in the abortion debate.
I trust you’ve heard the phrase ‘It’s none of your business’ when something is of no concern to another. Which, in this case, begs the questions:
• Why are individuals who are not directly involved in the procedure making such a fuss?
• How does this very difficult and life-changing decision really affect them?
• And where do they get the gall to impose their will on the lives of others and dictate what someone else does with their body?
The staunch resistance exhibited by pro-life supporters, to me, can only lead to a question of vested interest.
I am perplexed.
What personal stake might these fierce objectors have in the matter?
How might they explain their strong personal interest in the issue and, in particular, the related personal advantage it might offer them?
It is my understanding that, instead of treating the matter as a women’s rights issue –right to privacy and personal autonomy – anti-abortionists commonly offer the following perspectives:
1. Ethical and moral beliefs:
Many people hold strong moral or ethical beliefs regarding the status of a fetus and the right to life. They believe that abortion involves the termination of a human life and view it as morally wrong or even equivalent to murder. From this perspective, the concern arises from a belief in protecting the rights and welfare of the unborn.
2. Religious beliefs:
Religious teachings and doctrines often shape people's perspectives on abortion. Various religious traditions consider abortion to be against their religious principles. Consequently, adherents of these beliefs may view it as their moral duty to advocate for the protection of the unborn.
3. Societal impact:
Some argue that the availability and prevalence of abortion have broader implications for society. They contend that it affects the overall moral fabric of society, the well-being of families, and the relationship between parents and children. Concerns may also be raised regarding the potential devaluation of human life or the erosion of traditional family structures.
4. Legal and policy implications:
Abortion is a complex legal and policy issue. Debates often revolve around questions of reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, and the role of government in regulating medical procedures. The decisions and laws surrounding abortion can have far-reaching consequences on healthcare systems, public funding, and legal precedent. Consequently, people may express concern over the legal and policy ramifications of abortion.
5. Public health concerns:
Abortion can also have public health implications, as unsafe abortion practices can lead to serious health consequences and even death. This, of course, is a valid concern, but would mean that the state actually has an interest in regulating abortion to ensure that it is safe and accessible for those who seek it.
While individuals who are not directly involved in an abortion may have real concerns –it just sticks in their craw - we need to consider, first and foremost, that it is typically those directly affected who have the most significant stake in the decision-making process – and the most to lose.
What,
pray tell, might others, who don’t have a vested interest in the matter, but are hell-bent on stopping it, offer in lieu to make the situation better? What assistance might they provide in this dire time of need?
I’m not seeing much, though I am seeing quite a bit of shaming and contempt, which sadly does nothing to address the real problem at hand.
Many believe this is a question of individual rights versus societal interests.
The concept of individual rights emphasizes personal autonomy and the freedom to make choices without interference or coercion. Proponents of individual rights argue that individuals should have the final say over decisions regarding their own bodies, as long as those decisions do not harm others or infringe upon the rights of others.
On the other hand, societal interests come into play when actions taken by individuals potentially impact the well-being or values of the broader community. For example, issues such as public health, safety, and ethics can be invoked to justify restrictions or regulations on certain activities. In such cases, society may argue that limiting individual autonomy is necessary to protect public welfare or promote a common good.
Frankly, I’m not seeing how such an argument holds water in this case.
I submit that abortion is a perfectly reasonable option that respects both the personal autonomy of the pregnant person and the collective welfare of the society, while addressing an untenable situation. It allows the pregnant person to exercise their right to bodily integrity and selfdetermination, without being coerced or pressured to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, avoiding a whole host of negative repercussions It also benefits the society by reducing the social and economic costs of unwanted children, such as poverty, crime, abuse, neglect, and overpopulation while not handicapping an unprepared mother, better allowing her to live up to her full potential.
Looks like a win-win to me.
So what’s the story?
Looks like what we’re seeing here is the imposition of one’s beliefs on others. And this by, amongst others, a bunch of Supreme Court justices who offered up a remarkably weak defense of why reproductive rights should not be guaranteed.
3.6 WHY SHOULD WE CARE IF SOMEONE ELSE WANTS AN ABORTION?
We should care if someone else wants an abortion because access to safe and legal abortion is a fundamental human right and an important public health issue. As has been demonstrated previously, denying individuals access to abortion can have significant physical, emotional, and economic consequences, not just for the individual involved, but also for their family, their community, and society as a whole.
So, again, we should care if someone else wants an abortion because their decision can have significant impacts on their life as well as on the broader community.
Although abortion is often thought of as a private decision between a woman and her healthcare provider, it also has important implications for public health, social equity, and economic well-being. Here are a few reasons why abortion access matters to individuals and communities beyond the person seeking the abortion:
1. Public health: Denying individuals access to safe and legal abortion can have significant public health impacts. When people are forced to seek out unsafe and illegal abortion methods, it can lead to serious health complications and even death. In addition, unintended pregnancies can have significant economic consequences for both the person carrying the pregnancy and their child. Unsafe abortions also put a significant burden on healthcare systems and can lead to increased healthcare costs for society as a whole.
2. Social equity: Access to safe and legal abortion is an important component of social equity. Restrictions on abortion access can disproportionately affect lowincome individuals, people of color, and those living in rural areas, all of whom may have limited access to healthcare services. By denying these individuals access to abortion, we are further perpetuating social and economic inequalities.
3. Economic well-being: Unintended pregnancies can have significant economic consequences for individuals and their families. When someone is denied access to abortion, they may be forced to carry a pregnancy to term, which can result in significant healthcare costs, lost wages, and reduced educational and career opportunities. These economic consequences can have ripple effects on the broader community, particularly if the person seeking the abortion is a primary caregiver or breadwinner.
4. Reproductive rights: Access to safe and legal abortion is an important component of reproductive rights. Denying individuals the ability to make decisions about their own bodies and their own futures undermines their autonomy and their ability to participate fully in society.
5. Social Impacts: Restricting access to safe and legal abortion can contribute to a cycle of poverty and social inequality, as individuals may be unable to achieve their full potential due to the financial and social costs of unintended pregnancies. This can have broader social impacts, as individuals and communities that face economic and social barriers are often at a higher risk of experiencing a range of negative health outcomes and social problems.
6. Legal Impacts: Denying individuals access to safe and legal abortion may also have legal implications, as it can infringe on an individual's right to bodily autonomy and equal protection under the law. It can also lead to legal challenges and increased political polarization.
In short, abortion access matters to everyone, not just the person seeking the abortion.
Promoting access to safe and legal abortion is not just about individual choice, but a critical public health imperative that impacts the wellbeing of all members of society. Improving abortion access can help address longstanding inequities and advance the principles of public health, social equity, and reproductive rights.
By ensuring access to safe and legal abortion, we can promote individual autonomy, gender equality, and public health, and reduce the economic, social, and legal burden of unintended pregnancies.233-240
Seems like a no-brainer.
Source:
(233) American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (2014). Increasing Access to Abortion. https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2020/12/increasing-access-toabortion
(234) Guttmacher Institute. (2021). Abortion in the United States. https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states
(235) World Health Organization. (2012). Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems (2nd ed.). https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/70914/9789241548434_eng.pdf;jsessionid=67F12FA44F3 B3C45B3B67DDB5E45C84D?sequence=1
(236) Miller, Sarah, Wherry, Laura R., & Greene Foster, Diana (2020). The Economic Consequences of Being Denied an Abortion - National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w26662
(237) Bernstein, Anna & Jones, Kelly M.. (2019). The economic effect of abortion access: A Review of the Evidence – Institute for Women’s Policy Research. https://iwpr.org/the-economic-effects-of-abortion-access-a-review-of-the-evidence/ (238) National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). The safety and quality of abortion care in the United States. National Academies Press. https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24950/the-safety-and-quality-of-abortion-care-in-the-united-states (239) Jones, Rachel K., Zolna, M. R., Henshaw, S.K. & Finer, L.B. Abortion in the United States: incidence and access to services, 2005. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/journals/4000608.pdf
(240) Johnston, Emily M. Research Shows Access to Legal Abortion Improves Women’s Lives https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/research-shows-access-legal-abortion-improves-womens-lives
Learn more:
Beyond the Individual: Research shows abortion access has widespread benefits https://www.ipas.org/news/beyond-the-individual-research-shows-abortion-access-has-widespread-benefits/
3.7 WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE CONCERNED ABOUT KILLING UNBORN BABIES?
As we’ve already established, many people are concerned about this issue due to differing moral, ethical, and religious beliefs. Some view the termination of unborn pregnancies as taking away a potential human life and believe in the inherent value, rights and sanctity of the unborn. Others claim to be concerned about the potential physical and emotional impact on the woman undergoing the procedure.
But the primary issue, as was noted earlier, is the killing of “babies” , essentially those unborn. This avenue of debate hinges on the nature of ‘personhood’, about which I’d like to offer Judith Jarvis Thomson’s ‘acorn and oak tree’ analogy:
“[a] newly fertilized ovum…is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree.” 241
This line of thinking ultimately leads to a question of viability or the ability of the socalled ‘baby’ to survive independently, generally understood to be at about 23 weeks.243 That said, most abortions happen well before then.
So, from that perspective, one might feasibly argue that the procedure is not killing babies but rather, their potential. Not that killing potential is a good thing. But to be fair, we also need to look at the nature of that potential.
That being said, then, why all the fuss about putting the kibosh on unwanted beings who, by their very nature, do not have the odds in their favour –especially given their origin in largely unprepared or ill-equipped mothers (and possibly fathers) just not ready for the huge responsibility?
What is the benefit to society to add a being whose chances for success –not to mention the supporting cast – are handicapped before the word GO? Who really wins in this scenario?
Perhaps the question we really need to be asking is: When is it justified to terminate a ‘life’ in the face of an unwanted pregnancy?
Answering this question, rather than getting caught up with the notions of “murder” and “personhood” is essential if we are to work toward agreeable and equitable parameters for reproductive rights moving forward.
The denial of abortion changes the direction of women’s lives. It has profound negative impacts on women's mental health, physical health, financial wellbeing, and ability to achieve their life goals. Abortion allows women to delay pregnancy and, amongst other things, pursue careers that require post-secondary education. States like Missouri, Wyoming and West Virginia rank among the states with the most restrictive abortion laws and each has lower female college completion rates and female median salaries than regions with better access, like Washington, D.C., and California.242
On the contrary, men have always been able to leave in the face of pregnancy to protect themselves. Men can leave women and children if a pregnancy is at an inopportune time, yet women are expected to derail their lives and education for that same child.
Without the option of abortion, women are forced to put another life before their own and, in many cases, sacrifice themselves to compensate for a man’s unwillingness to stay.242
Even when it is justified to take a ‘life’, we should try to avoid it. BUT sometimes there are extenuating circumstances and we have to allow for that.
Women’s potential discomfort with having an abortion is not a reason to shame women for making this decision or encourage the elimination of abortion. While abortion should not be advertised as a form of birth control, it is a tool that exists so that women do not have to be entrenched in caring for an unwanted life, especially one that their partners can easily escape. Likewise, we need to consider the safest forms of abortion for both the fetus and the mother together with the phases of pregnancy at which an abortion should optimally take place. But, make no mistake about it.
Women’s rights and respect for human life are not mutually exclusive. We need to acknowledge that it is justified to end a biological life under certain circumstances.242
The right to life and women’s rights can, and do, coexist. Only by moving away from semantic and unproductive debates over the definition of murder might we enable Americans and the courts to stop taking huge steps backward and focus on policy that can create a safer future for both women and children.
With that, allow me to share the thoughts of scientist, former White House Senior Policy Analyst, Ph.D in neurophysiology, Jeff Schweitzer who notes in his article An Acorn is Not an Oak:
“Those people who hold those views are welcome to act on them accordingly; but please do not impose your religious views on those of us who do not share them. I am not forcing you to act personally in any way counter to your personal beliefs; you have no justification to impose your views on me, to legislate my wife's or daughter's relationship with their doctor, or interfere with how they decide to deal with their own bodies. My views do not interfere with how you live your life; yet your views seek to change mine. No conservative has ever explained the ironic disconnect between the stated disdain for big government and the desire to have that very government enter my bedroom and doctor's office.” 243
Source:
(241) Killoren, Collin. Examining Thomson’s Views on Fetal Personhood
It is by no means enough to show that the fetus is a person, and to remind us that all persons have a right to life we need to be shown also that killing the fetus violates its right to life, i.e., that abortion is unjust killing.
https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/examining-thomsons-views-fetal-personhood/ (242) Tadross, Veronica. Abortion is more than a debate over murder
https://vanderbilthustler.com/2022/06/24/tadross-abortion-is-more-than-a-debate-over-murder/ (243) Schweitzer, Jeff. An Acorn Is Not an Oak
Clearly somewhere between a just-fertilized egg and a baby about to exit the birth canal lies a distinction between potentially human and human. Because that line is difficult to draw does not mean that the line does not exist.
“Because the anti-abortion orientation is toward control—not life— the cosmology does not admit the possibility of a non-viable pregnancy. As the fetus is valued over the pregnant person, the phenomenon of pregnancy is valued over the fetus.”
- Charlotte Shane
From The Right to Not Be Pregnant
An Acorn Is Not an Oak
Clearly somewhere between a just-fertilized egg and a baby about to exit the birth canal lies a distinction between potentially human and human. Because that line is difficult to draw does not mean that the line does not exist.
By JEFF SCHWEITZER https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mississippi-personhood_b_1083161
A fetus is to a person as an acorn is to an oak.
Sure, one has the potential to become the other, but is not that other in its current state. The rules governing the cutting of mature trees is not the same for gathering acorns for good reason; the potential to become something does not make you that thing.
This is not a political issue, but a religious one masquerading as politics.
Proposition 26 in Mississippi (rejected by voters) and its kin elsewhere are nothing but an attempt by Christian extremists to create a theocracy, to impose their religious views on a secular state. Other than religious zeal, the effort has no justification.
Most of us would agree, left and right, that prevention, not abortion, is the vastly preferred method of family planning. Abortion is an invasive surgical technique, physically and psychologically traumatic, expensive, and potentially dangerous. Unwanted pregnancy should be exceptional rather than routine. Part of the adult responsibility commensurate with having an active sex life is prudent and careful use of contraception.
Abortion foes claim that the procedure is murder, based on the notion that a fertilized egg has the same suite of rights enjoyed by all humans. The belief that a few cells derived from a fertilized egg is a human being is a sad example of good intentions based on misguided notions of biology.
Clearly somewhere between a just-fertilized egg and a baby about to exit the birth canal lies a distinction between potentially human and human.
Before a fetus is capable of living outside the womb at week 23, even with invasive medical intervention, the line from potential to actual human has not been crossed.
Before week 23, a premature baby cannot survive. We cannot call something human that has no hopes of survival as an independent being. Again, biology speaks loudly: no human baby has ever been successfully delivered before the middle of the 22nd week. Viability between weeks 23 and 26 is uncertain, but possible. About 10% of babies born at 23 weeks survive. The Office of Science and Technology Assessment reported, too, that 10% of babies weighing less than 2.2 pounds born before 28 weeks survived. Lungs do not reach full maturity until week 34, and a suite of life-time medical problems can be expected for births before that milestone. Medical advances can only push this point of viability so far back toward conception, because functioning lungs, even if not mature, must be present for a fetus to survive outside the womb.
No amount of medical intervention before that point of development will change this fundamental fact of biology.
3.8 WHY ARE SO MANY POLITICIANS AND COURTS INTENT
ON ANTIABORTION LEGISLATION WHEN THERE DOESN’T APPEAR TO BE AN OVERWHELMING APPETITE FOR IT?
NOTE: 62% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to Pew Research, a group of researchers not connected to any specific political party.* Polls since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade have consistently shown that the majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. On access to abortion medication such as mifepristone, the debate is even more lopsided: 72% of Americans oppose laws that would make it illegal to obtain abortion pills, according to a poll by the Public Religion Research Institution.
Since the Dobbs ruling came down in 2022, it’s been taken as an article of faith that the success of Republicans’ half-century quest to overturn abortion rights would prove to be a political miscalculation. Polls showed more than 62% of Americans consistently thought abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Exit polls in the 2022 elections indicated 60% of voters thought the same. Plenty of pundits saw abortion rights as a deciding factor that saved Democrats from decimation at the polls in 2022 and could do so again in 2024.244
The wildly unpopular revocation of reproductive rights hurt Republicans severely in the 2022 midterms. Even so, the GOP is intent to double down on abortion restrictions, holding firm to their desire to control women’s reproductive narrative and hold women hostage in their own bodies.
The party that calls itself pro-life seems to be pro-cruelty.
Republicans simply don’t seem to want to acknowledge that life is complicated and that people sometimes need to have options. They need to have the right to make personal decisions about their lives and their families.
Maybe, they’re just too invested in the position and they need to perpetuate their diametric opposition to all Democrat ideology. Any change in stance, even if proven unworthy, would appear weak.
And so, they must stay the course, especially having hijacked the nation’s highest court for partisan and unpopular ends. The biased nature of the arrangement showed that the Supreme Court can indeed be swayed to favour one party over another, a scenario that played out in the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
They are satisfied to continue to use the abortion issue as a political football – a red herring of sorts to galvanize a population – rather than a legitimate concern for women’s reproductive rights.
An April 2024 Quinnipiac University National Poll found support for legal abortion has reached an all-time high, noting that two-thirds of voters (66 percent) think abortion should be legal in either all cases (34 percent) or most cases (32 percent), while 27 percent of voters think abortion should be illegal in either most cases (22 percent) or all cases (5 percent).
Ever since Dobbs triggered new abortion bans and limits around the country and talk of even more restrictions, more than a few Republicans have said their party was effectively alienating women at the polls, especially those in the suburbs with college degrees.
But looking through the detailed cross sections of the data, it’s not entirely irrational for these GOP leaders to be chasing this agenda—at least insofar as they’re looking to win primary voters. (General election voters, to be clear, have shown far less interest in abortion restrictions and, to this point, are not especially friendly to an agenda that started with abortion and could creep into other aspects of reproductive health like contraception.)244
Within the Republican universe, there are no statistical differences among urban, suburban, and rural voters on abortion. In fact, nowhere in those critical slivers of the electorate registers a winning majority in support of those rights. In other words, at least at this point, the Republican primary universe is not primed to reward those same women who in 2022 told reporters that abortion had soured them on the GOP. Right now, the party’s membership is ready to weigh in on a nominee and they want someone who promises to fight against restoring abortion rights.244
The chief reason that the political struggle over abortion is escalating is that the Republican Party is hostile to the views of the American majority and steadfastly uninterested in earning its support. The GOP knows that its myriad efforts to restrict or eliminate abortion rights are unpopular. Poll after poll confirms it.245
The GOP has responded to its abortion defeats in a systematic fashion. But the system it deploys is not a democratic one. In Ohio, it sought to make it more difficult for voters to decide policies at the polls, putting more power in the hands of GOP legislators. In Wisconsin, Republican legislators contemplated impeaching the newly elected Democratic Supreme Court judge if she doesn’t recuse herself in a case over the corrupt gerrymander that enables Republicans to dominate the legislature with half the vote. The cost, delegitimizing elections and disenfranchising voters who put the judge in office by a double-digit margin, is one that Republicans appear willing to impose.245
Disenfranchising voters has become a standard GOP resort.
This is not the way representative democracy is supposed to work.
But the GOP is not taking moral stands and suffering the consequences of its convictions. It is both unwilling to lose power and unwilling to alter unpopular positions. Instead, it is attacking democracy itself.245
Source:
(244) Elliot, Philip. A New Poll Explains Why Republicans Keep Pushing Unpopular Abortion Restrictions https://time.com/6299810/republican-polling-abortion-trump-desantis/ (245) Wilkinson, Francis. Republicans Would Rather Subvert Democracy Than Lose A string of high-profile defeats and numerous polls show the party’s efforts to restrict or eliminate abortion rights are unpopular. The GOP doesn’t care. https://www.phillytrib.com/commentary/republicans-would-rather-subvert-democracy-thanlose/article_86423449-eaec-5f3c-b36f-6a0b80bf3382.html
Learn more:
Republicans keep passing extreme anti-abortion bans without popular support. Here’s why
Rather than acknowledge the broad public opposition to abortion restrictions, Republicans have taken a seemingly counterintuitive lesson and are leaning into their efforts to curb access to reproductive health care.
What's happening?
In late January 2023, the Republican National Committee passed a party-wide resolution at its winter meeting pushing for conservative lawmakers and advocates to "go on offense" over abortion access, as well as "expose the Democrats' extreme position." The resolution reads, in part:
The Republican National Committee urges Republican lawmakers in state legislatures and in Congress to pass the strongest pro-life legislation possible – such as laws that acknowledge the beating hearts and experiences of pain in the unborn – underscoring the new relics of barbarism the Democratic Party represents as we approach the 2024 cycle
Why Republicans Are Overreaching So Hard in So Many States
The Republican Agenda Is One Bad Idea After Another
Republicans succeeded in getting Roe v. Wade overturned, and it cost them electorally. So, naturally, they turned to the also very unpopular ideas of loosening child labor laws, allowing for more guns, and banning books.
Republicans Know Abortion Bans Are Unpopular. They’re Passing Them Anyway. In some cases, anti-abortion legislators have tried to subvert the lawmaking process to avoid blowback. By SHEFALI LUTHRA
https://truthout.org/articles/republicans-know-abortion-bans-are-unpopular-theyre-passing-them-anyway/ Rich white men rule America. How much longer will we tolerate that?
Minority rule has always been a feature of American democracy. These days, however, it is getting worse
Many accuse Pro-lifers of caring about nothing else than what happens in the womb. In fact, the movement emphasizes embryos in the womb for reasons that go to the heart of being “pro-life” itself. Ask a pro-lifer why they object to abortion, and you are likely to get a hodgepodge of reasons appealing to God, to science, and to claims about human dignity or rights.255
How should we think about the embryo in the earliest moments of conception? Few questions are more significant for the pro-life movement than this one, and few, as well, expose the deep divides in our society’s intuitions about the world. The most sophisticated pro-lifers will at this point make appeals to science and metaphysical biology, and argue that the embryo is an organism whose maturation into an independent human being is intrinsic or internal to it and thus it is a person and bears all the rights therein. Yet framing the pro-life view that way, some say, fails to capture the more basic and constitutive disposition pro-lifers have toward the emergence of human life in the womb: wonder.255
Such an atmosphere of reverential awe is the grounds for the movement’s insistence on the name “pro-life”: Their opposition to abortion and other forms of unjustified killing is grounded in this more basic, more central interpretation of human life as a terrible good, a mysterious wonder, a mildly insane risk that is still worth taking.
Pro-lifer sees the early embryo as a sign of possibilities – a wonder of potentiality.255 They proclaim, whatever else we think about it, the drama of conception leads to the most profound joys and sorrows, the most ardent hopes and expectations, and the most visceral fears and anxieties.255
Indeed.
But timing and circumstance are also vital components of the mix.
For Pro-lifers though, this not up for discussion. Once conception occurs, the game is on. They cling to the natural awe of the emergence and power of new human life, inseparable from a reverence toward the mothers who bear it.
Pro-lifers see the hidden fetus as a microcosm of our social relations. As Gracy Olmstead observed, the Women’s March on Washington’s proclamation that “defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us” perfectly distills the pro-lifer’s beliefs.
“Defending the voiceless, the vulnerable, the marginalized, is priority number one,” Olmstead suggests. After all, “voiceless,” “marginalized,” and “invisible” aptly describe life within the womb. In the same way, the embryo’s radical dependence upon its mother crystallizes the appropriate moral response to humans in need.255
Yet, immediately following birth, any real concern about “humans in need” seems to be sadly lacking. And, as a result, what it means to be “pro-life” is hotly contested.
What do they do to ensure that the children born of these forced pregnancies can actually thrive? 254
How do they work to support families, particularly those unprepared to deal with a new – if unintended – birth?
What do they do to prevent unintended pregnancy? What do they do to reduce maternal mortality, especially among Black women? 254
The views of pro-life advocates in regard to social programs vary widely depending on their individual beliefs and political affiliations.
Some pro-life advocates believe that the government should provide social programs to support pregnant women and families in need. They may argue that such programs can help reduce the number of abortions by providing financial assistance, healthcare, education, and other resources that make it easier for women to carry their pregnancies to term and raise their children.
Other pro-life advocates oppose social programs, believing that they are a form of government intervention that can lead to dependency and undermine personal responsibility and that the government should not be involved in providing welfare programs 208 They argue that instead of relying on government programs, individuals and communities should take responsibility for their own well-being, with the help of private charities and other voluntary organizations. You made your bed, now lie in it.
One of the perennial volleys launched against the pro-life movement is the charge of inconsistency: if pro-lifers were really pro-life, then they would also seek the welfare of children after birth.
Certainly, any number of Republicans have been known to offer lip service, but their words are often empty and their positions disgraceful. Protecting and supporting families is not the focus of the Republican Party. They prove that every day by opposing food and nutrition assistance, childcare subsidies, paid family leave, Medicaid expansion and other programs that help families be healthy and thrive.
They prove it in Congress: Following the Alabama IVF ruling, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who used IVF to have her own children, introduced a bill to protect IVF services nationwide and a Republican senator immediately blocked it.
And they prove it in the states: The legislation Alabama lawmakers rushed to pass does nothing to change the fact that the state now considers embryos a tiny cluster of cells to be “unborn children” with equal protection under state law. This not only has major implications for fertility treatments and the health and well-being of families, but for abortion rights, contraception and the rights of pregnant women.
Many will even feign interest in the mother’s health or concern about the remorse she might feel after the fact, which begs the question:
In a country that cannot even muster the gumption to install universal healthcare, where is the real evidence of care?
Their resistance to government programs intended to help children and mothers would seem to indicate that their opposition to abortion must be motivated by an ulterior motive.247
Source:
Typically, though, Pro-Life advocates work to justify the position by creating a distinction between “saving a life” and “ensuring its welfare”, essentially shirking their responsibility of care after handicapping both mother and child by forcing an unwanted birth on an ill-prepared mother.247-253
In the words of the current president, “Come on, man!”
See also Section 2.4, page 108
“It
is critical to understand that the “pro-life” movement is much more than an anti-abortion cause: it is a pro-pregnancy crusade, pushing for pregnancies to be maintained at any cost.”
-
Charlotte Shane From The Right to Not Be Pregnant
(246) Why Pro-Lifers Aren’t Hypocritical for Opposing a Welfare State. https://thefederalist.com/2017/06/07/pro-lifers-arent-hypocritical-opposing-welfare-state/
(247) America Is About to See Just How Pro-life Republicans Actually Are. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/06/anti-abortion-movement-dobbs-roeoverturned/661393/
(248) The flaw in the pro-life argument that I can’t ignore. - Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/humaninterest/2017/01/the-flaw-in-the-pro-life-argument-that-i-cant-ignore.html.
(249) Science Is Giving the Pro-life Movement a Boost - The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/pro-life-pro-science/549308/
(250) Lu, Rachel. "Pro-Life and Pro-Poor: Can We Bridge the Divide?", Public Discourse, October 25, 2018. This article discusses the relationship between the pro-life movement and social programs, and argues that prolife advocates should support efforts to alleviate poverty and provide support for families in need.
(251) Zanotti, Emily. "Do Pro-Lifers Really Care About Babies?", The American Spectator, January 26, 2018. This article explores the relationship between the pro-life movement and social welfare programs, and argues that some pro-life advocates are more focused on advocating for the rights of unborn children than on providing support for families in need.
(252) Windham, J.A. "The Pro-Life Movement Needs to Support Social Welfare Programs”, Patheos, October 24, 2018. This article argues that the pro-life movement should support social welfare programs as a way to help reduce the number of abortions and support families in need.
(253) Haines, Andrew. "Pro-Life and Pro-Social Justice: Is It Possible to Be Both?", The Public Discourse, May 23, 2013. This article explores the relationship between the pro-life movement and social justice issues, and argues that pro-life advocates should support social programs that provide support for families in need.
(254) Gonen, Julianna. Taking Away Our Civil Rights Must Not Become the New Normal After Dobbs https://www.advocate.com/voices/abortion-rights-fight-back
(255) Anderson, Matthew Lee. People criticize pro-lifers for focusing so much on abortion. But there’s a reason we do.
Punish, Torture, Kill: The Reality of Pregnancy in ‘Pro-Life’ America
At the heart of the ‘pro-life’ movement is the idea that women are put on this earth for subservience. And so this is the plan: Force women to carry pregnancies against their will.
Many claim that Republicans love kids so much they force women to give birth, but then refuse to feed them, educate them, protect them from guns, provide them with healthcare, protect them from being exploited for labor, or prevent loving families from adopting them simply because of gender-related issues.
• The Republican push to weaken child labor laws, explained https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/5/3/23702464/child-labor-laws-youth-migrants-work-shortage
• Did Republicans Vote to Make It Legal to Ban Gays and Lesbians from Adopting? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/republicans-ban-gays-lesbians-adopting/
• Republicans Claim to Love Both Mothers and Children. Their Policies Prove They Love Neither.
People criticize pro-lifers for focusing so much on abortion. But there’s a reason we do.
By MATTHEW LEE ANDERSON https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/2/3/14487208/pro-life-abortion-movement
Might what it means to be “pro-life”, so hotly contested these days, be misunderstood?
THE CHARGE: Pro-lifers care about what happens in the womb, and nothing beyond it. Such a depiction is almost certainly a caricature. And yet it aggravates a real phenomenon: The pro-life movement has emphasized embryos in the womb for reasons that go to the heart of being “pro-life” itself. Without grasping the peculiar ethos that animates this emphasis, the decision by pro-lifers to succumb to the temptation of Donald Trump for the sake of a Supreme Court justice will remain an unintelligible mystery and degradation.
The ethos of the pro-life movement, which unabashedly emphasizes life in the womb, is not precisely its beliefs: Those are well-known enough, even if controversial. Ask a pro-lifer why they object to abortion, and you are likely to get a hodgepodge of reasons appealing to God, to science, and to claims about human dignity or rights.
Yet as important as those arguments are, they are better understood as articulating a conceptual structure for intuitions and perceptions that exceed their limits intuitions and perceptions that animate the individual outreach of most pro-life activists. The pro-life outlook is more enchanted, more infused with a secular sense of the sacred, than most of our philosophical arguments allow. Identifying that ethos, and attempting to name it, is crucial for understanding how pro-lifers think and why they are so earnestly devoted to their cause.
THE ATMOSPHERE OF A DUAL AWE
How should we think about the embryo in the earliest moments of conception?
Few questions are more significant for the pro-life movement than this one, and few expose as well the deep divides in our society’s intuitions about the world. The most sophisticated pro-lifers will at this point make appeals to science and metaphysical biology, and argue that the embryo is an organism whose maturation into an independent human being is intrinsic or internal to it — and thus it is a person and bears all the rights therein. Yet framing the pro-life view that way fails to capture the more basic and constitutive disposition pro-lifers have toward the emergence of human life in the womb: wonder
Consider for one moment the possibility that the embryo is, as it sometimes is described, a “clump of cells.” To the pro-lifer, that clump is better described as is a living human being. These differing formulations, though, conceal fundamentally diverging intuitions. Buried within the “clump of cells” phrasing is the tacit suggestion that it isn’t a very important clump of cells. If that little bundle of cells someday becomes a person, well, it isn’t yet.
But for the pro-lifer, that “clump of cells” is as wondrous, as potent, as mysterious as, well, the cosmos. The recognition of the “baby” induces a hushed reverence. The universe once appeared out of nothing, a fact that reasonably seems to induce the strange vertigo of awe, but the formation of a new human being is not so different from this. The embryo contains a whole world of possibilities and adventures.
The “newcomer,” Hannah Arendt once wrote, “possesses the capacity of beginning something anew.” For those weary and afraid, the opportunity for a new start that the embryo announces momentarily refreshes their spirits.
Such an atmosphere of reverential awe is the grounds for the movement’s insistence on the name “pro-life”: Our opposition to abortion and other forms of unjustified killing is grounded in this more basic, more central construal of human life as a terrible good, a mysterious wonder, a mildly insane risk that is still worth taking. Human beings are capable of the most heinous evils and exploring the vast reaches of the cosmos and so the pro-lifer meets the early embryo as a sign of the possibilities before us.
The perpetual refrain among pro-lifers that one might abort the next Beethoven or Einstein is indicative of what theologian Karl Barth once called the “confidence in life.”
If birth is a lottery, pro-lifers contend it is maybe the only one really worth playing.
This natural awe at the emergence and power of new human life is inseparable from a reverence toward the mothers who bear it.
Such an admiration and regard motivates crisis pregnancy centers, for instance, to support mothers in their work of bearing and raising children. Life takes both men and women to create but it is mothers who gestate human beings before releasing them into the wild. As philosopher Rosalind Hursthouse once argued, by virtue of her labor a woman “gives her husband the outcome of their union.”
The disproportionate authority women have over their children is inextricably tied to the magnitude of their sacrifice: In a mother’s act of bearing life, she quite literally lays down her body for another. There are thus few more reasonable responses to an unwanted pregnancy than fear and anxiety. The burden women bear in procreating and in raising a child is very real, and should — even if it does not always — preserve the movement from simply sentimentalizing the embryo or its life.
The wonder pro-lifers have for the embryo is thus inseparable from a respect, and even admiration, for those women who give life under difficult circumstances. If there is an explanation for why Catholics have formed the backbone of the pro-life movement, it is here: Their reverential deference to Mary helps contextualize the birth of the embryo, miraculous as it might be, in the context of the woman whose life is so severely affected by it.
These natural reverences permeate the pro-life movement’s ethos. While many pro-lifers are at home speaking the language of rights and respect required for democratic political discourse, we are if our own rhetoric is at all truthful animated by something much nearer to love. We cannot shed ourselves of the sense that there is something too powerful, something too good about the human being, to make its life or its death a matter for our choice.
It is better for the embryo to go on existing, for it and for us and for the cosmos whose beauty new human life adorns and deepens.
That beauty is often tragic; life is sometimes terrible. But we go on making new human life because we cannot shake the sense that the whole business is worth it. Here, in the newness of life, we discover a concentrated form of the drama of existence in which we are all entangled.
THE EMPHASIS ON EMBRYOS AND THE ODDITY OF LIFE
It is no secret that the pro-life movement’s central, intermediate-range political aim was overturning Roe v. Wade. Such an interest prompted many pro-lifers to reluctantly vote for someone who would be their most unlikely and unusual representative. Such a focus makes pro-lifers an easy topic for charges of hypocrisy.
But an emphasis on embryos in the womb is nothing more than that: a focusing of our attention and energy. It is not a denial of other urgent social causes. Yet the success of the “anti-abortion” dimension has animated critics to try to expand the meaning of “pro-life.” These days, one can only be pro-life if one supports health care reform; supports religious freedom for non-Christians; is in favor of food stamps and WIC; supports immigration reform, prison reform, and gun control; opposes climate change; affirms a sustainable minimum wage; opposes capital punishment; and is opposed to war. One writer even put together a quiz.
Such expansive construals of “life” are not new. As Daniel Williams’s new history of the pro-life movement observes, it was filled with New Deal Democrats in the beginning, and pro-life pacifists emerged in response to the Vietnam War. It was in 1983 that Cardinal Bernardin described a “consistent ethic of life,” a concept that has been a steady presence within the movement ever since.
Yet ending abortion is not only the one policy everyone agrees upon. For pro-lifers, it is also a paradigmatic form of wrong that reveals and shapes how those of us who are walking about treat each other. Emphasis is not an exclusion, but it is not a leveling, either. There is nothing inconsistent about recognizing that some injustices and the laws that allow them are peculiar, and responding accordingly.
The pro-life movement’s focus on abortion is animated not only by the sense of wonder that saturates its ethos, but by its apprehension of the startling weirdness of human life in the womb.
If our reference class for humanity is the active, mature bodies of those we see around us, the early embryo appears to be a peculiarly bizarre sort of thing. Consider: It is hidden from public view, visible only through the body of the mother. If that clump of cells is a separate, independent organism, it is still dependent upon the mother’s own functioning until birth ushers it into the world. The early embryo has no consciousness, none of the first-person perspective we identify with the presence of human agency. It can even mutate into twins, a superpower we lose early in our development so that we do not abuse it, I like to think.
Within the pro-life outlook, the hiddenness of the fetus is a microcosm of our social relations. As Gracy Olmstead observed, the Women’s March on Washington’s proclamation that “defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us” perfectly distills the prolifer’s beliefs.
“Defending the voiceless, the vulnerable, the marginalized, is priority number one,” Olmstead suggests. After all, “voiceless,” “marginalized,” and “invisible” aptly describe life within the womb.
In the same way, the embryo’s radical dependence upon its mother crystallizes the appropriate moral response to humans in need. The radical dependency the embryo manifests changes form, but never totally dissolves. If our adult lives are no longer at the mercy of only one other person for our nourishment and health, they are yet entangled with political and natural forces that far exceed our control.
The autonomy of our lives is an illusion that our origins within the womb dispels. Such a dependency is compatible with dignity. We might even say, with some philosophers, that the dignity of the human is in part constituted by our dependency, for it allows others the glory of coming to our aid. The embryo thus invokes the strange fusion of joy and obligations that mark the best parts of our world. There is no delight like that of doing good to one another, of meeting a need that no one else can fulfill.
Treating the womb as a microcosm for the rest of society also grounds an egalitarianism within the pro-life attitude. While we appeal to people’s pragmatic instincts by pleading with them to not abort the next Beethoven, pro-lifers also are suffused with the sense that any of us could have suffered the same fate. Part of the mystery and enchantment of life is that we know so little of the person who the embryo is, and will become. We know it is the mother’s — and often, but not always, we know the father as well.
But in this thin description, the embryo is practically identical to every other embryo that has ever existed. Parents are able to meet their newborn with a real and genuine surprise, because they really are ignorant of his life. Its future is unwritten, even if not limitless, and its characteristics and capabilities are yet to be discovered. It is no more definite, no more determined than any of us were in such a state.
There is thus a kind of going “behind the veil” for pro-lifers, in that we act toward it in such a way that we ourselves might have been similarly placed. That is not to say the conditions of birth are always equal: Not every family is as well-positioned for a healthy, flourishing life as others. Yet the notion that the dignity of the human being subsists prior to any knowledge of the child and to its maturation means that, whatever fundamental rights we have in this world, we all share them equally.
What happens at the margins of life has a peculiar significance to what goes on in the middle. Births and deaths play an exaggerated role in our self-understanding, just as beginnings and endings have an outsize influence on our appreciation of novels. At the edges of life, we see human beings in conditions that our agency as adults obscures, but which often mark significant swaths of our mature lives: dependency and need, isolation and invisibility. The pro-life investment in opposing euthanasia is motivated on the same terms as its opposition to abortion, even if the form of the debate is very different and even if it has not (yet) evoked the energy that anti-abortion efforts have.
For the pro-lifer, there is no clearer instance of the marginalized, the voiceless, and the vulnerable than in the womb and no more profound source of wonder at the limitless possibilities that human life is capable of achieving. The early embryo looks nothing like us, has none of our capabilities, drains the mother’s resources, and often requires the mother to sacrifice many of her interests. If, in these conditions, one can see something worthwhile, something that can be a benefit or a blessing to the world even when unwanted, then one can start to glimpse why pro-lifers are so animated and so patient in their efforts.
Excerpt from A different vision
By JIM AULISIO NELSON https://www.sovanow.com/articles/a-different-vision/
As a practicing Catholic and active Knight of Columbus, I do not favor laws that restrict others abortion options to comport with my personal convictions on when human life begins.
On January 26, 2024, Abby McCloskey (a Texas evangelical) re-evaluated the Texas abortion law consequences in a letter to the Dallas Morning News. I am paraphrasing her eloquent presentation:
“What if the pro-life movement had the wrong goal?”
The laws on the books have changed, but many of the structures have not. Analogy — the pro-life movement went all in on emancipation and forgot about reconstruction and civil rights.
Where are:
• the structures to support new mothers?
• the programs to invest in children?
• the protection from surprise health care bills from pre-natal and post-natal hospital visits?
• the investment in child care?
• the flexible jobs and livable wages that allow mothers and fathers to financially support and be present for the child?
Maternal and infant mortality is rising in the U.S. since Roe vs. Wade has been overturned. We are a less safe country to have a baby than most other developed nations with a 32.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 births. Australia, Israel, Japan, and Spain are under three deaths per 100,000 live births.
If you have an ill, or disabled baby, there is no job protection, or paid leave in the following weeks. The family must pay for home health care, medicines, therapy for the child. Our culture shies away from the pain and suffering of problem births and miscarriages.
We need a vision for the common good.
A movement of “Whole-Life”, a new commitment and responsibility to care, nurture, and protect the vulnerable outside the womb. The Republican Party has embraced abortion bans, border walls, tax cuts, state authority over Federal authority, government shutdowns, private schools over public schools and book banning. To sum it up: “For every complex issue there is a simple Republican answer … and it is usually wrong!
Why 'pro-life' Texas is arguing in court that a fetus has no rights
No story illustrates the deep inadequacy of accusing "pro-life" Republicans of hypocrisy these days like the awful one unfolding in Texas. The case involves a state employee who lost a much-wanted pregnancy when her supervisors refused to let her leave work to seek medical care.
But first let’s back up a little to February 2023. The future of the abortion medication mifepristone is making headlines almost every day as a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration threatens to further decimate access to care post-Roe. It’s practically public relations Christmas for anti-abortion politicians, who are seizing every opportunity to position themselves as brave crusaders for the unborn.
Naturally, Texas’ (now-suspended) Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is among them. He’s suing the Biden administration over its “radical abortion agenda. ” By March, Paxton is really on a roll, issuing press release after press release about using the courts to “protect unborn life” and defend “women’s health.” He’s even got a whole section of his website dedicated to chronicling his tireless efforts, and it doesn’t lack for content. After all, Paxton made a public vow to “never stop fighting for the lives of the unborn.”
But here’s something curious: There’s no press release that touts Paxton’s March 10 filing in federal court on the matter of “unborn” life. A March 7 press release? It’s right there, all about protecting babies from the radical, pro-abortion FDA. A March 8 press release? Clear as day, detailing the threatening letters Paxton and a coalition of anti-abortion attorneys general sent to pharmacies that dare to distribute mifepristone.
But Paxton was quiet about what he did for the “unborn” on March 10. He’d be hard-pressed to justify filing that press release to his “Protect Life/Unborn” page, as he’d have to explain why, amid this flurry of “pro-life” advocacy, he told the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Texas that “fetuses” — not “unborn” babies — lack clear legal status. With a few keystrokes, the helpless Texas babies for whom Paxton would “never stop fighting” on March 7 and 8 transformed practically overnight into fetuses without rights.
Just two days after threatening pharmacies for putting “women” and “unborn children” in danger by distributing perfectly legal medication, Paxton contradicted in federal court not just everything he’d said that week about Texas’s deep and compelling interest in protecting life, but practically everything he’s ever said on the subject.
To understand what brought about this transformation, we return to Salia Issa, the woman who dared to hold the state of Texas accountable for causing her to lose her pregnancy.
Issa, a state prison guard in Abilene, is why Paxton found himself in federal court, filing arguments that Texas owes her nothing after she experienced a stillbirth at seven months of pregnancy after her supervisors repeatedly denied her requests to leave work when she experienced pain during her shift. Importantly, the state of Texas doesn’t dispute Issa’s account of the events of November 2021, including that her supervisor accused her of lying and then waited more than two hours to assign a new guard to Issa’s post so she could go to the hospital. There, medical professionals told her they could have saved her baby if she’d arrived sooner.
Not 48 hours after Paxton bragged about making the defense of unborn life his sole concern, the attorney general conspicuously abandoned the sanctimonious language of a benevolent patriarch dedicated to protecting “women” and “the unborn,” and replaced it with terms like “correctional officer” and “fetus.”
It would be easy to call out as hypocrisy the sudden rejection of Texas’ long-held insistence that, as the Texas Tribune put it, “unborn children” be recognized as people starting at fertilization” the moment the state encounters an inconvenient fetus.
Many have done just that, and on the surface, hypocrisy would seem to suit. After all, Texas Republicans would have us believe that in this self-proclaimed “pro-life” state, no priority is higher than the protection of pregnant women and unborn children.
As such, Texas should have enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to try to make things right with Issa and her husband, or as right as it can after such a devastating loss. But instead of offering to compensate this family for their child’s death and this woman’s trauma at the hands of the state which good conscience and moral obligation should compel any truly “pro-life” person or entity to do — Texas is trying to wash its hands of the whole thing, arguing there’s simply no clear legal basis for treating a fetus lost at seven months’ gestation as a person. (The state has also claimed that pregnancy discrimination and sex-based discrimination against women are unrelated, which would seem to contradict its investment in state-sanctioned transphobia.)
But this is not hypocrisy — this is ideological consistency. It is business as usual.
COMMENT
Or perhaps the state finally recognized the real cost of denying someone an abortion.
Regardless, it tracks with the only record the Lone Star State has when it comes to the health of pregnant Texans and Texas children: a deadly one.
Maternal mortality rates in Texas are on the rise and have been for decades; today, they are the highest in the country and disproportionately so for Black women. Since Texas began enforcing its six-week abortion ban in 2021, infant deaths have increased over 11 percent Texas’ Republican-dominated Legislature has for years refused to implement common-sense
measures, like strengthening and expanding its social safety net or improving access to health care, that would make the state safer for pregnant Texans and kids.
Texas’s foster care system has long been better at endangering children than protecting them, and its awful inadequacies have gone unaddressed year after year after year. Meanwhile, attorneys for the state argued in open court that if women face fertility challenges as a result of being denied abortions under state law, they have no standing to challenge the law since they may never be pregnant again anyway.
COMMENT
For the love of God!
So much for valuing life and caring about the health of women.
The end of Roe is not a moment to celebrate, necessarily. It is a chance for the movement that pushed women to follow through with their pregnancy to demonstrate their commitment. “There now needs to be a domino effect of [more] government assistance and programs to support women.”
Without that, overturning Roe “makes zero sense.”
- From America Is About to See Just How Pro-life Republicans Actually Are By ELAINE GODFREY https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/06/anti-abortion-movement-dobbs-roe-overturned/661393/
The traditional pro-life argument comes from different religious and secular sources, but they all rest on a common belief: From the moment of conception, an unborn child is a separate human life.
Yes, the baby is completely dependent on the mother, but it is still a separate human life. The baby’s life isn’t more important than the mother’s which is why the best-drafted pro-life laws protect the life and physical health of the mother but it possesses incalculable worth nonetheless. Absent extreme circumstances, the unborn child must not be intentionally killed. And while pro-life Americans can disagree about how to protect unborn children whether it’s primarily through legal restrictions, primarily through measures meant to reduce the demand for abortion, or primarily through a combination of abortion restrictions or financial assistance to mothers and families there has long been agreement on that one core claim: From the moment of conception, an unborn child is a person worth protecting.
Yet, the Pro-Life group lacks consensus. They have good-faith disagreements about when an embryo or fetus becomes a “person” entitled to legal protection, and they disagree about the intentions of the pro-life movement. They argue that the pro-life movement is about power and control. It’s about seeking to constrain the choices women can make, to keep women in the home, and to maintain male dominance. The rhetoric about the value of all life and the rhetoric of self-sacrifice is a ruse. At the end of the day, the pro-life argument is a weapon to be wielded against people Republicans don’t like.
While I always respected arguments about the personhood of the baby, I was often frustrated when critics would attribute malign motives to pro-life Americans. I’d been a part of the pro-life movement my entire adult life. I began my activism in college and represented pro-life students and pro-life groups in my legal career, and I’d never seen a desire for subjugation and control. While I don’t pretend that any political movement is perfect, I’ve seen with my own eyes prolife activists and volunteers demonstrate immense love and compassion for women in distress, trying desperately to care for mother and child by offering financial, emotional and spiritual support.
But now I’m left wondering how much of the movement was truly real. How much was it really about protecting all human life? And were millions of ostensibly pro-life Americans happy with pro-life laws, only so long as they targeted “them” and imposed no burden at all on “us”?
I still believe there are many deeply sincere pro-life Americans. I see their anger in response to Trump’s statements, even when they’ve previously supported him. They are people who genuinely believe that all human life is precious and should be protected from conception until natural death.
But I also recognize that many of the critics of the pro-life movement were right all along. When push came to shove, the pro-life position was either secondary to other values or it genuinely was punitively tribal enthusiastically aimed straight at the supposedly licentious left but ready to be abandoned the instant the commitment to unborn children might endanger the larger MAGA political project. Abortion is the poison pill that Trump doesn’t want to swallow.
The older I get, the more I’m convinced that we simply don’t know who we are — or what we truly believe until our values carry a cost.
COMMENT
And, at the end of the day, what we really need to consider is what is the cost? And to whom?
It’s fine to have personal opinions, but when it comes to the imposition of one’s opinion on the lives of others, we need to reconsider.
And what is the cost to society?
Is anyone considering that in the whole scheme of things?
I am dubious. I’m not seeing the evidence in the protests, nor the political posturing. And I’m not seeing any reporting of thoughtful contemplation of the matter in our legislatures.
‘My way or the highway’ is not the best approach, especially when so much is at stake!
3.10 WHY ARE MANY WOMEN AGAINST ABORTION?
You might be surprised to know that some of the most prominent anti-abortion advocates and politicians are women. Why, one might ask, would a woman want to fight against her own reproductive rights? Why might they vote for laws that limit their autonomy?
The rollback of abortion rights – with the overturning of Roe v. Wade - was received by many American women with a sense of shock and fear, and warnings about an ominous decline in women’s status as full citizens.260
But for some women, the decision means something different: a triumph of human rights, not an impediment to women’s rights.260
So, how might a pro-life world be good for women?
Abortion's opponents have always claimed to be pro-woman. Women have long been central to the organization of pro-life activism, and statistics suggest that women are as likely as men to favor restrictive abortion laws. It shouldn't be news to anyone that many women don't want reproductive rights.258
And as much as Republicans' behavior offends many women, there will always be some women who find the Democrats more unpalatable still. And abortion is the biggest reason why. Some women simply won't consider supporting a party that trumpets its commitment to "abortion rights." 259
So what do pro-life women actually value?
1. They believe that there needs to be a balance between the needs of the pregnant woman and the interest of the developing child, not one that necessarily prioritizes the mother’s autonomy absolutely.
2. They believe that a human begins inside the female body.
3. They view both mother and child as precious human beings deserving legal protection.
4. They do not prioritize personal goals over the very life of another human being.
5. They have strong convictions (both political and personal) about the preciousness of babies and children. They view themselves as having real and serious obligations to their offspring that extend well before birth.
6. They find tremendous meaning in their role as perpetuators of the species, and defenders of the weakest and most helpless of human beings. To these pro-life women, the language of "reproductive rights" is not empowering. It's degrading and belittling.259
And overwhelmingly, they reject the notion that access to abortion is necessary to their own — or any woman’s — success.260
Most pro-life women understand that some pregnant women are in emotional turmoil, and may have grossly inadequate networks of support (perhaps in part because their connections largely assume that they can avoid the burdens of pregnancy through abortion). But we also know that women can simply be selfish, prioritizing personal goals over the very life of another human being. In light of those factors, it's clear enough that the autonomy-based approach has costs. Pro-lifers deem those costs unacceptable. They aren't fooled by casual references to abortion as "health care," as though only one of the involved persons really counted.259
Pro-life women tend to have strong convictions (both political and personal) about the preciousness of babies and children. They view themselves as having real and serious obligations to their offspring that extend well before birth. Many are mothers, perhaps to sizable families. They find tremendous meaning in their role as perpetuators of the species, and defenders of the weakest and most helpless of human beings. To these prolife women, the language of "reproductive rights" is not empowering. It's degrading and belittling.259
“It's remarkable how little pro-choice feminists seem to appreciate this,” notes the author of this article. “The point shouldn't actually be so confusing, given liberals' sustained interest in identity as a foundation for self-worth. Choice can be pleasant sometimes, but it can also be maddening or insulting if the ostensible "options" ignore serious constraints or commitments.” 259 To someone with grave moral or material concerns, assurance of a "right to choose" can seem positively flippant. It just comes across as a callous reminder that they and their concerns are not taken seriously.259
It's understandably difficult to persuade the general public that abortion bans are pro-woman. Without abortion, a pregnant woman has no choice but to carry a child to term. Many will ask, “Who are you to actively work at taking away other women's right to make their own personal decisions about their uteruses?"
As philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson famously argued, we don't often see it as acceptable to foist such heavy obligations on people against their will. Pregnancy also leaves women vulnerable to other types of exploitation. If a woman needs to provide for children and prepare for the possible eventuality of being pregnant at any time, she may not have much choice but to accept whatever community or household role is offered to her.258
There are other considerations, too, that lead some to question whether conservatives truly care about the well-being of women. It doesn't help when abortion-restrictive states fail to prioritize maternal and infant health more generally. It's problematic, too, when the president who paved the way to the overturning of Roe seems scornful of men who help care for their own children. Men's rights advocates can attract a significant following on the political right. All of these details make it easier for progressives to argue that abortion bans are really just a tool for keeping women under the heel of the patriarchy.258
In today’s society, if you’re female, you’re expected to be in favor of abortion.
You’re practically an outcast if you confess your pro-life views, and to be pro-life, you often have to deal with people calling you anti-feminist. But this is one of the biggest lies that exists. According to pro-life women, anyone who cares about women, who believes in women, or who is a woman, should without a doubt be against abortion.257
Here are the reasons there’re giving as to why:
1. Abortion is an insult to all women.
Telling a woman she needs to have an abortion is belittling. Anyone who says a woman is too young or that she can’t handle going to school and having a child, or working and having a child is telling her that she isn’t good enough, smart enough, or strong enough.257
2. Pregnancy is empowering, abortion is not.
Carrying a baby and giving birth while you’re going to school or working at your job or furthering your career is a feminist move. It’s also empowering to succeed when people are telling you that you can’t. You can love and care for your baby while you pursue other goals. Your children don’t have to suffer or die in order for you to succeed in other areas of your life.257
3. Women are not sexual objects.
This is one of the main issues true feminism works to overcome. But abortion allows more women than ever to be treated as sex objects.257
4. The first feminists were pro-life.
Take a look at the first days of the feminist movement, and you’ll see that true feminists are anti-abortion. From Susan B. Anthony to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the first feminists wanted women to be treated equally, while still remaining who they are.257
5. Abortion is an act of discrimination.
Women have spent decades fighting against inequality and in many ways they still are. So why would they allow the same discrimination to happen to their children? Preborn humans are equal to all other humans, whether they are male, female, completely healthy, or diagnosed prenatally with a health condition. The pro-life movement doesn’t say that fetuses are more important than women. It says that fetuses are people, too, and that since they are human beings, they deserve to be treated as such. To be pro-life means to fight for the rights of all of their children like the women of yesterday fought for equal rights for them.257
6. Women are independent, and we worked hard to gain that independence. Planned Parenthood wants women to believe that they can’t be successful without them and their abortion services. But women are far more capable than Planned Parenthood wants them to believe. They aren’t dependent on Planned Parenthood or abortion, especially not when there are literally thousands of other health care clinics available that aren’t itching to get money from them for an abortion.257
7. Abortion is linked to mental illness.A Countless women suffer from post-abortion syndrome after they’ve had an abortion. It’s a form of post-traumatic stress disorder and includes symptoms such as feelings of guilt, anxiety, depression, and even thoughts of suicide. It affects the way a woman lives the rest of her life. It affects her relationship with her partner and with her current or future children.257
8. Pro-life organizations provide true support.B Planned Parenthood offers no support if you choose life for your baby. They don’t have any programs in place to help women who are in tough circumstances but who want to choose life. Pro-life centers, on the other hand, not only help women get a plan in action, they reward them for working hard, for taking parenting classes, and for bettering themselves.257
9. Abortion is linked to breast cancer.C The American College of Pediatricians recently spoke out about a 2013 study linking breast cancer to abortions. The more abortions a woman has, the greater her risk of developing breast cancer. Studies from different nations concluded that induced abortion prior to 32 weeks gestation interferes with the maturation of breast cells, creating an increased risk of breast cancer.257
10. Abortion is dangerous to women’s health.D Women who walk into an abortion clinic have no idea what the true risks are because, just as with the breast cancer risk, no one tells them. Since abortion became legal, hundreds of women have been killed by the procedure. Life Dynamics reports that the reason no one knows about these deaths is because abortion proponents have been very good at keeping abortion as the cause of death off of medical documents. In addition, some states don’t even collect data on abortion deaths. Yet there are so many victims who did not live to tell their story –so many women who believed abortion was safe, and lost their lives because of it. In addition to death, risks of abortion include infection (which can range from mild to fatal and can lead to chronic pain), perforation of the uterus, embolisms, and hemorrhaging. Women are being lied to every day, and it’s time we stood up for ourselves in honor of those who have lost their lives.257
Pro-life advocates believe that women don’t need abortion. Women in abusive relationships, women in college, women in the workforce, women struggling financially, women who have been raped, women who are facing a health crisis – abortion is not the answer for any of them. It’s a way to cover up the real issues that women and couples face and it’s a way for businesses like Planned Parenthood to make money off of those struggles.
A. Regarding the claim that abortion is linked to mental illness, research has found little to no evidence supporting this claim
B. Some people claim that Planned Parenthood offers no support to new mothers. However, this claim is not accurate. Planned Parenthood provides a range of services and support for individuals who are pregnant or have recently given birth. They have caring professionals who can give you accurate, non-judgmental information about all your options and answer your questions.
C. Regarding the claim that abortion is linked to breast cancer, research has found little to no evidence supporting this claim. The American Cancer Society states that there is no proven association between abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer
D. Some people claim that abortion is dangerous to women’s health. However, it is important to note that the topic of abortion is highly controversial and opinions on this matter can vary widely. The safety of abortion procedures depends on various factors, including the gestational age of the pregnancy, the method used, and the qualifications of the healthcare provider.
Instead of providing practical resources to help new mothers, Pro-lifers assert that abortion advocates would rather abort the baby, which opens the door to an entirely new group of troubles for women and does nothing to improve her previous struggles.257 The pro-life movement positions itself as a countercultural alternative to mainstream conventional wisdom but also champions broadly popular beliefs about the importance of justice and equality for the vulnerable.260
“Women should be pro-life, ” say the anti-abortion advocates. Abortion isn’t a right we should be fighting for, it’s a tool to control women and our fertility that we should be fighting against. No one should feel that abortion is her only choice, because that’s no choice at all.579
Indeed. But, of course, a Pro-life stance removes a critical choice; it doesn’t add any. It forces women into a corner. It allows no options. And isn’t that the point of this whole debate?
“Every person has a right to life and our goal needs to be to preserve and guard and protect that.”
256
- Nellie Gray, American anti-abortion activist who founded the annual March for Life in 1974
N.B. Clearly, the world of abortion is fraught with varied opinions and “facts”. As such, it is crucial for individuals considering an abortion to consult with a qualified healthcare professional who can provide accurate, up-to-date and personalized information based on their specific circumstances.
Source:
(256) Flanders, Nancy. 9 amazing women who have built and shaped the pro-life movement https://www.liveaction.org/news/9-women-pro-life-shaped-built/ (257) Flanders, Nancy. 10 reasons women should be pro-life https://www.liveaction.org/news/10-reasons-women-pro-life/ (258) Lu, Rachel. A pro-life world can be good for women. Here's how. Lasting protections for the unborn will be sustainable only if a majority of women nationwide can be persuaded that they want them https://theweek.com/articles/841554/prolife-world-good-women-heres-how (259) Lu, Rachel. Some women don't want reproductive rights. I'm one of them. It's time for pro-choice feminists to actually try and understand what pro-life women want https://theweek.com/articles/752954/some-women-dont-want-reproductive-rights-im (260) Graham, Ruth. ‘The Pro-Life Generation’: Young Women Fight Against Abortion Rights Many American women mourned the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe, but for others it is a moment of triumph and a matter of human rights. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/03/us/pro-life-young-women-roe-abortion.html
Learn more:
A Sexual Revolution: One woman's journey from pro-choice atheist to pro-life Catholic
What has gotten into Republican women? GOP women freak out over losing reproductive rights, but embrace cruelty when it's someone else's rights at stake
Early feminists argued that women who had abortions were responsible for their actions but that they resorted to abortion primarily because, within families and throughout society, they lacked autonomy, financial resources and emotional support. A passage in Susan B. Anthony’s newspaper, The Revolution, states:
Guilty? Yes, no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!
THE FAILING REPORT CARD
Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the United States. According to the Guttmacher Institute, their former research arm:
• Three out of four women who have abortions say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for a dependent.
• 69 percent are economically disadvantaged.
• 61 percent are already mothers.
• Women of color are disproportionately at risk of abortion.
• Half of all abortions are performed on women who have already had an abortion.
• 44 percent of all abortions are performed on college-age women.
All too often, the root causes underlying these statistics are shame and fear generated about pregnancy by the attitudes of parents, friends and the fathers of children. Fatherhood has been diminished. Children are disconnected from their fathers, who have rights as well as responsibilities. And millions of women have paid the price. Women, many impoverished because of the billions owed to mothers for child support, are struggling in school and the workplace without societal support. After all, when “it’s her body, it’s her choice,” it’s her problem.
For all these reasons and more, more than a million times a year in the United States, a woman lays her body down or swallows a bitter pill called “choice” driven to abortion because of a lack of resources and support.
Abortion solves nothing. Almost four decades after Roe, we mourn the loss of 57 million American children that we will never meet. We will never know what they might have contributed to this world. But we must also remember the hundreds of women and teens who have lost their lives to legal but lethal abortion because they did not want to inconvenience us with their pregnancies.
In all its forms, abortion has masked—rather than solved—the problems women face.
ADDRESSING ROOT CAUSES
For decades, abortion advocates have asked, “What about the woman?” And pro-lifers have answered, “What about the baby?” This does nothing to address the needs of women who are pregnant. We should start by addressing the needs of women—for family housing, child care, maternity coverage, for the ability to telecommute to school or work, to job-share, to make a living wage and to find practical resources.
As pro-life employers and educators, we must ramp up efforts to systemically address the unmet needs of struggling parents, birthparents and victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
WOMEN DESERVE BETTER
Abortion betrays the basic feminist principles of nonviolence, non-discrimination and justice for all. Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women and that women have settled for less. Women deserve better.
This woman supports a legal ban on abortion from conception. But she is increasingly uncomfortable with using the term “pro-life” to describe herself, because it evokes an emphasis on preventing abortions at any cost, rather than on helping women.
There are certain divides in the American electorate that we return to over and over again to explain why people think and vote the way they do. Age, gender, race, education you know the drill. But other, harder-to-see divisions can be just as important, if not more so. Those hidden divisions aren’t about vital statistics or affiliations. They’re about how people see the world.
Take the issue of abortion. It’s been in the headlines ever since a leaked Supreme Court opinion suggested that five justices are ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, giving states the power to ban abortion for the first time in about 50 years. Plenty of speculation has focused on how such a ruling would affect female voters, particularly if it could push more women to vote for Democrats in this year’s midterm elections.
But that framing isn’t the only way to look at the issue. Even though abortion is often presented as a women’s issue, it’s not a topic with a stark division of opinion between men and women. If you dig into the polling and research, it becomes clear that the divide is less about people’s individual genders than the way they think about gender. People who believe in traditional gender roles and perceive that those roles are increasingly being blurred to men’s disadvantage — are much likelier to oppose abortion than people who don’t hold those beliefs.
The dividing lines of the abortion debate aren’t just about the morality of terminating a pregnancy. They’re also about views of power. Who has it?
Who doesn’t? And who should?
And the influence of those beliefs isn’t limited to abortion — it also spills into other culture wars, particularly about whether men face discrimination.
Whenever abortion is in the news, a lot of discussion inevitably hinges on how women will respond. Losing access to safe, legal abortion will mean that more women carry unwanted pregnancies. The issue itself is often framed in terms of women’s rights and autonomy.
The problem is that not all women think about abortion that way.
According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, men and women in the U.S. have exceedingly similar views about abortion’s legality.
The Pew poll did find that more women (40%) than men (30%) said they’ve thought “a lot” about abortion. But that doesn’t mean women’s views on the issue are more uniform. In fact, some of the most prominent anti-abortion advocates and politicians are women.
One reason is that religion is a good predictor of views on abortion, and women tend to be more religious than men. Some people who oppose abortion also see it as a women’s-rights issue but in a different sense of the term they argue that abortion hurts women.
People with different views on what's needed for gender equality, it turns out, also tend to think pretty differently about abortion at least, that’s what Tresa Undem, a co-founder of the nonpartisan research firm PerryUndem, has found.
In a recent survey, her firm found that 69 percent of voters who want the Supreme Court to overturn Roe agreed with the statement “These days, society seems to punish men just for acting like men,” while a similar share of voters who support Roe (63 percent) disagreed.
In a 2019 poll that PerryUndem ran in partnership with Supermajority, a left-leaning advocacy group that focuses on women as a voting bloc, they found that likely voters who oppose abortion rights were much less likely, in general, to believe that the balance of power between men and women is unequal, or that issues like birth control access and women’s political representation affects women’s equality.
These findings line up with decades of research suggesting that views of abortion are intimately linked to how people think about motherhood, sex and women’s social roles. In the 1980s, the sociologist Kristin Luker argued that abortion is such an intractable issue because the people on either side of the debate have fundamentally different ideas about women’s autonomy. According to her, abortion-rights supporters saw women’s ability to make decisions about their bodies as fundamental to women’s equality, while anti-abortion advocates believed this focus on autonomy undermines the importance of women’s roles as mothers.
That analysis can feel a little stuck in the Reagan era, particularly since support for women working outside the home has grown significantly since the 1980s. Tricia Bruce, a sociologist affiliated with the University of Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Religion and Society who has researched attitudes toward abortion, said that people who oppose abortion aren’t “necessarily [coming] from a place where women belong in only one sphere, which is motherhood.” But views about power and control are still crucially important, she said. In contrast with a focus on women’s ability to make decisions about their own bodies, antiabortion advocates see that choice within a broader context where other people have views that matter too. “We hear about women and their spouses, what’s the father’s role,” she said. “The idea is that this is not a decision that women should make in isolation.”
The divide between people who support traditional gender roles especially those who think modern society is upsetting the balance of those roles by giving women too much power and people who disagree with that position is spawning other culture wars.
It’s partly why former President Donald Trump’s hypermasculine persona worked so well for him politically, and why Republican politicians continue to focus on the idea that men face discrimination, fueled by a backlash to the #MeToo movement and by declining rates of higher education and rising rates of loneliness among men. These arguments don’t appeal to all men, of course, and they do appeal to some women
Those messages tap into anxieties shared by men and women about the waning influence of traditional gender roles in this case, traditional masculinity.
Political scientists have found that when people are thinking about threats to their power and status, political behavior and attitudes change, making leaning on those anxieties a viable political strategy. For instance, in an experimental study conducted in 2016, the authors found that when men’s masculinity was threatened by the prospect of job loss, those men were more likely to say they wanted a masculine president which, of the two candidates, was Trump.
This also helps explain why there are usually bigger political divides among men and women than between them. For example, studies find that men who adhere to more stringent notions of masculine identity, which is used as a proxy for supporting traditional gender roles, look very different on political issues than men who identify as less masculine, as we wrote in 2020
Another way to see these divides is through the lens of partisanship.
According to a recent poll by the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life, 25 percent of Democratic men and 20 percent of Democratic women agreed with the statement “American society today has become too soft and feminine,” while 78 percent of Republican men and 65 percent of Republican women agreed with it. And just 26 percent of Democratic men and 20 percent of Democratic women agreed with the statement “White men are too often blamed for problems in American society,” compared with 75 percent of Republican men and 60 percent of Republican women.
All of this complicates the conventional political wisdom about how and why voters will respond to political changes and messaging. It’s a little pointless to ask whether women as a whole would mobilize in response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe, since women hold such wildly different views on abortion. Instead, it’s more telling to examine other facets of people’s identities like their beliefs about gender roles that are less visible but more politically powerful.
“Abortion is becoming personal for people who see it as a proxy for men, largely white men, taking away power from women,” Undem told us. “It’s not about a procedure.
It’s about women’s place in the world.”
Excerpt from
A presentation by Lila Rose, an American anti-abortion activist who is the founder and president of the anti-abortion organization Live Action, at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
She notes barriers to the authentic advancement of women to be the following:
1. The promotion of false rights
The promotion of false rights and ideologies about what is truly our empowerment blocks the advancement of women. It makes the priority for organizations that are trying to “do good” in developing countries things like abortions. As we know, abortion is not a human right. Abortion violates the fundamental human right to life.
2. Viewing fertility as a sickness to be treated
When our fertility as women – which is sign of health – is viewed as a sickness to be treated with drugs instead of that sign of health and something to be understood about our bodies, our advancement is blocked.
3. Expecting women to be just like men
Our differences to men are something to be celebrated. Our ability to be mothers and to carry children, that needs to be celebrated and championed instead of looked down upon and denigrated and held as some sort of barrier to advancement.
4. Viewing children as the problem
When we look at the future of humankind and we think of it in terms of limiting population, especially populations in poorer countries, that is not the solution. Children are our future. Children are a gift and we need to celebrate them as such and develop our communities and our policies to support children.
We need to equip, empower and support women to be able to embrace the life within and have the support that they need instead of turning them against their children. They are humans too.
3.11
WHAT ROLE
MIGHT MEN PLAY IN THE ABORTION DEBATE AND WHAT ARE THE LIMITS OF THEIR RESPONSIBILITY?
The construct of abortion as an expression of a woman’s right to bodily autonomy can make it seem like a topic only women are fit to address. For decades, abortion has been slotted into the category of “women’s issues,” next to other pregnancy-adjacent topics such as contraception access and paid parental leave. Additionally, some abortion rights advocates haven’t wanted men to be particularly involved: A movement focused on women’s autonomy will necessarily prioritize women’s voices.261
But it takes two to make an unwanted pregnancy. That’s why we need to talk about men when we talk about abortion.
That said, men have always had a complicated place in the abortion debate. For the pro‐choice side, pro‐choice men are welcome allies but ones who have a dubious right to speak on the issue, rather than defer to female voices, and who can always be called out en masse for various sexist offenses. Men are also, by virtue of their gender, linked to the patriarchy that is taken to be the force behind abortion bans and restrictions laws that pro‐choice activists see as both a push for male power over women and an illustration of male privilege. It’s a view pithily summed up by Gloria Steinem decades ago:
“If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” 263
sac·ra·ment: a thing of mysterious and sacred significance
On the pro‐life side, many advocates are understandably concerned about giving the impression that their cause is all about men telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies. That stereotype persists despite the presence of many prominent women in the pro‐life movement. Pro‐life advocates of both sexes are also anxious to distance themselves from punitive or stigmatizing attitudes toward sexually active women; ironically, the result is that they often cast men as the villains in the story of abortion.263
But, as is often the case, the truth is far more complex than both pro‐choice and pro‐life clichés. The simplistic idea that pro‐life advocacy is a misogynistic male power play has been challenged many times. And while it is possible that some women in the pro‐life movement are extreme traditionalists who believe that women belong only in the domestic sphere and see abortion bans as a step toward that goal, it is difficult to believe that this is the agenda of high‐achieving professional women like, say, Supreme Court judge, Amy Coney Barrett, or of self‐professed pro‐life feminists who believe that society shouldn’t force women to choose between motherhood and other goals.263
Of course, the legality of abortion implicates women’s bodily autonomy. But this is not because of “the patriarchy”; it is because women (leaving aside for the moment polemics about transgender‐inclusive language) are the ones who get pregnant.
To look at the situation equally, we would have to ask:
“What if men could get pregnant?”
In that case, the word ‘men’ would mean what ‘women’ means now.
But, let’s be clear.
Women’s reproductive biology—the fact that they conceive, gestate, and give birth—self-evidently limits their autonomy and freedom. This is especially true when the conception is unwanted; but even wanted and planned pregnancy curtails the woman’s ability to engage in a wide range of activities. The impact of pregnancy and childbirth on women’s bodies has no parallel for men. In this sense, birth control and, more controversially, abortion are tools of female autonomy. This does not mean, however, that most people who find abortion unacceptable are opposed to women’s liberty as such. There is a genuine belief that abortion takes a human (and not just “potential”) life and that the value of life must be weighed against that of female bodily autonomy.263
But about the man’s role in all this?
Our entire abortion debate pits the fetus against the woman. Men are absent. They can shrug off an unwanted pregnancy as someone else’s problem, even though they contributed half the genetic material to the fetus. Most men probably won’t think the abortion bans littering statehouses have anything to do with them.263
They are both wrong and right.
It would be easy to apply these laws to men, to punish them in the ways we have long punished women. But we also know that’s not going to happen. Nonetheless, consider this thought experiment for a moment:
Alabama’s abortion ban exempts women from criminal punishment. But if the Supreme Court allows the law to stand, and all abortions become illegal, a man could easily be prosecuted. Here’s how:
Say John and Jane have gotten pregnant, and they want to end the pregnancy. This is a common scenario, as ethics professor Katie Watson has found. Nearly 9 in 10 unwanted pregnancies happen in relationships, and most abortion patients say their male partners support their decision.
If John buys abortion drugs online, or even encourages Jane to, then he could serve from 10 to 99 years in prison for aiding her. This happened in 2014 to a Pennsylvania mother, imprisoned for buying her teenage daughter abortion drugs.
Things get worse for John when you consider that Alabama, along with other states that have passed embryonic heartbeat laws, grants personhood to fetuses as early as two weeks after a missed period.
If a fetus is a child, then John is a parent.
John can’t abandon his child and is legally obligated to protect it. Current law gives Jane the exclusive right to decide whether to end her pregnancy. But if abortion is a crime, John’s obligations to the fetus may shift. If John walks away, knowing he got her pregnant and suspecting she will have an abortion, he may be committing child neglect. Or worse mothers have been found guilty of murder for having failed to prevent their partners from fatally abusing their children. It’s not clear what John is supposed to do. Nor is it clear whether John can avoid liability.
John may even have broken Alabama law before Jane got pregnant, by failing to take precautions to avoid unwanted pregnancy. Like most states, Alabama law criminalizes recklessly engaging in “conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person.” When John ejaculated inside Jane without knowing whether she wanted a baby, he arguably showed a conscious disregard for the risks caused by pregnancy, whether from childbearing or abortion.263
These prosecutions may sound absurd. But I think we have to ask, To what extent will prosecution deter men from having unprotected sex?
The threat of any abortion-related prosecution already jeopardizes pregnant women’s lives, which is why the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and many states oppose prosecuting those who end their own pregnancies. But prosecuting men would also intensify those risks: if John is angry or panicked about his own legal jeopardy, he might threaten or hurt Jane to force her not to abort.263
And surely the last thing we need is another way to fill the nation’s prisons with men especially since, as so often happens, punitive laws are disproportionately enforced against low-income people and people of color.
Maybe Alabama prosecutors will head to the white fraternities in Tuscaloosa and begin to arrest young men for conspiring to recklessly endanger the lives of the partygoers they hope to have unprotected sex with. But we doubt it.263
Think about it, though. The novelty of prosecuting men for abortion despite the sound legal footing of such charges tells us something important about the way we have, until now, framed the debate. Boys will be boys, but women who get pregnant have behaved irresponsibly.263
We are so comfortable with regulating women’s sexual behavior, but we’re shocked by the idea of doing it to men. Though it might seem strange to talk about men and abortion, it’s stranger not to, since women don’t have unwanted pregnancies without them.263
So what’s the problem?
Much of this may be because many people have diminished fatherhood (indeed, manhood generally) into a near farcical idea. Our television sitcom dads from Peter Griffin in "Family Guy" to Doug Heffernan in "The King of Queens" are fat, bumbling idiots. Our Father’s Day cards are rife with lazy, dumb dad jokes. Our movies depict consequence-free sexual largesse as a rite of passage for young men.264
When was the last time an absent father faced consequences — be it in the form of physical scarring, loss of career advancement or loss of social status that matched those of a single mother? When was the last time an absent father had to endure the humiliating and disapproving stares of random passersby, or the hurtful comments of someone who has no idea how hard it is for one person to do a two-person job? 264
We must demand more. Changing social norms is a start.
“It would be great if society could rally around the six or seven key bridges on the path to fatherhood,” wrote David Brooks, an opinion columnist for The New York Times “For example, find someone you love before you have intercourse. Or, make sure you want to spend years with this partner before you get off the pill. Or, create a couple’s budget to make sure you can afford this.” 264
Yet perhaps a change in the law is also warranted — one which strongly deters men from irresponsible sex.
We often hear, for example, of schemes to make abortion a crime for which the mother or doctor should be punished. But when was the last time someone proposed the same for men who father unplanned children?
Criminalizing adultery is a good place to start, as is punishing men who shirk their fatherly duties.264
Popular parenting blogger Gabrielle Blair had some interesting ideas in a Twitter thread that went viral, including castrating men who cause unwanted pregnancies. “For those of you who consider abortion to be murder,” she tweeted, “wouldn’t you be on board with having a handful of men castrated, if it prevented 500,000 murders each year?” She meant it as hyperbole (I think), but her point is well-taken.264
Men must face consequences, too.
Sure, sex is all fun and games. Until it’s not.
And men must be accountable and responsible for their actions. Because the outcomes could be serious. Life-altering, in fact.
Many men believe that:
• they can simply leave in the face of pregnancy to protect themselves.
• It is easy for a man to protect himself, his career and his finances from an unwanted pregnancy simply by leaving.
• they can leave women and children if a pregnancy is at an inopportune time, yet women are expected to derail their lives and education for that same child.
In fact, 80% of teen fathers and 20% of all fathers flee when a child is born.
And without the option of abortion, women are forced to put another life before their own and, in many cases, sacrifice themselves to compensate for a man’s unwillingness to stay.242
The idea of legislating men to be financially responsible co-conception partners is a contentious one.
The term “financial abortion” (also known as a paper abortion or a statutory abortion) refers to a hypothetical scenario where a man would be able to terminate his parental rights and obligations, including child support, before the birth of the child. This means he would opt out of all rights, privileges and responsibilities of parenthood in a binding and not reversible decision, similar to sperm donors.267 However, this concept has not been legally recognized in the United States.265
In the United States, there is no legal right for a man to opt out of fatherhood or to have a financial abortion.265
Fathers’ rights in abortion decisions are typically considered secondary to women’s rights. However, there have been efforts to elevate fathers’ rights in abortion decisions through notice requirements or “opt-outs”. If a father’s pregnant partner seeks to abort an unborn child, having the father’s consent isn’t a legal obligation. The person carrying the child may terminate a pregnancy against the father’s objections. 265
In the U.S., some Republican lawmakers have proposed a bill called the Unborn Child Support Act that would require prospective fathers to pay child support from conception. The bill would apply to any man who engages in sexual intercourse with a woman, regardless of whether he is married to her or not, and regardless of whether he intends to be a father or not. The bill has not been passed yet and faces legal and ethical challenges.
Whether abortion is or isn’t an option, another issue may be finding the father. Which begs the question, ‘What if the potential father can't be found but his DNA existed on file. Is it possible to identify a father without his presence?’
Well, technology has evolved and, as a result, accountability may be more of a factor in legislating conduct and related financial responsibility (not only in the consideration of abortions, but rape and incest as well). Laboratories can identify specific genetic markers that can prove the paternity of a child beyond legal doubt. They can also prove that a subject is not the father of the child. Sometimes suspected fathers are not available for such tests, or are unwilling because they either do not want to be proved to be the parent, or are afraid that they might not be. In fact, there are ways of collecting DNA samples even with such cases. Using blood relatives for DNA testing disputes over the paternity of male children can be settled without doubt by technique known as DNA Relationship Testing on blood relatives of the child. It would be even easier if everyone’s DNA existed on file.
The treatment of paternity claims also provides a counterpoint to the notion that our society treats male interests as sacrosanct. Courts have held, for instance, that males who are victims of statutory rape, sexual assault (for instance, while passed out from drinking), or bizarre trickery (such as a woman retrieving a condom used during oral sex and using a syringe to inseminate herself yes, an allegation in an actual legal case) are still liable for child support.
It is simply to say that when it comes to the well-being of children, courts and politicians have not been particularly deferential to male selfdetermination.263
While pro-choice advocates often cast abortion as a matter of gender equality, allowing women, like men, to have sex with no physical consequences, others have made the controversial argument that if women have access to abortion, equal protection requires men to have a limited right to waive all paternal rights and obligations. But more often than not, arguments for “male choice” have met with “You play, you pay” rejoinders uncannily reminiscent of anti-abortion language criticized by pro-choicers as misogynistic when directed at women.263
Studies on men and abortion which are, admittedly, fairly scant show a far more complex and nuanced picture. Overall, both men and women report both positive and negative emotions in the aftermath of abortion; male grief is not uncommon, though men are likely to keep it to themselves. Often, men feel frustrated by their lack of input in the decision. Many have at least occasional thoughts about the child that might have been. The experience of not being told about the pregnancy and only finding out about the abortion can be particularly difficult.263
For many pro-choice people, men and women alike, the abortion issue boils down entirely to the question of a woman’s control over her body, not just in the philosophical sense of bodily autonomy but in a much more practical sense: It’s the woman who has to put up with the physical discomforts and risks of pregnancy and childbirth.
This inescapable fact is indeed central. However much an unwanted child can affect a man’s circumstances, we consider bodily autonomy and integrity far more essential than control over other aspects of one’s life. This is why “equal protection” arguments about abortion, from either the feminist or the men’s rights perspective, inevitably fail: Women and men are not similarly situated with regard to pregnancy, and there is no way to resolve the issue with full parity without being “unfair” to one or the other.263
But that doesn’t mean men’s relationship to pregnancy and childbearing should be dismissed as entirely trivial and inconsequential particularly in a culture that seeks to encourage men to be as involved in parenting as women.
How do we tell men to have an equal emotional investment in a child while also telling them that they should have no say, not just legally but morally, in what happens before birth? 263
This is not an argument for banning abortion; it’s an argument for making it as rare as possible and prioritizing its avoidance. It’s also an argument for not losing sight of men’s fundamental humanity in the abortion debate, whether on the pro-life or the pro-choice side.263
After the fall of Roe, it’s easy for pro-choicers to think that we are living in a moment of rampant misogyny when women’s basic human rights are being ripped away. It is also natural for pro-lifers to think that they should win women’s hearts and minds first and foremost. Thus, neither side is particularly interested in a “men are people, too” message. But that’s a mistake. The abortion debate is already polarizing enough along political and religious lines. We should not let it promote more polarization along gender lines as well.263
How might men benefit from reproductive freedom?
An important step forward would be for men to recognize how much they gain from women’s right to an abortion, too.
Given that an estimated 45% of pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned, countless men (including many in positions of power) who were not ready to be parents or had no intention of becoming a parent have been able to live freer lives and enjoy fuller careers because their sexual partner was able to obtain an abortion. With the freedom to only have children when people feel ready to do so, a man could potentially be saved from unwanted parenthood many more times than a woman over the course of his life – without even necessarily being aware of it.266
The majority of people in the U.S., including men, support the right to an abortion. But you might not know it, given the silence of most men beyond the vocal minority who are opposed.266
Sexual and reproductive health and parenthood are men’s business and responsibility too, and we would all benefit from talking about them more openly and honestly – with our friends, our sons and by joining calls for social change, as well as reflecting on our own practices.266
It’s important to recognize that this is first and foremost about supporting women’s right to choose what happens to their bodies – and listening much more to their needs and experiences.
Source:
(261) Fetters, Ashley. Men Aren’t Quite Sure How to Be Abortion-Rights Activists Does a movement that proclaims a deep belief in women’s autonomy have a place for male voices?
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/06/men-abortion-debate/591259/ (262) Opinion letters: The Role of Men in the Debate Over Abortion “Men get off scot-free,” writes a woman. Men should be excused from supporting a child a woman chooses to have against his wishes, writes a man.
(263) Oberman, Michelle and Ball, W. David. When We Talk About Abortion, Let’s Talk About Men Since women don’t have unwanted pregnancies without them.
(264) Young, Cathy. The Complicated Place of Men in the Abortion Debates Both sides pro-choice and pro-life indulge in simplistic clichés about males. https://www.cato.org/commentary/complicated-place-men-abortion-debates (265) Wheatly, Thomas. Want to end abortion? Hold men fathers of those unplanned children accountable. If we are indeed facing a crisis of mass murder in our country, isn’t it time we ensure everyone including men is pulling their weight to stop it?
(266) FINDLAW STAFF (Legally reviewed by MELISSA BENDER, ESQ.). Fathers' Rights and Abortion https://www.findlaw.com/family/paternity/fathers-rights-and-abortion.html
(267) Burrell, Stephen & Ruxton, Sandy. Roe v Wade: men benefit from abortion rights too – and should speak about them more https://theconversation.com/roe-v-wade-men-benefit-from-abortion-rights-too-andshould-speak-about-them-more-185523
(268) Deveny, Catherine. Financial abortion: Should men be able to 'opt out' of parenthood?
Men are silent partners in abortion. The choice isn’t ours, but we matter. I was 16 when my girlfriend became pregnant. A baby would have derailed both our lives. By PHILIP LERMAN
Republican presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been ridiculed after suggesting that one way to reduce abortions is to force men to pay child support from the moment of conception.
A men’s movement takes reins in a nationwide quest to end abortion
Mom’s blistering rant on how men are responsible for all unwanted pregnancies is on the nose “ALL unwanted pregnancies are caused by the irresponsible ejaculations of men. Period. Don't believe me? Let me walk you through it."
Discussions about abortion often focus on the rights of the mother or unborn child. Yet, there have been efforts to elevate fathers' rights in abortion decisions. These efforts involve notice requirements or "opt-outs." Expectant fathers might oppose a pregnant mother's decision to terminate a pregnancy. Conversely, a father may not wish to assume the responsibilities of fatherhood and oppose carrying a pregnancy to term.
While courts have largely treated fathers' rights in abortion decisions as secondary to women's rights, there are other ways for fathers to influence a pregnant woman's decision. These ways happen primarily through private agreements.
1. FATHERS' RIGHTS AND ABORTION: CONSENT
If a father's pregnant partner seeks to abort an unborn child, having the father's consent isn't a legal obligation. The person carrying the child may terminate a pregnancy against the father's objections.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health: Overturning Abortion Rights
In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, overturning the 50-year-old decision in Roe v. Wade, and allowing states to set their own abortion laws. Seven states now have a complete ban on abortion, and ten others are attempting to enforce such bans or have had their bans enjoined by the court. However, Dobbs did not explicitly address paternal rights or the father's role in abortion decisions.
2. FATHERS' RIGHTS AND ABORTION: NOTICE REQUIREMENTS
The Court's decision in Dobbs overturned the key judgment in Casey but did not specifically address the issue of undue burden or paternal notification (if paternal notification placed an undue burden on the woman seeking an abortion). Parental rights were not an issue during the Dobbs arguments. Since Dobbs allows states to make their own abortion laws, these legal rights are evolving.
3. OPTING OUT OF FATHERHOOD OR "FINANCIAL ABORTIONS"
After birth, the father will be responsible for child support payments. This is true despite any objections to carrying the pregnancy to term by the father. This has led some fathers' rights advocates to oppose what they see as a double standard in fathers' rights for family planning. Advocates for fathers' rights argue that a father should be able to decide, after conception, that they don't want to be a father. Some scholars have argued that fathers should have the right to "financial abortions."
A financial abortion right would require a woman to notify a prospective father during pregnancy. The father could then refuse financial or legal responsibility for the baby. Should the child be born despite this, the biological father would not be responsible for it.
Currently, there is no right to a financial abortion or to opt out of fatherhood.
In one well-publicized case, a father in Michigan objected to child support payments when his ex-partner gave birth after knowing he did not want children. The Court rejected his argument that, since a woman may avoid motherhood through abortion, the man had a right to disclaim responsibility for a child born against his wishes. The Court did not see the question as one of the father's interests versus the mother's interests. Instead, they viewed it through the lens of the child's right to parental support. Once a child is born, the parents are responsible for the child's support and education.
PRIVATE AGREEMENTS FOR CHILD SUPPORT
Each state has child custody laws. Child custody and child support are separate in most places. Fathers who want to keep their babies and prevent an abortion may be able to reach private agreements with the mother. They can pay the costs of the pregnancy and post-natal care and obtain full custody following the birth.
Parents cannot waive child support by private agreement. In the same way, no state allows a parent to avoid child support payments by voluntary surrender of parental rights. Termination of parental rights requires a finding of parental unfitness or the presence of another person, such as a grandparent or stepparent, to adopt the child.
QUESTIONS ABOUT FATHERS' RIGHTS AND ABORTION CONTINUE
Many state abortion laws have changed since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health. It is unclear what individual states may do about fathers' rights and abortion.
Excerpt from
The end of Roe v. Wade has huge economic implications for male partners, too
While the issue disproportionately impacts people who can get pregnant, Dr. Andréa Becker, a medical sociologist and reproductive rights researcher at the University of California San Francisco, says it's important to look at abortion access from all sides, as limits on abortion access likely will have broader implications for society as a whole.
1. One in five men have been involved in an abortion, one study finds.
2. Young men who have been involved in abortions are more likely to pursue college and earn more. We need to debunk the "us v. them" narrative between men and women
"The gender-based discrimination and disparity that women have faced because of patriarchal power structures have really put a rift between the public's mental image of men and women when it comes to reproductive rights."
- Dr. Brian Nguyen, professor of obstetrics & gynecology at the University of Southern California
He believes that the fight for abortion access would benefit if cis men fully engaged in the cause, and demonstrating their tangible stakes could help. "When it comes to reproductive rights, we hear a lot of 'her body, her choice' and 'I'll support her no matter what.' But that's passive support," he said.
"To me, what men need to be risking is their own comfort of having to grapple with an issue that women are forced to do biologically."
Excerpt from 'Preglimony'
Would Make Men Financially Responsible for Pregnancies or Abortions, Law Prof Says
Developments in technology that make it possible to identify prospective fathers during pregnancy call for a change in thinking about their responsibility to help pay for pregnancy or for an abortion, a law professor says.
A prenatal blood test makes it possible to link a woman’s partner to her pregnancy, according to University of Richmond law professor Shari Motro. A potential ramification, she writes for the New York Times, is that men might be asked to support their partners before a child’s birth. “They might be asked to chip in for medical bills, birthing classes and maternity clothes, to help to cover the loss of income that often comes with pregnancy, or to contribute to the cost of an abortion.”
Most states frame men’s pregnancy obligations as an element of child support or as part of a parentage order that takes effect after the birth of a child, she says. Motro suggests men should have financial responsibility even if there is no birth. “Former spouses are often required to pay alimony; former cohabiting partners may have to pay palimony; why not ask men who conceive with a woman to whom they are not married to pay ‘preglimony’?” she writes.
Motro considers, then discounts a criticism. “The most frequent objection I hear to this idea is that it will give men a say over abortion,” she writes. “A woman’s right to choose is sometimes eclipsed by an abusive partner who pressures her into terminating or continuing a pregnancy against her will, and preglimony could exacerbate this dynamic. But the existence of bullies shouldn’t dictate the rules that govern all of society. In the name of protecting the most vulnerable, it sets the bar too low for the mainstream, casting lovers as strangers and pregnancy as only a woman’s problem.”
But preglimony could deter a different kind of sex abuse, Motro says. Men who pressure partners into unwanted sex would be liable for the consequences. And men will also benefit, especially those who want to help but are turned away. Motro notes:
“Both partners had a role in the conception; it’s only fair that they should both take responsibility for its economic consequences.”
Excerpts from
Opinion letters: The Role of Men in the Debate Over Abortion
“Men get off scot-free,” writes a woman. Men should be excused from supporting a child a woman chooses to have against his wishes, writes a man https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/opinion/letters/abortion-men.html
In the long, and now more heated, debate about abortion, men get off scot-free. Men are equally responsible for every abortion, full stop.
But in this country, still predominantly run by old white men, anti-abortionists believe that women are vessels who lose their personhood once they are carrying a fetus. The creation begot of the man’s sperm has greater value than the woman he impregnated.
We need not only to talk about men in the abortion debate, but also to hold them accountable. It’s not that hard to prevent pregnancies; you just have to care to make the effort, and sharing in the consequences might help.
Or how about mandatory vasectomies for all pubescent boys? Problem solved. They can bank their sperm and, in the future, when they’re in a relationship with a women who wants to have their child she can voluntarily be inseminated.
Am I being facetious? Perhaps. But yes, let’s talk about boys and men. Can’t have unplanned pregnancies without ’em.
Daphne Case
Norwalk, Conn.
We should applaud the argument for men to take equal responsibility for their not-yet-born children, though such equality between men and women leads to a conclusion that many women would reject.
Most women choose abortion because they are not ready for the obligations that parenthood entails. A man should be given the same right. Currently, a man carries the legal burden of the welfare of any child that is his, whether he wanted the child or not.
But conception is a mutual act. If it’s true equality that the authors are advocating, then a man should be excused from obligations to any child he does not want. And to the mother who has the child against his wishes.
Thomas Curley Ossining, N.Y.
Want to end abortion? Hold men — fathers of those unplanned children — accountable.
A pro-life attorney who practices family law (including divorces, Separation agreements; child custody disputes; child support enforcement; restraining orders; parental rights termination; visitation schedule modification) noticed patterns emerging. Chief among these, many of the people I assist are mothers trying to fix the damage wrought by an absent, neglectful or abusive man. In each case, my job requires me to ask about the father’s role — or more often, whether he has one at all.
It is little wonder some people use words like “trapped” and “forced” to describe the consequences of banning abortion.
Taken alone, laws like Georgia’s and Alabama’s, for example, put women in the precarious position of bringing a child into the world without any reliable support system.
Yet a comprehensive life-affirming culture demands more than simply abolishing abortion. We must also restore the original support system that made it safe for women to choose life in the first place. In this respect, I’m greatly disappointed by the pro-life movement’s languid approach to emphasizing the other, equally crucial part of the pro-life equation: fatherhood.
The arguments against banning abortion often reflect fear, frustration and desperation — not support for abortion as a positive good. Most notably, prochoice advocates lament the lack of support for expectant mothers.
They deride the absence of free health care, free child care and compulsory paid maternal leave. They even go so far as to call pro-life advocates hypocrites, saying that if people like myself really cared about sparing the unborn, we’d make it our priority to support women making the journey to motherhood alone.
Their argument is fundamentally correct (although their solutions are gravely harmful). Unwanted pregnancy is not a disease, nor is it remedied by the moral hazard wrought by additional government assistance programs. Restoring fatherhood — nature’s built-in complement to motherhood is what is needed. And it starts by expecting more, legally and socially, from our men.
Men must face consequences, too.
At the outset, we should recognize that it takes two to create life and that both parents share in the responsibility to provide for their children.
We often hear, for example, of schemes to make abortion a crime for which the mother or doctor should be punished. But when was the last time someone proposed the same for men who father unplanned children?
When was the last time an absent father faced consequences — be it in the form of physical scarring, loss of career advancement or loss of social status that matched those of a single mother? When was the last time an absent father had to endure the humiliating and disapproving stares of random passersby, or the hurtful comments of someone who has no idea how hard it is for one person to do a two-person job?
Much of this is because many people have diminished fatherhood (indeed, manhood generally) into a near farcical idea. Our television sitcom dads from Peter Griffin in "Family Guy" to Doug Heffernan in "The King of Queens" are fat, bumbling idiots. Our Father’s Day cards are rife with lazy, dumb dad jokes. Our movies depict consequence-free sexual largesse as a rite of passage for young men.
We must demand more. Changing social norms is a start.
“It would be great if society could rally around the six or seven key bridges on the path to fatherhood,” wrote David Brooks. “For example, find someone you love before you have intercourse. Or, make sure you want to spend years with this partner before you get off the pill. Or, create a couple’s budget to make sure you can afford this.”
Yet perhaps a change in the law is also warranted one which strongly deters men from irresponsible sex. Criminalizing adultery is a good place to start, as is punishing men who shirk their fatherly duties.
Popular parenting blogger Gabrielle Blair had some interesting ideas in a Twitter thread that went viral, including castrating men who cause unwanted pregnancies. “For those of you who consider abortion to be murder,” she tweeted, “wouldn’t you be on board with having a handful of men castrated, if it prevented 500,000 murders each year?”
She meant it as hyperbole (I think), but her point is well-taken.
If we are indeed facing a crisis of mass murder in our country, isn’t it about time we ensured everyone is pulling their weight to stop it?
If we ban abortion under penalty of law and expect women to embrace the extraordinary responsibilities of pregnancy and motherhood, can we not demand the same of our men?
3.12 IN THE CASE WHERE AN ABORTION IS DENIED, BOTH MOTHER AND CHILD RISK BEING HANDICAPPED IN THE LONG-TERM. DO WE REALLY WANT TO DISADVANTAGE BOTH MOTHER AND CHILD BEFORE IT’S ‘GO-TIME’ WHEN THERE MIGHT BE A BETTER ALTERNATIVE?
To me, this is a rhetorical question as there seems to be no shortage of evidence that demonstrates that denying access to a safe and legal abortion can have negative repercussions on the health and welfare of both the mother and the child.
Which begs the question, ‘What would make one choose an alternative that would likely disadvantage both mother and child – the post-birth version
– when one could do otherwise?’
Studies have found that restricting access to safe abortions has many consequences, including increases in poverty, unemployment, pregnancy-related deaths, and poor economic, social, physical, and mental well-being for parents and children.
People denied a safe and legal abortion (that is, those who were forced to carry unintended or unwanted pregnancies to term):
• suffered from more economic hardship: they were 3 times more likely to be unemployed, 4 times more likely to live below the poverty line, and more likely to report being unable to afford basic living expenses.
• reported more life-threatening complications from the end of pregnancy, including eclampsia and infections.
• reported worse health and greater chronic pain than those who were able to terminate their pregnancy.
• were more likely to seek unsafe and illegal procedures, which could result in serious health consequences and even death.
• were more likely to stay in contact with a violent partner and were more likely to raise the resulting child alone without family or partner support.
Per the Turnaway Study, of those women who sought a safe and legal abortion:
• more than 95 percent of people who chose to have abortions reported that it was the right decision for them five years later.
• 95 percent of people report that having the abortion was the right decision for them over five years after the procedure.
• all were more financially stable, set more ambitious life goals, raised children under more stable conditions, and were more likely to have a wanted child later.
Children were also negatively affected. According to the Turnaway Study, children whose parents were denied an abortion had poorer academic achievement and were less likely to continue to higher education after high school. In adulthood, they reported less job satisfaction, more conflicts at work, fewer friendships, and more disappointments in romantic relationships. By age 35, they were more likely to have been psychiatric patients than either their own siblings or a same-age cohort whose parents had not sought an abortion.
So we really need to be asking, To what extent does allowing access to a safe and legal abortion outweigh the potential risks and negative outcomes of denying it?
In the case where an abortion is being denied, to what extent are the lives of both mother (possibly father) and child being compromised in the short and long terms? What might be some of the societal impacts that could result?
I’m not seeing any thoughtful answers to questions like these from the faithful objectors which leads me to wonder about ulterior motives.
Ultimately, it is important to take a comprehensive and evidence-based approach to reproductive healthcare that prioritizes the health, well-being, and agency of women, children and their families, while also taking into account the complex social, moral, and practical considerations involved.
That said, while denying an abortion may increase the risk of negative outcomes for both the mother and the child, including long-term physical, emotional, and economic harms, it is important to acknowledge that there may also be potential negative consequences associated with pursuing an abortion.
At the end of the day, the decision to carry a pregnancy to term or to terminate it should be made by the pregnant individual in consultation with her healthcare provider, and based on her individual circumstances and values.
It is not appropriate for others to impose their views or preferences on the decisionmaking process, as this undermines the autonomy and agency of the mother
In cases where an individual is denied access to abortion, it is important to ensure that they receive appropriate medical and social support throughout their pregnancy and beyond. This may include access to prenatal care, financial assistance, counseling services, and other forms of support that can help to mitigate the potential negative consequences of carrying an unwanted or unexpected pregnancy to term.
The goal should be to ensure that all individuals have access to highquality reproductive healthcare that respects their autonomy, dignity, and well-being, and that recognizes the complex and multifaceted nature of reproductive decision-making.
Because in the long-term, the impacts of denied abortion can be profound.
• For the mother, she may be forced to give up educational or career opportunities due to the demands of parenting. She may also face financial difficulties and a reduced quality of life if she is unable to provide for the child adequately. A woman who is forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term may experience ongoing emotional trauma and may struggle to provide adequate care for the child. This can impact the child's development and wellbeing, as well as the mother's ability to work and provide for her family.
• For the child, the long-term impacts may also depend on the reason for the denial. If the child is born into a family that is not prepared for their arrival, they may face neglect, abuse, or poverty. If the child is born with health complications, they may require ongoing medical care and support. Unintended offspring have poorer academic achievement and income and are more likely to be involved with the criminal justice system and develop depressive and psychotic disorders.
And society in general is not immune to the impacts either!
On a broader societal level, denial of abortion can contribute to perpetuating gender inequalities, as women are disproportionately affected by unplanned or unwanted pregnancies. It can also result in increased healthcare costs and strain on social services as families struggle to provide for unexpected children. Additionally, denying a woman's right to choose can have implications for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy more broadly.
I’m not seeing any winners here.
Source:
(12) Foster, D. G., Biggs, M. A., Ralph, L., Gerdts, C., Roberts, S. C., Glymour, M. M., & Rocca, C. H. (2018). Socioeconomic Outcomes of Women Who Receive and Women Who Are Denied Wanted Abortions in the United States. American Journal of Public Health.
(269) Gerdts, C., DePineres, T., Hajri, S., Harries, J., Hossain, A., Puri, M., Vohra, D. & Greene Foster, D. Denial of abortion in legal settings. Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25511805/
(270) Lenharo, Mariana. Being Denied an Abortion Has Lasting Impacts on Health and Finances
A landmark study of women seeking abortions shows the harms of being unable to end an unwanted pregnancy
3.12.1 IN THE CASE WHERE AN ABORTION IS DENIED, WHO WILL PAY FOR THE UNWANTED BABIES?
Children come at a cost.
They may be a gift, but raising a child requires tremendous commitment and resources under the best of circumstances. Unwanted babies from unintended pregnancies often are even more burdensome. Of course, the cost of raising a child varies widely depending on factors such as location, income, and family size.
In general, raising a child can be expensive, and the financial burden can fall on the parents, government programs, and charitable organizations 271,275 According to a Reuters Health article, women who were denied an abortion and ended up giving birth were more likely to report not having enough money to cover living expenses between one and five years after seeking an abortion. The same article also notes that carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term quadrupled the odds that a new mother and her child would live below the federal poverty line.276
Who will help pay for this?
It’s easy to stand on the sidelines and jump up and down about saving unborn babies, but the real work must be done by others, both during, and especially after, the pregnancy.
In cases where an abortion is denied, it is critical to ensure that appropriate medical and social support is provided to the pregnant individual and any resulting children. This may include access to prenatal care, financial assistance, counseling services, and other forms of support that can help to mitigate the potential negative consequences of carrying an unwanted or unexpected pregnancy to term, not to mention the more demanding subsequent period.
The responsibility for providing such support may fall on a range of individuals and institutions, including healthcare providers, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and community-based organizations. In some cases, private individuals or organizations may also provide financial or other forms of support to pregnant individuals and families.
It is important to recognize that providing support to pregnant individuals and families is not only a matter of social responsibility and compassion, but also of public health and economic well-being. Children who are born into families that receive adequate support are more likely to thrive and contribute positively to their communities, while families that receive support are less likely to experience economic hardship and other negative outcomes.
Overall, the provision of support to pregnant individuals and families is an essential part of a successful community and, in the case of abortions denied, even more so.
Source:
(272) American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (2019). The role of obstetrician-gynecologists in providing safe abortion care and comprehensive reproductive health care.
https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2019/09/the-role-ofobstetrician-gynecologists-in-providing-safe-abortion-care-and-comprehensive-reproductive-health-care (273) Guttmacher Institute. (2020). Abortion in the Lives of Women Struggling Financially: Why Insurance Coverage of Abortion Matters.
3.12.2 IN THE CASE WHERE AN ABORTION IS DENIED, WHO WILL CARE FOR THE UNABLE-TO-BE-PROPERLY-CARED-FOR CHILDREN?
And, on the topic of care, who will help support the ill-prepared mothers (and fathers, assuming they’re still involved)?
For starters, children need care. Lots of it.
As noted previously, they may be a gift, but raising a child requires tremendous commitment and care under the best of circumstances. Unwanted babies from unintended pregnancies often are even more burdensome.
Who will care for them? And who will support their family?
If an abortion is denied and a child is born into a family that is unable to provide adequate care, we have a major concern on our hands, one that has important longterm consequences. While there may be a range of individuals and institutions that can help to support the child and their family, which may include government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and community-based organizations, it is unreasonable to think that any of these groups can play a significant role in raising a child.
In many countries, there are government programs and social welfare systems in place that provide financial, medical, and social support to families in need. These programs may include child welfare services, healthcare coverage, food assistance, housing support, and other forms of assistance that can help families to provide for their children's needs. So support may be possible. But even here, many groups pushing an anti-abortion message are often also resistant to work to provide post-birth care.
Non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations may also provide a range of services and support to families and children, including counseling, education, advocacy, and other forms of assistance. Again, it’s only a piece of the complex puzzle.
All this requires much time and money. But more importantly, it also requires a lot of hands-on care.
In many cases, the woman herself will end up caring for the child, even if she is not financially, emotionally, or practically able to do so properly. This can lead to significant hardship and disadvantage for the child. Without adequate social support policies, the children of women denied abortions may face worse outcomes and fewer opportunities. Caring for children who are unable to be properly cared for is not only a matter of social responsibility and compassion, but also a matter of public health and economic wellbeing.
Denying access to safe and legal abortion can have many negative consequences for both the parents and children. 271,275,276,283,284
Adding undue pressure on unwilling or unprepared parents as a result of having denied an abortion helps no one. And lack of post-birth care simply makes matters worse.
Source:
(277) Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2021). Child Welfare Services. https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/supporting/support-services/ (278) Children’s Bureau. (2021). Foster Care. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/focus-areas/foster-care (279) National Conference of State Legislatures. (2021). Adoption. https://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/adoption.aspx (280) National Institutes of Health. (2019). Children’s Health. https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/childrens-health (281) UNICEF. (2021). Child Protection. https://www.unicef.org/child-protection (282) United States Department of Health and Human Services. (2021). Child Welfare Information Gateway. https://www.childwelfare.gov/ (283) World Health Organization https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion (284) Government of Canada.
3.12.3 IN THE CASE WHERE AN ABORTION IS DENIED, WHO WILL PAY FOR THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE FOR YEARS TO COME?
Put another way, who’s paying for the downstream impacts of unprepared parents and unwanted children resulting from the denial of an abortion?
The question of who pays for the collateral damage in cases where abortion is denied is complex and multifaceted, and the answer may vary depending on the specific circumstances of each case. Indeed, these can vary widely depending on a range of factors, including the woman's socioeconomic status, access to healthcare, and the specific legal and policy environment in which she lives.
That said, it is important to note that denying access to safe and legal abortion can have significant physical, emotional, and financial consequences for individuals and their families. These consequences can include increased risks of maternal mortality, poor health outcomes for both the mother and child, and increased economic strain on the family.
In terms of who pays for these consequences, the burden often falls on the individual seeking the abortion and their support network. This may include paying for additional medical care and support services, such as counseling or therapy, as well as managing the financial and emotional fallout of an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy.
But in many cases, the cost may also fall on the wider community, including taxpayers who may be required to provide additional support services and resources to help individuals and families cope with the consequences of a denied abortion.
Ultimately, the question of who pays for the collateral damage of denied abortion highlights the importance of ensuring that individuals have access to safe, legal, and affordable abortion services. This can help to reduce the physical, emotional, and financial burden of unintended pregnancies and ensure that individuals and families have the support they need to thrive.
When an abortion is denied, the collateral damage can be far-reaching and affect multiple parties, including the woman seeking an abortion, the child who is born, and society as a whole. Some of the potential costs and consequences that may arise from denying an abortion include:
1. Health costs: If a woman is unable to access a safe and legal abortion, she may resort to unsafe methods of terminating the pregnancy. This can lead to serious health complications, including infections, hemorrhaging, and death. The cost of treating these health problems may be borne by the woman herself, her family, or society in the form of increased healthcare costs.
2. Financial costs: A woman who is denied an abortion may face financial challenges related to the cost of raising a child, including medical expenses, childcare, and lost income. If the woman is unable to support the child, she may rely on government assistance programs, which can also result in increased costs for taxpayers.
3. Social costs: Children who are born to mothers who were denied an abortion may be at increased risk of experiencing poverty, abuse, and neglect. These children may also face challenges related to education, healthcare, and social development, which can have long-term consequences for their well-being and success while, at the same, placing additional demand on the related resources.
4. Productivity losses: Women who are unable to obtain abortions may face challenges in continuing their education, pursuing career opportunities, or maintaining employment. This can result in lost wages and reduced economic productivity for both the women and their families.
5. Legal costs: In some cases, women who are denied abortions may seek legal recourse, either to challenge the constitutionality of abortion restrictions or to pursue damages for the harm they have suffered. These legal costs may be borne by the women themselves or by advocacy organizations that support reproductive rights.
6. Social service costs: Children who are born to mothers who were denied abortions may be at increased risk of experiencing poverty, abuse, and neglect. This can result in increased costs associated with social welfare programs like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), and child welfare services. These costs may be borne by taxpayers and/or state and local governments.
In many cases, the costs and consequences of denying an abortion may be borne by multiple parties, including the woman (and the father, assuming he is still involved), the child, the extended family, and society as a whole.
Surprisingly, one never hears any concerns on the part of the average citizen, who is certainly sharing in the significant costs of the various downstream impacts of a forced birth.
And there is evidence to that affect. They include increased healthcare costs, increased welfare and social service costs, increased rates of poverty, and increased rates of child abuse and neglect, all weighing heavily on societal systems.
Studies have shown that women who are denied abortions are more likely to experience financial instability, be forced to rely on public assistance, and have higher rates of unemployment and poverty. These factors can lead to increased reliance on social services such as welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid, all funded by taxpayers.
When women are unable to access safe and legal abortion, they may be more likely to experience negative health outcomes, such as complications from unsafe abortions or increased risk of maternal mortality. This can result in higher healthcare costs for individuals and the state.
In addition, children who are born to mothers who were denied abortions may be more likely to experience poor health outcomes, including low birth weight, developmental delays, and increased risk of chronic health conditions. These health issues can result in increased healthcare costs, which are often borne by taxpayers through programs such as Medicaid.
Furthermore, children who are born to mothers who were denied an abortion may be at greater risk of experiencing abuse or neglect. These children may also be more likely to experience poverty, which can lead to a range of negative outcomes, such as poor health, lower educational attainment, and reduced job prospects.
Children born into families that are unprepared or unable to care for them may be more likely to experience abuse, neglect, and involvement with the criminal justice system, which can result in additional costs to society.
It is very possible that as an average citizen, you may be indirectly paying for some of these downstream impacts through taxes that support healthcare programs, social welfare programs, and other services that are necessary to support families who are struggling financially or dealing with other challenges.
More importantly, it is worth noting that the cost of an abortion is generally much lower than the cost of providing healthcare, social services, and other support to a mother and child over their lifetimes. Therefore, in many cases, providing access to abortion may actually save taxpayers money in the long run.
I’ve never
heard one politician take this angle.
While there may be debate about the specific costs and impacts of denying access to abortion, it is clear that there are significant social and economic consequences associated with limiting women's reproductive rights.
It is just these kinds of costs and consequences that come into play when making the very difficult decisions about access to abortion. Undue interference or restriction just puts a wrench in the works and, at the end of the day, helps no one.
LOOKING AT THE NUMBERS
Putting aside for a moment the moral conundrum of abortion, let’s simply look at issue from a cost perspective. How might the cost of having an abortion compare with being denied one?
The cost of having an abortion varies depending on the country, the type of procedure, and other factors.
• In Canada, for instance, the cost of an abortion is typically covered by insurance for people with a Canadian health card, but there are additional costs that are often disregarded and can make the procedure inaccessible for some. These include the cost of taking time off work, child care, and travel and accommodation costs if you live outside of a city center where abortions aren’t available. 295
• In the United States, the cost of an in-clinic abortion can be up to around $800 in the first trimester, but it’s often less. The average cost of a first-trimester in-clinic abortion at Planned Parenthood is about $600. 296
On the other hand, raising a child – the result of having been denied an abortion - can be expensive.
According to a report by MoneySense, the average cost of raising a child in Canada is in the order of $17,000 annually, making the total estimated cost from infancy-to-18 over $300,000.297
The U.S. Department of Agriculture calculated that raising a child costs a quarter million dollars, not including college expenses.298,299 According to a report by Brookings, the average total expenditures on a child from birth through age 17 would be $284,594. 300 This estimate assumes an average inflation rate of 2.2 percent and does not include the expenses associated with sending a child to college or supporting them during their transition to adulthood.
The above figures also do not include any additional support for mother or child that may result from having been denied an abortion. The cost of being denied an abortion can be significant and can include a range of expenses, including medical costs, legal fees, and social welfare support. According to a report by The National Bureau of Economic Research, women who are denied abortions are more likely to experience negative health outcomes, such as complications during childbirth and mental health issues. They are also more likely to rely on public assistance programs, such as Medicaid, and to experience economic hardship.
Moreover, research has shown that children whose mothers were denied abortions are more likely to live below the poverty line or in households without enough money to cover food, housing, and transportation. This can have long-term implications for their health, education, and future economic prospects.
In terms of legal fees, women who are denied abortions may face significant costs if they choose to pursue legal action against the state or other parties involved. The cost of legal representation can vary widely depending on the complexity of the case and the jurisdiction.
It is difficult to estimate the total cost of being denied an abortion as it can vary widely depending on individual circumstances. However, research has shown that access to safe and legal abortion services can have significant benefits for women’s health and well-being, as well as for society as a whole.
It is important to note that the above-noted figures are rough estimates and that the actual costs can vary widely depending on individual circumstances.
Source:
(285) The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has stated that lack of access to abortion care can result in significant physical, emotional, and financial harm to women and their families.
https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2018/11/abortion-access (286) A study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that women who were denied abortions experienced worse physical health outcomes compared to those who were able to obtain an abortion.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5505277/ (287) The Guttmacher Institute has found that unplanned pregnancies can result in significant financial strain on individuals and families, and that access to abortion care can help to alleviate this burden.
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states (288) The National Institutes of Health (NIH) notes that the cost of providing support services to individuals and families affected by denied abortion may fall on the wider community, including taxpayers.
• Upadhyay, U. D., Johns, N. E., Meckstroth, K. R., & Kerns, J. L. (2015). Safety of medical abortion provided through telemedicine compared with in person. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 125(6), 1475-1479. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4459473/
• Jones, R. K., & Jerman, J. (2017). Population group abortion rates and lifetime incidence of abortion: United States, 2008–2014. American Journal of Public Health, 107(12), 1904-1909. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304042
• Finer, L. B., Frohwirth, L. F., Dauphinee, L. A., Singh, S., & Moore, A. M. (2005). Reasons U.S. women have abortions: quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Perspectives on sexual and reproductive health, 37(3), 110-118. https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2005/reasons-us-women-haveabortions-quantitative-and-qualitative-perspectives
• Guttmacher Institute. (2021). Induced abortion in the United States. https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states
• World Health Organization (WHO). (2019). Preventing unsafe abortion. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/preventing-unsafe-abortion (290) Social service costs:
• American Academy of Pediatrics. (2019). The impact of maternal mental illness on child development. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/144/4/e20183161
• Coleman, P. K., & Nelson, E. S. (1998). The quality of abortion decisions and college students' reports of post-abortion emotional sequelae and abortion attitudes. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 17(4), 425-442.
• American Public Health Association. (2015). Public Health Implications of Abortion Restrictions in the United States. https://www.apha.org/policies-and-advocacy/public-health-policy-statements/policydatabase/2015/01/29/public-health-implications-of-abortion-restrictions-in-the-united-states
• Weitz, T. A., Taylor, D., Desai, S., Upadhyay, U. D., Waldman, J., Battistelli, M. F., & Drey, E. A. (2013). Safety of aspiration abortion performed by nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physician assistants under a California legal waiver. American journal of public health, 103(3), 454-461. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2012.300879 (291) Economic impacts of denying access to abortion:
• Guttmacher Institute. (2021). The costs of contraceptive and abortion restrictions in the United States. https://www.guttmacher.org/report/costs-constraining-contraceptive-coverage-and-access-abortionunited-states
• National Bureau of Economic Research. (2019). The economic and social outcomes of refugees in the United States: Evidence from the ACS.
• ACLU. (2020). What happens when a state makes it almost impossible to get an abortion? We're finding out. https://www.aclu.org/news/reproductive-freedom/what-happens-when-state-makes-it-almostimpossible-get-abortion-were
• ACLU. (2020). The cost of being denied an abortion. https://www.aclu.org/news/reproductive-freedom/the-cost-of-being-denied-an-abortion/ (293) Productivity losses:
• Jerman, J., & Jones, R. K. (2014). Secondary measures of access to abortion services in the United States, 2011 and 2012: Gestational age limits, cost, and harassment. Women's Health Issues, 24(4), e419-e424. https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/whi/2014/06/secondary-measures-access-abortionservices-united-states-2011-and-2012
• Guttmacher Institute. (2020). Abortion is a key economic issue for women and their families. https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2020/07/abortion-key-economic-issue-women-and-their-families
• Jones, R. K., & Jerman, J. (2017). Population group abortion rates and lifetime incidence of abortion: United States, 2008-2014. American Journal of Public Health, 107(12), 1904-1909. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304042
• American Psychological Association. (2008). Women and leadership: Transforming visions and diverse voices. https://www.apa.org/pi/women/resources/reports/leadership (294) Impact on children:
• American Academy of Pediatrics. (2019). The impact of maternal mental illness on child development. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/144/4/e20183161
• Foster, E. M., & Furstenberg, F. F. (2002). The impact of the Early Head Start program on fathers’ involvement with their children. Infant Mental Health Journal, 23(5), 523-543. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/imhj.10030 (295) Reardin, Renée. The True Cost of an Abortion in Canada, According to an Expert https://www.besthealthmag.ca/article/cost-of-abortions-canada/ (296) Attia. How much does an abortion cost? – Planned Parenthood https://www.plannedparenthood.org/blog/how-much-does-an-abortion-cost (297) How much does it cost to raise a child in Canada? – MoneySense https://www.moneysense.ca/columns/making-it/how-much-does-it-cost-to-raise-a-child-in-canada/ (298) LaPonsie Maryalene. How Much Does It Cost to Raise a Child? https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/how-much-does-it-cost-to-raise-a-child (299) Kirkham, Elyssa. A Breakdown of the Cost of Raising a Child https://plutusfoundation.org/2021/a-breakdown-of-the-cost-of-raising-a-child/ (300) Sawhill, I.V., Welch, M., & Miller, C. It’s getting more expensive to raise children. And government isn’t doing much to help – Brookings https://www.brookings.edu/articles/its-getting-more-expensive-to-raise-children-and-government-isntdoing-much-to-help/
(301) The World Health Organization (WHO) notes that denying access to safe abortion services can result in increased maternal morbidity and mortality. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/unsafe-abortion
3.13
WHO BENEFITS FROM
THE FORCING OF PREGNANT WOMEN, UNWILLING OR UNPREPARED TO GIVE BIRTH, TO DO SO?
Put another way, what is the upside of upending sexual and reproductive rights and freedom for millions of people? Who, pray tell, might this benefit?
The most obvious answer to this admittedly strange question is no one. No one benefits from denying a woman an abortion.
In fact, the results suggest the opposite - that coercing or punishing pregnant women for their conduct during pregnancy is harmful and counterproductive.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), unsafe abortions are a major cause of maternal mortality and morbidity, especially in countries where abortion is illegal or inaccessible. WHO estimates that 25 million unsafe abortions occur every year, resulting in 7 million complications and 22,800 deaths. Moreover, denying a woman an abortion can have negative consequences for her physical, mental, and emotional health, as well as her social and economic well-being. For example, a woman who is forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy may face stigma, discrimination, violence, poverty, or lack of education and career opportunities. She may also suffer from depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, or suicidal thoughts. Additionally, denying a woman an abortion can affect the health and welfare of her existing or future children, who may be neglected, abused, or malnourished due to lack of resources or parental care.306 Research shows that people who are denied abortions are more likely to experience lower life satisfaction, and lower self-esteem compared with those who are able to obtain abortions 302
Another possible answer is that some people or groups do benefit from denying a woman an abortion.
If you really had to force an answer, perhaps one might offer:
• the unborn baby
• some religious or political organizations, who may use the issue of abortion as a way to gain followers, influence, or power by appealing to the emotions and values of their supporters
• some political organizations, who may use the issue of abortion as a distraction from other social problems or as a tool to control women's sexuality and autonomy
• some industries or businesses, who may profit from denying a woman an abortion by selling products or services related to pregnancy, childbirth, or adoption. For example, some anti-abortion clinics may offer misleading or inaccurate information about abortion or coerce women into continuing their pregnancies. Some adoption agencies may charge high fees for placing children with adoptive parents or exploit vulnerable women who are willing to give up their babies.
Realistically-speaking, the question of who benefits from denying a woman an abortion is not easy to answer. I think it’s fair to say that it depends on various factors such as context, perspective, definition of benefit, and, most importantly, unspoken intent
Frankly, no one would ever admit to actually wanting to benefit from this unfortunate circumstance.
Regardless, one thing is certain: denying a woman an abortion can lead to significant harm to the woman and child, not to mention public health and society in general given the related downstream costs.
Source:
(302) Abortion - American Psychological Association (APA). https://www.apa.org/topics/abortion/
(303) The Harms of Denying a Woman a Wanted Abortion - ANSIRH. https://www.ansirh.org/sites/default/files/publications/files/the_harms_of_denying_a_woman_a_wanted _abortion_4-16-2020.pdf.
(304) The facts about abortion and mental health. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/09/news-facts-abortion-mental-health.
(305) Being Denied an Abortion Has Lasting Impacts on Health and Finances. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/being-denied-an-abortion-has-lasting-impacts-on-health-andfinances/
(306) Rioux, C., Roos, L.E., & Tomfohr-Madsen, L. Denying abortion access has a negative impact on children and families. https://theconversation.com/denying-abortion-access-has-a-negative-impact-on-children-andfamilies-183088.
(307) Suttie, Jill. Four Ways Access to Abortion Improves Women’s Well-Being - Greater Good. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/four_ways_access_to_abortion_improves_womens_well_being
(308) Ducharme, Jamie. Women Who Are Denied Abortions May Face Long-Lasting Health Problems, Study Says https://time.com/5603194/denied-abortions-physical-health/
(309) Abrams, Zara. The facts about abortion and mental health.
The real question is: Who benefits from Texas’ new abortion law?
Evangelicals would argue the unborn baby does. But what about the living mother? What considerations are they offering her in light of its impact?
By ASHA DAHYA
https://religionnews.com/2021/09/04/the-real-question-is-who-benefits-from-texas-sb8/ My former church community is probably over the moon right now.
For a long time, and for so many in that community, abolishing abortion has been the foremost issue driving their votes that’s what they said, anyway. As long as Republicans were antiabortion and Democrats were pro-choice, they would vote GOP every time.
And now they have a big win to show for their efforts.
As someone who used to be heavily steeped in conservative evangelical Christian culture and called myself “pro-life,” when I heard the news of the passage of Texas’ SB 8 bill, which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, and the Supreme Court officially denying the request to stop it going into effect, I wasn’t entirely shocked, but I was deeply saddened.
The conservative-packed court achieved through evangelical Christians’ soulselling pact with former President Donald Trump did what the religious right had hoped. Undoubtedly more states will follow suit, bolstered by this result.
But who benefits from this law? Evangelicals would argue the unborn baby does.
But what about the living mother?
What considerations are they offering her in light of its impact?
How can conservative Christians believe that such abortion bans are “pro-life” when the legislators who pass them turn a blind eye to our rising maternal mortality rates — the highest in the developed world, and which disproportionately impact Black and brown women?
The legislators who passed this bill ignore the need to expand Medicaid access, and aren’t exactly pushing for America to introduce a federal paid family leave policy, as all other industrialized nations have had for years. They don’t question the billions of dollars we spend on endless wars, while ignoring the gaping financial needs here at home.
It was questions like these that moved me from ardently “pro-life” to literally dedicating my life to advocating for reproductive justice.
When I started researching data on abortion in the U.S., I read countless op-eds and articles from women sharing their personal stories. I started following journalists, activists, doctors and other public figures on Twitter. I learned that American faith leaders used to run a national network to help women obtain safe abortion care before Roe v. Wade
I owe much to the advocacy of faith leaders like Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, the Rev. Katey Zeh, the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Lisa Sharon Harper, the Rev. Susan Chorley, the Rev. Tuhina Verma Rasche, Rachel Held Evans, the Rev. Jes Kast, Sister Simone Campbell and others. I am encouraged to see progressive faith leaders take a stand for abortion rights and disrupt the narrative that has been dominated by anti-choice religious leaders for too long.
In 2018, I gave a TEDx Talk about my personal evolution and how it inspired me to make a documentary series that looked at the different aspects of abortion, with the aim of showing that the issue itself is so interconnected with other issues such as racism, poverty, sex education, maternal mortality and more. Titled “Life at All Costs,” my central questions are, “Whose life are we saving? And at what cost?”
After I began sharing my pro-choice views, women from my former church wrote to me privately. They thanked me because they too had had abortions and felt they could never tell anyone. That floored me. I couldn’t understand why they would do something in secret that they would vocally oppose and vote against.
According to Guttmacher Institute, many abortion patients are religious. In my TEDx talk, I cited a CareNet study on women who had an abortion that found that 70% of the women they surveyed identified as Christian yet only 38% said church felt like a safe place to discuss pregnancy options. Two-thirds (65%) said single, pregnant women are judged at church.
That should be enough to stop every “pro-life” voter in their tracks. Sadly, we are not there yet and may never be.
Other data shows that the majority of women who get abortions in America are already mothers, and are women of color. What does that say about how we as a country treat the most vulnerable among us?
We cannot call a law like SB 8 pro-life. It is the opposite. Ordinary citizens are now empowered to go on a bounty hunting mission to “snitch” on anyone aiding a now illegal abortion (whether they know the people involved or not). What is noble about this?
Texas Right To Life set up a website called Pro life Whistleblower where people can share anonymous tips to set bounty hunters into action. It bears repeating that making abortion illegal doesn’t stop abortion. It makes it unsafe and predominantly adds an extra burden on women of color.
On the eve of SB 8 going into effect, Whole Woman’s Health, which has four clinics in Texas, tweeted: “The anti-abortion protestors are outside, shining lights on the parking light. We are under surveillance. This is what abortion care looks like.”
I can’t stop thinking about that chilling imagery.
Can
the conservative church honestly continue to claim being pro-life is about protecting babies or mothers?
Because the more extreme these laws become, the more it becomes clear it is about control.
As I digest the news about how SB 8 is going to impact Texans, my thoughts, prayers and hopes go out to all the abortion providers, activists, volunteers, clinic escorts and abortion fund organizations who are now figuring out what this law means for their work. I am also thinking of all the people who will need an abortion, and, yes, that includes conservative Christian women.
My hope is that more people like me who come from a conservative evangelical tradition will raise their voices, push back against this tidal wave of reproductive coercion and control, be bold and unafraid of saying the word “abortion” out loud. If you want to take action, it is as simple as having conversations with friends and sharing personal stories. We have work to do to convince people who stay on the sidelines or in the shadows to stand up and speak out.
3.14 WHAT DOES THE ABORTION ISSUE TELL US ABOUT OUR DEMOCRACY?
Anti-abortion measures in the U.S. are a symptom of a dangerous sickness that has afflicted its democracy for years.
Over the years, a number of states have passed draconian legislation banning or severely restricting abortions, reflecting the relentless efforts of the GOP to undermine women’s reproductive rights, not to mention misogynistic tendencies. But they are also symptomatic of a much bigger and more sinister process – the ongoing assault on American democracy which began even before Donald Trump made it to the White House 315
Trump’s campaign to curtail women’s rights began immediately after he took office with the implementation of the Global Gag rule, which cut federal funding for NGOs in foreign countries which provide abortion services, advocate for the legalisation of abortion or even mention abortion. It has continued unabated with repeated attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, which provides accessible reproductive healthcare in the US, and the successful nomination of not one, but three “pro-life” (anti-abortion rights) Supreme Court Justices 315
It also emboldened pro-life politicians to wage war on women’s constitutional right to legal access to abortion, enshrined in the 1973 Supreme Court ruling of Roe v Wade.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade not only turned back the clock on reproductive rights, it was yet another sign of the continued erosion of democracy.
In abruptly scrapping the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy the court went against the popular will – only 25% of Americans now have confidence in the institution. Remarkably, the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade against the wishes of a Democratic president, Democratic-controlled Congress and the citizenry.
The court’s liberal minority responded: “With sorrow – for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection – we dissent.”312
Calling it “a sad day for the court and the country”, President Joe Biden said:
“It was three justices named by one president – Donald Trump – who were at the core of today’s decision to upend the scales of justice and eliminate a fundamental right for women in this country.”
“Make no mistake: this decision is the culmination of a deliberate effort over decades to upset the balance of our law. It’s a realisation of an extreme ideology and a tragic error by the supreme court, in my view.”
He added: “With this decision, the conservative majority of the supreme court shows how extreme it is, how far removed they are from the majority of this country. They have made the United States an outlier among developed nations in the world.”
Christopher Kang, co-founder and chief counsel of pressure group Demand Justice, said: “This is part of the decades-long Republican agenda to accomplish through the Supreme Court what they cannot through the democratically elected branches of Congress. We’ve seen…decisions making it harder for lawmakers to combat gun violence in the wake of some of the worst mass shootings in our country’s history. We’ve seen, now, overturning the right to an abortion. These are things that are supported by 70 to 80% of the American people. This is a further example of what Republicans are doing through our unaccountable courts that they couldn’t do through Congress or the White House.”312
As was noted earlier, the republicans have been hammering away at reproductive rights for years.
Shockingly, in 2020, led by the Trump administration in the United States, 30 countries signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration, an international anti-abortion declaration and a commitment to “express the essential priority of protecting the right to life.”313
While the document isn’t binding, the signing was symbolic of a growing backlash to an otherwise global trend toward broadening reproductive rights.313
This, in the guise of making America great again.
By the way, the declaration’s signatories included countries that already have some of the world’s strictest abortion regulations, such as Egypt and Senegal. It also included governments widely recognized as authoritarian, such as Belarus and Saudi Arabia.275
Anu Kumar, the head of Ipas, a global nonprofit that supports abortion access, pointed out that when most people think about how leaders restrict democracy, they think about the freedom of the press or expression or voting. “We don’t necessarily always include reproductive freedom in that package of democracy,” he said. “But we should, because this is a place where authoritarian regimes often go, if not first, then pretty quickly afterward.”313
While democratic backsliding often leads to the erosion of reproductive rights, the relationship works in the other direction as well: Targeting reproductive rights has proved a useful political tool for illiberal leaders, a bargaining chip that helps them gain power and maintain it.
We are living through a coordinated global backlash against sexual and reproductive rights. Concurrently, the world is seeing a rise in authoritarianism. These two phenomena are linked.
In 2021, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance published its yearly report on the Global State of Democracy raising the alarm about the rise in authoritarianism around the world. Autocratic regimes have become more brazen in their repression and many governments slid back down the democratic scale with the adoption of tactics that restrict free speech and weaken the rule of law. The rising support for extreme-right politicians and political parties in several countries and their entry into mainstream politics is further precipitating the weakening of democratic institutions.314
At the same time, there has been an intensification of attacks on gender equality and sexual and reproductive rights. These efforts take different forms, are led by a range of actors, and occur in many places, including multilateral spaces like the United Nations, national political and legislative processes, online, in schools, and in our communities. Despite their seemingly organic response to isolated events, these attacks share common tactics, strategies, and funders across borders, and are linked to broader white supremacist, anti-democratic, anti-human rights, and oppressive regimes and political actors.314
Hostility to sexual and reproductive rights binds many political agendas. Alliances between explicitly white supremacist and ultra-nationalist groups, religious fundamentalists, anti-trans rights groups and anti-abortion movements have been well documented. What brings these groups together is the explicit need to dominate women’s sexual and reproductive rights and impose strict and repressive regulations on gender expression and sexuality.314
At the heart of many of these movements is the perpetuation of patriarchy as the organizing principle of society and its family unit—always heteronormative and reproduction-oriented.314
For many, it is implicitly or explicitly linked to ideologies of white supremacy. Women’s rights, abortion, and LGBTQI+ rights are presented as existential threats to a so-called “natural order” and to the nation state.314
Political scientists have long noted that advancement in women’s civil rights and democracy go hand-in-hand as women’s rights activism and political participation is a precondition for genuine democratic and egalitarian progress. Authoritarian and populist movements are centered around the ideal of progress for only those who are included in their community, as opposed to progress for all.314
As such, the realization of sexual and reproductive rights and gender equality is a direct challenge to autocrats and populist movements who have identified and targeted these rights as threats to their purpose. Anti-democratic actors understand the potency of using issues that can be culturally contentious, such as abortion, trans rights, and comprehensive sexuality education (sex ed) to galvanize voters to support them.314 And there is clear evidence of this.
To strengthen democracy, we need the strongest possible commitment to a robust and vibrant civil society, to feminist and social justice movements, to greater participation of women and gender-diverse people in peace building and peace negotiations, and to increasing gender equality, particularly through the protection of sexual and reproductive health and rights at home and abroad.314
Source:
(312) Smith, David. ‘A mockery of democracy’: US supreme court in question after abortion ruling
In abruptly scrapping the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy the court went against the popular will – only 25% of Americans now have confidence in the institution https://amp.theguardian.com/law/2022/jun/26/us-supreme-court-abortion-ruling-democracy (313) Kozlowska, Hanna. Where Democracy Falters, So Do Reproductive Rights
Where populist authoritarianism is on the rise, anti-abortion politics aren’t far behind. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/16/where-democracy-falters-so-do-reproductive-rights/ (314) Action Canada for Sexual Health & Rights. Sexual and Reproductive Rights & Democracy: A Call to Action https://www.actioncanadashr.org/resources/policy-briefs-submissions/2022-11-02-sexual-andreproductive-rights-democracy-call-action (315) Rottenberg, Catherine. Abortion and the decimation of American democracy https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2019/5/29/abortion-and-the-decimation-of-americandemocracy
It is a perilous moment for abortion rights in America. Texas law S.B. 8, banning the provision of nearly all abortions in the state, has been in effect since last September. New restrictions are being introduced and passed across the country. And the U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which poses a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.
What are the democratic dysfunctions that have led to this pivotal point? How should we consider parallel affronts to participation and representation – the wave of voting restrictions and outsize role of big money in politics – and the anti-abortion agenda? Can we look to state courts to provide new avenues for protecting reproductive rights? And what is the legal and societal impact of criminalizing pregnancy and abortion, especially on communities of color?
"Ours to Tell"
https://youtu.be/yGSgYaBbd5Q
Without shame and without fear "Ours to Tell" depicts four people who share their stories and walk in their truth. By owning the lives they choose, what unfolds is an unfiltered and poetic demonstration of how the right to access abortion acts as a dynamic turning point in an individual's journey to freedom and self love. Each with different perspectives and experiences, the film's subjects Brittany, Hannah, Nick and Ylonda — take us inside their worlds, their families, their souls and boldly illustrate the beauty and power of bodily autonomy. As we watch, listen and love each storyteller, we also bear witness to a chilling reality: The fundamental freedom to own our body and future has never been more uncertain than it is today.
3.15 HOW MIGHT THE ANTI-ABORTION MOVEMENT BE A RELIGION?
This may sound like a funny question, but hear me out.
In his book WOKE RACISM, John McWhorter attempts to show how the anti-racism movement has become a religion. Upon reflection, I thought there might be a similar parallel to be drawn with the abortion debate. So, using his same framework and some of his words, I tried to do the same with the anti-abortion movement:
PREMISE: The Pro-lifer’s ideology is not “like” a religion. It actually is a religion.
We have traditionally restricted the word religion to certain ideologies found in creation myths, guided by ancient texts, and requiring that one subscribe to certain beliefs beyond the reach of empirical experience. The word religion could easily apply as well to more recently emerged ways of thinking within which there is no explicit requirement to subscribe to unempirical beliefs, even if the school of thought does reveal itself to entail such beliefs upon analysis. One of them is abortion.
DEFINITION
empirical adjective
1 : originating in or based on observation or experience empirical data
2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory an empirical basis for the theory
3 : capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment empirical laws
With the continued propagation of anti-abortion activism, we are also witnessing the expression of a religion, a belief system not based on experience, but often on conjecture, misrepresentation, philosophies and incomplete facts. The way to get past seeing Pro-lifers as merely “crazy” is to understand their ideology as a religion. To see it this way is not to wallow in contemptuous ridicule, but to genuinely grasp what it is.
How might we make sense of a way of thinking that Pro-lifers share, one that seems so obsessive and hurtful from the outside?
To make sense of it, we must understand them – partly out of compassion and partly in order to keep them from destroying our own lives. This can happen only if we process them not a crazed, but as parishioners.
To do this, we must examine the ways in which their new religion so closely parallels older ones. It makes what can seem as a mess of weird opinions and attitudes into something quite coherent.
Pro-lifers have superstition.
It is inherent to a religion that, amid various other tenets and commitments, one is to accept certain suspensions of disbelief.
Certain questions are not to be asked or, if asked, only politely. The answer one gets, despite being somewhat half-cocked, is to be accepted. The Christian, for example, is allowed to ask why the Bible is so self-contradictory, or why God allows such terrible things to happen. But no one has had a smackdown answer for two millennia anyway, and what’s key is that you believe. Scripture is interpreted and certain statements are made, and those too, must be accepted without question. So too, in the abortion debate. A variety of myths pepper pro-lifer arguments such as:
1. Abortions kills an unborn child and is morally wrong.
2. Criminalizing abortion will stop it.
3. People use abortion as a means of birth control; people don’t bother with contraception if abortion is easily available.
4. People have abortions for frivolous reasons.
5. People have abortions because they were irresponsible and promiscuous. Let them pay for their mistakes or bad behaviour.
6. Abortion is dangerous to your health.
7. Women who get abortions will regret it, and are more likely to suffer mental health issues.
8. Women who get abortions are more likely to get breast cancer.
9. Abortion requires a surgical procedure.
10. Abortions cause pain to the fetus.
11. Abortion leads to psychological distress.
12. Having an abortion will affect your ability to get pregnant in the future.
13. Abortion destroys the family unit; it’s anti-parenthood.
14. Giving young people information about sexuality and abortion encourages them to have sex and engage in promiscuous behaviour.
15. Women would never have abortions if they knew what it was like to have a child.
16. The Bible forbids abortion.
DEFINITION
a. a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation
b. an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition
2 : a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary
Pro-lifers have clergy.
There are many socially conservative organizations that are serving the anti-abortion cause. These preachers of “the faith” include American Life League, the National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, and Live Action among many others. The Washington Post talks about the younger, more feminine face of the anti-abortion movement with the rise of leaders such as Lila Rose of Live Action, Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List, Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life, Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America, and Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life 1
There are also no shortage of political proponents of the anti-abortion cause who, in the U.S., include Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Josh Hawley, Senator Tom Cotton, Senator Marsha Blackburn, and Representative Jim Jordan.
Pro-lifers have original sin.
Pro-lifers also have a conception of original sin. Under the pro-life creed, the sin is “murder, ” specifically that of the fetus.
Pro-lifers are evangelical.
“Why don’t they allow people to have different opinions?”
You’re missing the point. Pro-lifers can seem truly baffling until we see that they subscribe to a religion. Specifically, an evangelical one.
To wit: Do we wonder why fundamentalist Christians do not see their beliefs as just one of many valid opinions? They see themselves as bearers of Good News that, if all people would simply open up and see it, would create a perfect world. That most of the world does not fall in with them is something they learn to bear with toleration, with a hope that in the future, things will turn their way. We see a certain coherence in Christians who view the rest of us as “heathens.” We may disagree, but we can easily imagine someone under the impression that their worldview if it includes unreachable belief in things we never see or feel ourselves that they insist are real nevertheless is truth, while ours is an error.
To be a Pro-lifer is to think in exactly the same way. Key to being pro-life is a sense that there is always a flock of unconverted heathen.
Pro-lifers are apocalyptic.
The anti-abortion cause foresees – or at least hopes for – a judgment day: the great day when America “owns up to” or “comes to terms with” abortion and finally fixes it. Apparently, this will happen through the long-term effects of the subjugation of “sinners” through transformational political activism wherein Pro-choicers will be moved to effect upon being morally shamed and verbally muzzled.
Notice that this makes no real sense? And besides, how would a country as massive, heterogenous, and politically fractured as this one ever arrive at a consensus so conclusive and overarching that it would “fix” abortion? The Pro-choicers “out there” are such incorrigible heathens, we are told. Okay, but if so, just what were we assuming would change their minds?
DEFINITION
adjective
1 : of, relating to, or resembling an apocalypse apocalyptic events
2 : forecasting the ultimate destiny of the world: PROPHETIC apocalyptic warnings
3 : foreboding imminent disaster or final doom: TERRIBLE apocalyptic signs of the coming end-times
Pro-lifers ban the heretic.
Pro-lifers consider it imperative to not only critique those who disagree with their creed, but to seek their punishment and elimination to whatever degree real-life conditions can accommodate. There is an overriding sense that nonbelievers must be not just spoken out against, but called out, isolated, and banned.
The reality is that what the Pro-lifers call problematic is what a Christian means by blasphemous.
DEFINITION
noun
1 religion : a person who differs in opinion from established religious dogma
2 : one who differs in opinion from an accepted belief or doctrine: NONCONFORMIST
Why can’t they allow other views?
Remember, this is religion, not political science, and specifically a religion eerily akin to devout Christianity. To Pro-lifers, abortion is the equivalent of Satan. If I deign to walk by Satan with the idea that we can just let him be, I am missing the point. I am “wrong.”
This is a religious faith.
It has a creation myth: that all of today’s problems with abortion originate with a failure to see the fetus as human.
A new religion in the guise of world progress is not an advance; it is a detour. It is not altruism; it is self-help. It is not sunlight; it is fungus. It’s time it became ordinary to call it for what it is and stop cowering before it, letting it make people so much less than theypro-choice, murderers and everything else - could be. There is nothing correct about the essence of American thought and culture being transplanted into the soil of a religious faith. Some will go as far as to own up to it being a religion and wonder why we can’t just accept it as our new national creed. The problem is that on matters of societal procedure and priorities, the adherents of this religion true to the very nature of religion cannot be reasoned with.
What attracts people to this religion?
A religion soothes. It helps people make sense of things. The question is why this particular religion, promulgated so often with such sneering contempt, soothes so many.
Consider the separation of “church” and state.
Literally and figuratively.
Standing up to this performance art will be easier if we always keep in mind that pro-life philosophy is actual religion, pure and simple. Widespread beliefs founded in transparently irrational assumptions, fiercely held by otherwise empirical people, for ulterior, transcendent reasons, are religion.
When we understand that the Pro-lifers are a religious body, we understand that their adherents have no business being the final arbiters of our school curricula or what is in our laws, on how we practice medicine, what clinics we can go to or what kind of medication we can take, or even on what kind of morality is expected of our populace. They preach what to them is self-evidently logical: "Choose Life." "Life: Our First Inalienable Right." "A Voice for the Voiceless." "Adoption: The Loving Option." "Every Life is Sacred." "Defend Life." "Unborn Lives Matter." "Love Them Both." "Abortion is Not Health Care." "Life. The First Fundamental Right." "Adoption Not Abortion." "Abortion Hurts Women." "Value All Life." "Be a Voice for the Unborn." "Life: It's Worth Defending." "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart." "It's a Child, Not a Choice." "Every Life is Worth Saving." "Protect Unborn Babies." "Life is Precious," "Abortion: It's Not Just a Choice." "Choose Life for Unborn Children."
Insights of this kind are ideas, and many of them deserve consideration of a sort. But none of them are any more appropriately imposed by fiat on the general public than would be a prohibition against consuming alcohol, or, more to the point, against abortion, or a requirement that one not mix milk and meat. These are matters of private choice.
Pro-lifers are welcome to their own private choices. Their imposition on other, not so much.
3.16 WHAT ABORTION SCENARIO WOULD YIELD THE MOST BENEFITS TO
SOCIETY?
Put another way, how might society be made better by virtue of the chosen path? Does forcing unprepared mothers (and possibly fathers) to have unwanted children benefit society?
According to a report by The New York Times, the issue of abortion has become increasingly politicized, with both sides spending obscene amounts of time and money to promote their respective views.
THE DEBATE RESTATED
Legal abortion allows women to decide when to have a child or when not to.
As such, abortion access is not only essential for women’s health and well-being, as well as for gender equality, it also has a significant impact on women’s socio-economic circumstances and the environment into which their children are born.320 In fact, it may be critical to the success of those involved, allowing for a postponement of sorts until such time as the conditions are right for all to reach their full potential.
On the other hand, some people argue that abortion is morally wrong and that every life should be protected. They believe that forcing women to carry their pregnancies to term can help reduce the number of abortions and promote a culture of life.
But what’s really going on here?
Firstly, the decision to have a child is not one to be taken lightly. It may, in fact, be the most important and impactful decision one can make. It is life-changing and requires an enormous, selfless commitment, whose success hinges on, amongst other things, a tremendous investment of time and money, not to mention a boatload of care. As a parent, it impacts your finances, relationships and responsibilities.
So if, per chance, one does not feel ready to embark on such an allconsuming venture, it is surely wise to put a stop to the proceedings.
Such is the option that abortion offers.
You could view it as your last ‘Get out of jail free’ card. Because accidents happen. Health risks present themselves. Unforeseens arise.
But, there is a group that believes this option should be taken off the table. They view it as an easy out, the price you pay for playing the game.
You made your bed, so lie in it!
They believe there should be absolutely no leeway. Once the deed is done, there’s no turning back. If you decide that you’re simply not ready for a child, too bad. You will be punished.
But the real kicker here is that the nay-sayers are working to force their view on others in whose lives they have no stake. They feel entitled to impose their beliefs but are completely unaffected by the decision taken. Worse yet, many of these same people are reticent to fight for the much-needed assistance that would go a long way to helping those who actually must provide the care in question.
So at the end of the day, in the case of an abortion denied, whose interests are really being served?
When people can safely get an abortion, it not only improves their own quality of life, but that of their families, communities and even countries. Findings show that when abortion is legal, available and affordable, the trickle-down benefits are vast and far-reaching.317
So why do the nay-sayers stick to their guns? Why do they invest so much money and energy into changing laws that force other people to upend their lives?
Confounding, to say the least.
One can only surmise that, as was shown in Section 3.4, abortion is not the real issue.
It seems suspiciously clear that the whole charade is about power - controlling the narrative, controlling people. Those opposed to progress know that if women truly controlled their reproductive lives, they would be empowered. They talk of being prolife, but they are in reality pro-control. Money does not even appear to be a consideration. Nor, it seems, are the downstream societal impacts – greater poverty, reduced earning potential, more stress on schools, healthcare and law enforcement, increased legal and medical fees.
This is what denying abortion looks like.
If anyone sees a winner in this scenario, raise your hand.
To me, the anti-abortion stance represents a failure to honour and respect the human rights of the real protagonist in the story. It fails to recognize the potential dire repercussions of an unintended or unwanted birth, not only on the mother and child, but a whole bunch of stakeholders.
Basically, it fails to see the big picture.
That said, I think the answer to my original question is apparent.
A FEW SUPPORTING NOTES:
According to a report by Everyday Health, there are several scenarios where abortion can be lifesaving These include cases where continuing a pregnancy could put the mother’s life in danger, or when the fetus has lethal congenital abnormalities. In such cases, having access to safe and legal abortion services can be crucial for the health and well-being of the mother.
Moreover, research has shown that access to abortion can have a profound effect on women’s lives by determining whether, when, and under what circumstances they become mothers. This can have significant implications for marriage patterns, educational attainment, labor force participation, and earnings.
According to a report by STAT, research has shown that being denied an abortion can have significant negative impacts on the mental and physical health of women, as well as on the well-being of their children. For instance, children whose mothers were denied abortions were more likely to live below the poverty line or in households without enough money to cover food, housing, and transportation. Moreover, pregnant people who are forced to continue their pregnancies may experience higher levels of stress and pregnancy-related complications.
Legal abortion also has a lower risk of death than does childbearing. Using even conservative data, the comparison of mortality rates reveals that terminating a pregnancy through legally induced abortion is 7 times safer than carrying the pregnancy to term Legal abortion also results in low morbidity rates.
Source:
(316) Abortion - World Health Organization (WHO). https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion.
(317) Beyond the individual: Research shows abortion access has ... - Ipas. https://www.ipas.org/news/beyondthe-individual-research-shows-abortion-access-has-widespread-benefits/.
(318) Opinion | Does American Society Need Abortion? - The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/14/opinion/abortion-america.html.
(319) Conditions That Make Abortion Medically Necessary - Everyday Health. https://www.everydayhealth.com/abortion/scenarios-where-abortion-can-be-life-saving/.
(320) The Price of Pro-Life: Assessing The National Economic Benefits of .... https://hir.harvard.edu/the-price-of-pro-life/.
(321) Health benefits of legal abortion: an analysis - PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12340404/.
(322) Legalizing Abortion: Advantages and Justification Essay - IvyPanda. https://ivypanda.com/essays/legalizing-abortion-advantages-and-justification/
(323) Why Lawmakers Should Legalize Abortion | Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/10/why-lawmakers-should-legalize-abortion.
“If a fertilized egg has constitutional rights, women cannot have equal rights with men. This, however, is exactly what no one wants to talk about, because it’s complicated, and it’s proved surprisingly easy to use the issue to political advantage. Democrats and Republicans thrust and parry, parry and thrust, in a battle that gives every appearance of having been going on forever, of getting nowhere, and of being unlikely to end anytime soon. That, however, is an illusion. Neither abortion nor birth control is, by nature, a partisan issue, and, from the vantage of history, it’s rather difficult to sort out which position is conservative and which liberal, not least because this debate, which rages at a time when there is no consensus about what makes a person a person, began before an American electorate of white men was able to agree that a woman’s status as a citizen is any different from that of a child.”
- Jill Lepore is a professor of American history at Harvard University and a staff writer for The New Yorker.
The fury over Planned Parenthood is two political passions opposition to abortion and opposition to government programs for the poor acting as one.
Abortion wasn’t a partisan issue until Republicans made it one. In June of 1972, a Gallup poll reported that sixty-eight per cent of Republicans and fifty-nine per cent of Democrats agreed that “the decision to have an abortion should be made solely by a woman and her physician.” Fifty-six per cent of Catholics thought so, too. Blackmun clipped the Washington Post story reporting this survey and put it in his Roe case file.
Part 4
THE CONCLUSION
Well, I’ve tried to look at the problem from a whole variety of angles to see if I can get to the essence of this never-ending debate. An inordinate amount of time, money and resources continues to be invested and I’m not convinced that we’re any closer to a resolution. But let me offer my two cents for what it’s worth.
4.1. CONCLUSION
4.2. THE LAST WORD Because I just have to have it.
4.1 CONCLUSION
I’m sure you’re eager to discover the stunning conclusion to this gripping debate. And I’m not sure I can deliver. But let me offer a summary as well as some parting thoughts on the problem and how we might move forward.
THE PROBLEM: Accidents happen. Difficult circumstances arise. Health and lives may be at stake. Consequences can be significant, life-altering, in fact.
THE SOLUTION: Ultimately, the solution resides in a choice, a very difficult choice about a medical procedure to end a pregnancy.
And let’s be clear. No one wants an abortion. Every abortion is a tragedy, because every woman who ends up getting an abortion if she had known beforehand that this would be the outcome would have preferred not to get pregnant in the first place. No one views abortion as a happy or desired event. No one wants to be in a position where they must make the excruciatingly difficult choice of terminating a pregnancy. But it happens. More often than we’d like. More often than we think.
Abortion is a medical procedure that allows one to put the brakes on a life-giving process in which an ill-prepared mother can essentially back out of an unwanted pregnancy for the benefit of both mother and child.
Attitudinal differences about abortion’s morality and legality do not diminish the weightiness of abortion’s impact in real life, on real people. Acknowledging this does not resolve to a legal position, but makes room for humanity and for talking about hard things.287 It allows for an understanding of lived experience. Tricia Bruce, a sociologist at University of Notre Dame, noted:
“Abortion is a very personal issue for Americans and I think sometimes we lose that in the broader contours of public conversation.” 325
Sadly, public conversations often treat abortion as an abstract political construct more than the intimately personal one it is in reality to everyday Americans.
The “How Americans Understand Abortion” study showed that one-quarter of female interviewees disclosed personal abortion histories; three-quarters of interviewees knew someone personally who has had an abortion.
Abortion is not a hypothetical exercise in ideology or doctrinal adherence, but a lived and often fraught experience. Abortion stories also don’t fit neatly into scenarios imagined by surveys or conjured when arguing the merits of a given position. Personal relationships alter attitudes toward abortion, as do experiences with infertility, pregnancy, miscarriage, adoption, and abortion. Abortion touches not only distant others, but neighbors, coworkers, family, and friends.325
The heart-wrenching decision to have an abortion is certainly not one made casually, but, is rather, a very personal, complex, multifaceted and greatly impactful one that requires careful consideration given its enormous downstream repercussions.
And yet, there are many who believe that this choice – to have an abortion or not – should not be an option.
Those who oppose abortion often argue that the embryo is a human life deserving of protection and rights. They view abortion as an act of violence – murder, in fact –against an innocent and defenseless individual.
For those who accept abortion, this initial stipulation is exactly what is problematic; from their point of view, the embryo has the capacity to become a child, but it is not yet a child, and therefore, belongs to a very different moral category.331
Additionally, some pro-life advocates attribute societal issues, such as the erosion of traditional values and the breakdown of the family unit, to the sexual revolution and its associated demands for women’s autonomy and access to abortion.
Is it no wonder the debate is so bitter and emotional?
Part of the answer is very simple:
The two sides share almost no common premises and very little common language.331
One places fetal rights above all else, and holds dear the traditional role of the woman. The other places reproductive autonomy and a more progressive female role at the heart of the argument.
We are essentially dealing with two different contexts, two different realities. This sounds eerily like America’s very partisan politics, with each side firmly entrenched in their own value system, resistant to the views of the other.
As you might expect, one’s position in the great abortion controversy essentially hinges on their personal morals and values, namely:
1. A lack of agreement, scientifically, legally and morally, about when a fetus or embryo truly becomes a person.
The bottom line here is that just because something is alive and is ‘human’, it does not follow that the entity is a fully functioning human being. Just because human life scientifically starts at conception, it does not mean that the legal and moral status of personhood should start there.
In this case, then, we must ask,
Is it reasonable to prioritize the potential life of a fetus over the actual life of a woman?
In the case of pro-life advocates, the answer is clearly yes. Anti-abortionists would rather sacrifice the health and happiness of actual people in defense of the forced survival of potential ones. In their minds, fetuses deserve every protection, while actual existing human beings seem to belong to a completely different species. Women, then, are on their own, self-responsible; fatally compromised, because enfleshed.329
2. The acceptance – or not – of a sexual revolution and its related impact on the social order and a women’s autonomy.
“The abortion license has helped to erode the moral foundations of the American civic community,” wrote 39 prominent opponents of abortion in a famous 1996 declaration, “The America We Seek: A Statement of Pro-Life Principle and Concern ”331
Meanwhile, Robert Kurzban, a co-author of “The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind,” argues that abortion opponents want to “impose a cost on those having sex without wanting to reproduce.” Kurzban’s argument is based on the premise that “morality” judgments about which acts are wrong and which are not is best understood strategically, a means by which one can try to prevent others from doing things that are (often in aggregate) bad for oneself. Put another way, “ideology is just the narrative used to sell the strategy that is in one’s interests.”331
Martie Haselton, a professor of psychology at U.C.L.A., and David Pinsof, a graduate student there, together argue that “the debate boils down to attitudes about promiscuity.” David Buss, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, argues that “attitudes toward abortion are linked to a key issue: sexual morality.” 331
Conservatives argue that abortion and contraception have undermined family, paternal responsibility and long-term commitment and that abortion on demand has given an excuse to men who shirk their responsibilities, claiming that the child they helped to conceive ought to have been aborted, or that the woman who declined to abort may not impose on him any responsibility for her “lifestyle choice.”331
Liberal proponents of women’s rights have, in turn, countered this idea with a set of arguments about the real stakes in the argument over abortion. As Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York formulated it recently: “Abortion bans aren’t just about controlling women’s bodies. They’re about controlling women’s sexuality. Owning women. From limiting birth control to banning comprehensive sex ed, U.S. religious fundamentalists are working hard to outlaw sex that falls outside their theology.”331
So what’s really at play here?
It would appear that the issue is largely about power and control of someone else’s body and, by extension, someone else’s life.
But forcing a full-term pregnancy and an unwanted baby on someone does not increase the odds of success of either.
The result will put undue stress on the mother (and potentially a responsible father if he is still around) and on societal systems in general that will likely be pulled into the fray to deal with the fall-out (for which we must all indirectly and inevitably pay) and this, likely over an extended period of time. I’m talking about how a pregnancy affects a woman’s body, her mental state, and of course, her future, not to mention that of the child (and possibly even the father).
A decade-long study showed people in this situation suffered adverse health effects; were less likely to have money for basic living expenses like food, housing and transportation; and were more likely to remain with violent partners. Moreover, since the risk of dying from childbirth is much greater than the risk of dying from legal abortion, a ban on abortion is projected to increase maternal mortality.330
If women can’t decide for themselves when and whether to have children – if having sex can mean being forced into motherhood – women also won’t be able to decide their own futures. We know that being forced to continue a pregnancy makes women more likely to remain in poverty. It makes women more likely to remain in abusive relationships. It hurts their children. It makes women more likely to die.
If pro-lifers consider this a societal win, I’m at a loss.
If a woman finds that she is incapable of carrying her child to term, was forced to become pregnant under undesirable terms, or knows that her life is it risk, should it not be her choice to terminate the pregnancy? Does it make any sense that she be put in a position in which she is told what to do with her body by strangers who will never lift a finger to help her or her child?
Might there be another way to approach pro-life politics, one in which we don’t necessarily – or solely – valorize life for its own sake?
Might it be better to prioritize a life chosen and wanted?
Should we not be considering the toll exacted when people wishing to terminate a pregnancy are prevented from doing so?
Should we not be pondering the essentials of what makes for a “good life” for the baby and the parent(s)?
A “good life,” I would think, includes health, support, financial stability, affection, rights, and pursuit of chosen livelihoods. Should we not be working to privilege a “good life” rather than debate the bioethical terms of personhood?
Choosing a “good life” is, for many, a good enough reason to have an abortion. Many pro-choicers think that so-called pro-life people are actually “pro-birth.” Their tunnel vision focus on the “baby” leads them to miss the “bigger picture.” If pro-lifers were truly pro-life, they would be just as concerned with guaranteeing social resources for taking care of babies after they are born.
Defending life, abortion opponents have long claimed, has absolutely nothing to do with opposing rights for women.
Except, of course, that it does.
Abortion rights advocates have spent decades pointing out that these self-styled prolifers don’t seem to care much about “life” once a baby is born. They want to cut aid to needy children and healthcare to poor mothers and pregnant women. They oppose contraception and sex education – the most effective ways to reduce the abortion rate. Many of them supported a president who separated small children from their parents and keeps them in squalid cages. “Life,” it seems, has precious little to do with being “pro-life”. 326
It’s not about “life”.
It’s about the fact that abortion is inexorably tied to women’s freedoms and female power. The fact that, despite all the medical knowledge and tools at our disposal in the 21st century, abortion rights remain under threat in so many countries arguably connects to the desire of patriarchal societies to exercise control over women’s freedom – and deep-rooted patriarchal insecurities about reproductive processes which men don’t have power over.326
If you don’t want women to be equal, a great way to force that ideal is to strip women of their right to their own bodies and reproductive decisions. The goal of abortion opponents seems clear: they do not want women to be equal players in society.293
It’s about power and control. Who has it? Who doesn’t? And who should? And the influence of those beliefs isn’t limited to abortion it also spills into other culture wars.
In the case of the abortion debate, perhaps the burning questions is: Who’s holding the cards? Or, at least, who wants to? And why?
If it’s not the pregnant mother, I think it’s natural to be suspicious of intent.
THE ESSENCE OF THE MATTER
“It takes a special strength to take care of a child, and a whole different strength to admit you cannot.”
- From Finding Chika by Mitch Albom
It’s first and foremost about choice, having a choice.
And isn’t choice one of the primary governing principles of a democracy? More importantly, it’s a choice about one’s own body. One’s own life.
Frankly, it’s hard to imagine – or even fathom – not having this basic freedom. Yet, those who hold absolutely that conception is life staunchly oppose such freedom, resolute in their belief in the inherent value of life – and its potentiality. Whether it acknowledges some faith in the quality of existence beyond the moral imperative "Thou shalt not kill" or simply the importance to adhere to this critical commandment is not clear. Regardless, it speaks to the fact that life is sacred and that no individual has the right to arbitrarily take it from another.
The problem, though, is that, more often than not, this pronouncement of the importance of the sanctity of human life does not, in and of itself, translate into a broader attitude of caring. And this is where a Pro-life stance becomes problematic. In a webinar event in which four female panelists look beyond labels and accusation in the abortion debate, Gloria Purvis, a Catholic radio host who advocates for Black women and social justice, notes:
“I understand what’s at the core of the pro-life movement is the dignity of the human person.332
But she goes on to note her disappointment in her observation that the whole language of many pro-life advocates “speaks to not really an understanding of lived experiences.332 She continues,
“So to say to someone that’s trying to get a job, that’s trying to get housing, that’s trying to get healthcare, that, you know what, you need to be more concerned about abortion even though they’re like, I’m not choosing that, I’m trying to make it; I’m trying to live. I need help with that! Help me with that! And so the conversations are just at different places, but I understand the idea of the dignity of the human person at the center of [the abortion debate], but you have to be able to talk and meet people where they are and understand what their immediate needs are, that makes life itself difficult.”
So, she wonders:
“if I can’t live right now, how am I going to support a future child?”
As a result, she concludes that “people tend to doubt the sincerity of the pro-life movement and see themselves more as a ploy to be played upon during an election year.
332
And what are we to make of exceptions to the denial of abortions?
The restriction of government support to cases of rape, incest and probable death of the mother suggests an interesting quality-of-life argument: that potentiality is not absolute, but must be prorated. Due to society's dread of incest, such a mother and her child would be spared a psychologically unbearable life. In case of danger to the mother's life, we do not hear that the 'child' has potentially far more years of a happy, productive life than the mother. Rather, the argument runs that the mother's life should not be sacrificed for the child who would bear such a tremendous burden.324
Yet an unwanted child may be born into a household with an equally heavy psychological toll. If the ‘potentiality of life’ thesis rests on an understanding of the inner qualities of life, then abortion is a necessity rather than a crime.327
Those who deny the right to an abortion under any circumstances fail to see that their argument undercuts itself. Abortion provides a unique understanding of the "inherent good" of existence. It is morally irresponsible to believe that a pregnancy must be brought to term simply because it is a matter of nature and out of our hands when we have the medical means to “save” the mother* . The case involves a comparison of the life-value of the mother and the child: the final decision must evaluate the process of existence the value of life as it is lived. The inherent value of life cannot be an a priori constant if a choice is to be made between two lives.327
savingthemother as in helping her avoid poverty, loss of income, the dangers of a high-risk pregnancy, a career demotion, the stress and cares of another mouth to feed; as helping her to avoid suffering and having to devalue herself by dealing with an unwanted pregnancy
Once the quality of life-as-it-is-lived is introduced into the argument, we can say that abortion provides the possibility of improving that quality.
Motherhood is a remarkably special bond between mother and child, perhaps the most important relationship we may ever have. It requires tremendous emotional capacities, and raising children should be one of the most conscious decisions we make.324
Upon his reception of an inaugural award from Planned Parenthood recognizing his commitment to women's equality and support for family planning (1966), Dr. Martin Luther King noted:
“It is cruel for a child to be born into a family where it is not wanted and cruel to force a woman into a motherhood that she is not prepared for and does not want.” 328
Which brings us back to the notion of creating the best set of conditions that would allow for ‘a good life’.
Because, at the end of the day, isn’t that the ultimate goal?
Yet, there continues to be an inordinate amount of time, money and energy being thrown at the issue from both sides of the fence.
I can only imagine how the millions of dollars and years of time might be better applied to a support structure* that would actually do wonders in improving the lives of a great many mothers - and children - instead of compromising their health, handicapping social, medical and financial assistance, handcuffing medical professionals and generally sucking resources that could otherwise be applied to move society forward.
At the end of the day, the perpetuation of this adversarial and, frankly, toxic debate fails to address the real downstream issues including the tremendous burden placed on women AS WELL AS on the various societal systems – social, healthcare, medical, legal, law enforcement – whose costs are ultimately borne by all, essentially compromising the ability to make more robust and helpful contributions to society.
I think it’s vital to consider what scenario would be the most rewarding and the most beneficial to the common good, one that offers the best chances of success for all the critical stakeholders. Sadly, the current debate seems to offer little of this, which, in the 21st century, at a time we should know better, shows that we are failing to truly evolve.
To date, I feel that much of the argument from the naysayers has been myopic. Without a long-term vision, without considering the life-cycle cost of the debate, we will fail to do what is really best for the greater good.
supportiveresources One possible avenue for redirecting these resources is to invest in programs that provide comprehensive sexual education, access to contraceptives, and family planning services. By focusing on preventive measures, such initiatives can help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and subsequently the demand for abortions. Additionally, allocating resources towards improving maternal healthcare, childcare facilities, and social support systems can contribute to the well-being of women and children.
A dogged pro-life stance fails to see the ‘Big Picture’ – the domino effect of events that will ultimately have severe personal and societal consequences. Is it worth the pain and the cost and, if so, are anti-abortionists prepared to pay for it?
Recognizing its link to the ability to be elected, many Republican politicians and conservative pundits are, not surprisingly, worried about abortion. And well they should. Since the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the Dobbs case, overturning Roe v. Wade, they’ve seen this issue play a decisive role in the midterms and subsequent elections. Now, eyeing the polls, they fear that the GOP in its haste to outlaw the procedure at the state and national levels has overstepped public opinion. For guidance, some are turning to Nikki Haley, a presidential candidate and former South Carolina governor.333
What is Haley’s secret recipe?
She says no woman should be jailed for getting an abortion. She says we should take the issue out of Washington, respect each woman’s personal experience, and let the people closest to the issue decide.333
She’s right about these principles. And there’s a simple policy that would honor them. It’s called freedom of choice.
And under a policy of choice, everyone is free to choose lifewhatever’s best for THEIR life.
A policy of free choice is also compatible with working to reduce the abortion rate. Haley also recognizes that every pregnancy is different. “Just like I have my story, I respect everyone who has their story,” she said in a speech in April 2023. “I don’t judge someone who is pro-choice any more than I want them to judge me for being pro-life.” Instead of “judging each other,” she proposed, we should “treat [abortion] as the important and deeply personal issue it is.”333
And here’s the good news:
You can feasibly be anti-abortion and pro-choice. And most people, to some extent, are both.
Pro-lifers have every right to promote a message of life and to offer assistance, through public or private means, so more women can carry pregnancies to term. A truly prochoice policy welcomes that kind of assistance and opposes any kind of coercion including coercion to have an abortion, which is all too common. “There is broad political agreement that we should never pressure moms into having an abortion,” Haley observed. Pro-choice Americans those who defend abortion as an option, not as a preferred outcome are part of that consensus.
A pro-choice policy won’t give you the satisfaction of decreeing an end to abortion. Rather, it will challenge you to find other ways to prevent abortions, by working with women, not against them. But it will honor the principles Haley articulates. It will respect the personal nature of this issue. And it will leave the decision to the people who are closest to it.
A WAY FORWARD
There is an imaginable future where making arguments that stress that the pro-life movement really means it, that the lives of children and their mothers together matter more than any other principle, is part of what finally persuades the country to choose life.
Evangelical Christian author, Katelyn Beaty, suggests, “If women are cared for and people are walking alongside of them, they will be more prepared to welcome a child and less likely to choose abortion. Abortion is a political issue, but it’s not only political, and the political lens, as it often does, has in our time eclipsed every other lens for addressing abortion rates, including the economic lens, the feminist lens, the spiritual lens, and the relational lens, and so the stalemate of culture war leaves us with little imagination for a kind of third way solution. And third way solutions threaten our entrenched political binary, but they are also often the place of unlikely friendships and creativity and hope.”294
So we have to ask ourselves, then, might there exist some kind of compromise solution – a potential third way – that sets aside partisan politics to achieve something that could serve the common good?
In her TEDTalk, Asha Dahya, journalist and women’s rights activist and founder/editor of GirlTalkHQ.com talks about “Reframing Reproductive Rights: Going Beyond Pro-Choice vs Pro Life.” She shares her big idea surrounding what it would it look like if we took the most divisive topic in America and changed the narrative beyond pro-choice and prolife
Can abortion be seen through a lens other than the narrow finery that currently exists? See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WimcBDghNhw
Looking at the lack of family-driven policies and support programs compared to other developed nations offers a sharp and sobering view of the present state of affairs. The current status quo reinforces enemy lines and tribal boundaries and a narrow binary that does not fully nor accurately represent the spectrum of human life as it relates to reproductive issues.
Ms. Dahya asks,
“What
does it mean to value life? Whose life are you willing to champion and at what cost?”
“Is it possible to harness the passion and energy of advocates from both sides of the abortion debate to take on this issue together?”
She continues,
“As long as we continue to only focus on abortion, other important reproductive health issues will keep getting ignored. Creating common ground starts with each one of us being willing to find it. It’s time to pursue a complete cultural shift in the way we think about and discuss abortion, to go beyond the binary pro-choice pro-life labels and find common ground even with those we disagree with.”
“Let’s do away with this notion that abortion is a single issue we vote on. Instead, what if it was thought of as a medical and social issue like it used to be? What if we lived in a world where people felt confident sharing their abortion stories knowing it would lead to positive and productive outcomes in policy as opposed to shame and judgment?”
“Because at the end of the day, women – especially low-income women and women of colour – are bearing the ultimate cost of our divisiveness.”
So, we need to start asking the big questions:
• Whose life are we saving? And at what cost?
• To what extent can we feasibly impose on the lives of others, particularly those with whom we have no relation?
• How can we best create a condition of favourable odds for both mother and child?
• How can we be of most service to mothers-to-be?
• How can we best achieve – or at least come close – to a win-win scenario?
• How can we best achieve results that truly serve the common good?
If we’re only looking at abortion and completely ignoring all the other interconnected societal issues, what are we saying about who we value and what we value?
My hope is that, at the end of the day, we consider the bigger picture. I believe, like Asha Dahya, that that is the only way forward.
See also
The Armchair Philosopher Life At All Costs With Asha Dahya
Many people see the Pro Choice vs. Pro Life debate in simple terms. Sometimes this even affects how people will vote or what political party they align themselves with. Asha Dahya seeks to change this conversation. On this episode we discuss her recently funded docuseries “Life At All Costs: Going Beyond Pro Choice Vs. Pro Life” as well has her personal journey through and out of Evangelicalism
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1979/10/25/the-pro-choice-argument-pthere-are-those/ (328) Abortion is Essential for Democracy. Brennan Center for Justice. https://www.youtube.com/live/Hz4fck4pE0E?feature=shareX
(329) Lewis, Sophie. Abortion Involves Killing – and That’s OK!
To be pro-choice is to be against forced life.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-ethics-gestation-reproduction/tnamp/X (330) White, Scott. What is ‘personhood’? The ethics question that needs a closer look in abortion debates https://theconversation.com/what-is-personhood-the-ethics-question-that-needs-a-closer-look-inabortion-debates-182745
(331) Edsall, Thomas B. Why the Fight Over Abortion Is Unrelenting
The abortion-rights debate raises questions about women’s rights that remain unresolved 46 years after Roe v. Wade. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/opinion/abortion-restrictions-politics.html (332) Ha, Taylor. The American Abortion Debate: Panelists Look Beyond ‘Labels and Accusations’ https://news.fordham.edu/politics-and-society/the-american-abortion-debate-panelists-look-beyondlabels-and-accusations/
(333) Saletan, Will. The Pro-Life Case for Choice https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/the-pro-life-case-for-choice
4.2 THE LAST WORD
Abortion remains a complex human rights, medical, socio-economic, moral, religious, legal, political and racial issue. The overturning of Roe v. Wade did nothing to solve the problems that women with unplanned pregnancies face, nor did it address the social realities that make pregnancy difficult and sometimes dangerous for women.
So after many – likely, too many – words, thoughts and opinions, here’s my high-level –and, needless to say, personal – overview of the matter:
1 It’s deeply personal.
It’s about her body, her life, her circumstance, the liberty to control her destiny. When women no longer have dominion over their own bodies, when their wellbeing and that of their dependents is dictated by others and, worse yet, to the detriment of both, when others can dictate legislation that reduces their chances of success, and increase their potential to be a burden to society, there’s a problem, Houston. This is personal. If you don’t agree, make the decision you can live with for your own life, but to impose your value system on others simply doesn’t wash.
2 It’s an excruciatingly difficult decision – life-altering, in fact – and not one to be taken lightly.
The decision about when and if to become a parent is one of the biggest choices – if not THE biggest choice – you will ever make.
3 It’s personal.
It’s between a woman, her conscience and her doctor. It is a deeply personal and literally unique crisis for every woman who faces it and she, and only the people she seeks out to advise her and help her, should be the ones to render this extremely difficult decision.
4 It’s none of your business. YOUR business is your business.
5 It’s complicated and impactful.
It has serious short- and long-term repercussions with great impact on the course and nature of one’s life.
The derailing of a life is not a noble goal. Disallowing choice will alter – and likely hamper – the course of lives of mothers, potentially fathers, and children.
6 It’s a lot bigger than you.
It’s about seeing the Big Picture. It’s about broadening our view about life and its value. It’s about seeing the downstream consequences.
7 It’s about being community-minded.
It’s about seeking win-win scenarios, scenarios that truly serve the greater good. It’s about putting the odds in our collective favour.
If we can strip away all the bluster, it seems to me that the whole matter comes down to this:
1. When a woman becomes pregnant, she has the option of abortion, adoption, or parenthood.*
Allowing abortion also allows for the inclusion of an important choice Disallowing it removes one, thereby initiating a host of serious repercussions. It forces an impactful situation on others. It adds further complications to the mix. Allowing abortion does not remove the right of someone NOT to have an abortion. So why not keep women’s options open?
2. Those against abortion are basing their opposition on a matter of personal principle, a notion of what they can live with morally. But, more importantly – and worse yet – they believe that they can impose their belief system on others in whose life they have no stake.
Those on the side of abortion believe it is their right to make decisions for their own body, for their own lives, decisions that have great short- and long-term repercussions, for themselves, for their children, and for the community in general. And there’s proof.
One abortion stance is based on a notion, a way of seeing the world, the other, on facthard evidence showing important personal, financial and societal costs.
One originates in belief, the other in reality – actual circumstances, where hard decisions have real consequences.
One hinges on potentiality, the other on the here and now.
Based on this reasoning, I personally see only one viable option that accommodates all, one option that addresses the true pain and crisis that is at the center of the issue.
Yet the debate continues in the highest offices of the land.
ON THE MATTER OF CHOICE
NOTE: Pro‐life feminists typically believe that society shouldn’t force women to choose between motherhood and other goals.
They argue that society should support the unique life-giving capacity of women, so that no woman feels driven to abortion. Pro-life feminists also advocate for policies that promote maternal health, such as paid parental leave, affordable child care, and access to prenatal care.
Pro-life feminists believe that the pro-life movement is pro-woman and that being pro-life is consistent with feminist values. They argue that abortion harms women by perpetuating the idea that women must choose between their own lives and the lives of their children.
It is important to note that not all feminists agree with the pro-life stance. Some feminists believe that access to safe and legal abortion is essential for women’s reproductive rights and autonomy. However, pro-life feminists argue that the pro-life movement is consistent with feminist values and that it offers a more holistic approach to women’s health and well-being.
Part 5
APPENDIX
Some bits and bobs.
5.1 Excerpts from HOW AMERICANS UNDERSTAND ABORTION
5.2 QUOTES
5.3 Excerpt from We disagree on abortion. Here’s a pro-family agenda both parties can support.
5.4 SOME TOPICAL CORRESPONDENCE
5.5 Excerpt from It is possible to be morally pro-life and politically prochoice at the same time.
5.6 SOME EXCERPTS FROM reddit
5.7 Excerpt from How to Have Effective Conversations About Abortion at Family Gatherings
5.8 Excerpt from Need a Safe, Private Abortion? Ask Charley.
5.9 Excerpt from An Open Letter to Women’s Magazine Editors: It’s Time to Save Reproductive Rights
5.10 Excerpt from Pro-choicer gets called a 'murderer,' responds with questions about what it means to be 'pro-life'
5.11 Excerpt from “Your Body, Our Choice” We knew this would happen
HOW AMERICANS UNDERSTAND ABORTION
A comprehensive interview study of abortion attitudes in the U.S.
By TRICIA C. BRUCE, Phd
This report summarizes major findings from the largest known in-depth interview study of “everyday” Americans’ attitudes toward abortion. Prior studies have been limited by fixedchoice survey questions or narrow samples of Americans (e.g., only activists or those with abortion experience). This study instead engaged a diverse cross-section of American adults in comprehensive one-on-one interviews averaging seventy-five minutes, with questions designed to elicit open-ended thoughts, feelings, and experiences connected to abortion attitudes.
3 Position labels are imprecise substitutes for actual views toward abortion.
4 Abortion talk concerns as much what happens before and after as it does abortion itself.
5 Americans ponder a “good life” as much as they do “life.”
For decades we have heard that the abortion question hinges on one thing: whether or not what is inside the womb is a “baby” or a “fetus”—a “person,” “human being,” or “life” with equal protection under the law. There are undercurrents of this in what we heard from Americans, to be sure, including questions about conception, development, viability, the onset of given traits, medical intervention, and abortion timing. But just as commonly, we heard interviewees ponder the essentials of a “good life” for the baby or parent(s). A “good life,” it would seem, includes health, support, financial stability, affection, rights, and pursuit of chosen livelihoods. Americans deliberate these “good life” cornerstones as much as they do those marking the onset of “life.” Interviewees who are legally permissive of abortion are more likely to privilege a “good life” than they are to debate the bioethical terms of life. Choosing a “good life” becomes, for some, a good enough reason to have an abortion. Tis does not quash disputes about life and personhood, which are beyond the scope and intent of this study. But it does mean that Americans can enter conversations about abortion on common ground to support positive long-term outcomes for pregnant women, their conceiving partners, and children.
6
Abortion is not merely political to everyday Americans, but intimately personal.
Public conversation treats abortion as an abstract political construct more than the intimately personal one it is in reality to everyday Americans. It is presumed to matter more to politics than to everyday people. But abortion is not only political; it is intimately personal. Many experience it. Most know others who have experienced it. Abortion is not a hypothetical exercise in ideology or doctrinal adherence, but rather a lived and often fraught experience. Abortion stories also don’t fit neatly into scenarios imagined by surveys or conjured when arguing the merits of a given position. Personal relationships alter attitudes toward abortion, as do experiences with infertility, pregnancy, miscarriage, adoption, and abortion. Talk of abortion framed only as politics risks dehumanizing what it really means to so many people. What is personal shapes what is political. Americans decide for themselves if, when, how, and how much to disclose personal histories. Many keep quiet. But those who have abortions are not distant others; they are neighbors, coworkers, friends, and family. These intimate connections mean that Americans can enter conversations about abortion seeing the issue as one that impacts not only politics, strangers, and distant others, but those closest to them.
7 Americans don’t “want” abortion.
None of the Americans we interviewed talked about abortion as a desirable good. Views range in terms of abortion’s preferred availability, justification, or need, but Americans do not uphold abortion as a happy event or something they want more of. Attitudinal differences about abortion’s morality and legality do not diminish the weightiness of abortion’s impact in real life, on real people. Acknowledging this does not resolve to a legal position, but makes room for humanity and for talking about hard things.
5.2 QUOTES
“The states where it’s going to be harder for women to access abortion are also the states where it’s harder to access healthcare, prenatal care, paid leave, birth control— everything you need to be able to either prevent pregnancy or parent successfully,” Roys said. “Part of the long-term damage that this decision is going to inflict is it’s going to cause many more babies to be born to people who are not ready to parent a child or another child. And then it’s going to inflict further harm by depriving those families of the material assistance they need to thrive or even just basically survive.”
- Wisconsin state Senator Kelda Roys
From The Truth About the Adoption Option
By LAURA RENA MURRAY
“I believe that eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.”
- Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Financial Oversight Council From Treasury secretary warns of ‘damaging’ economic effects of limiting abortion
By ARIS FOLLEY
The right not to be pregnant “lays claim to a state of being, not an action, and in doing so obviates arguments about what abortion is or is not (health care, violence).” The need to be free from trauma and transformation is intended to overwhelm any rival considerations the presence of an unborn life might raise.
- Charlotte Shane
From What Do the Physical Costs of Pregnancy Mean for the Abortion Debate?
“The attack on abortion rights is, at its core, an attack on working people. Poor people are more than five times as likely to face an unwanted pregnancy, and Black women in the U.S. are almost three times more likely to die during pregnancy than women of another race. Forced parenthood traps families into lifetimes of poverty and trauma — and unsurprisingly, the states that have moved most swiftly to restrict abortion rights are also those who do the least to support new parents through parental leave, pregnancy protections at work, and a liveable wage.”
- Sara Nelson, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA President From “Attacks on Abortion Rights Are Attacks on All Workers”
By NATASCHA ELENA UHLMANN
Some comments on “We Need Courageous Leaders Who Stand Up to Anti-Abortion Extremists”
By CARRIE N. BAKER
“Let me sit in on your next doctor appointment and I get to make health decisions for you.”
- Aunt Ifa
“Nothing says manly like grown men so desperate to involve themselves in the affairs of women.”
- Ain’tYouTired?
“It is abortion access, not restriction, that safeguards women’s wellbeing. Abortion access allows women to take control over their bodies. However, as the Turnaway Study demonstrates, the implications of abortion access go far beyond this. When women gain autonomy over their reproductive health, they also gain autonomy over their economic security, personal goals, romantic relationships, and future. Women’s equality cannot exist in the absence of safe, legal, and accessible abortion.”
- Nora Weiss, Government Relations Intern
From “The Turnaway Study: An evidence-based argument for reproductive rights”
“We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children."
- Jocelyn Elders
“You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.”
- Hillary Clinton
“I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.”
- Ronald Reagan
“No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.”
- Margaret Sanger
“Once someone has decided to get an abortion, they should be able to get care without delay, without judgment & without going broke.”
- whonotwhen.com
"Pro-choice and pro-life activists live in different worlds, and the scope of their lives, as both adults and children, fortifies them in their belief that their own views on abortion are the more correct, the more moral, and more reasonable. When added to this is the fact that should 'the other side' win, one group of women will see the very real devaluation of their lives and life resources, it is not surprising that the abortion debate has generated so much heat and so little light."
- Kristin Luker
“With the fate of Roe v. Wade now hanging in the balance, I'm calling for a special 'pro-life tax.' If the fervent prayers of the religious right are answered and abortion is banned, let's take it a step further. All good Christians should legally be required to pony up; share the financial burden of raising an unwanted child. That's right: put your money where your Bible is. I'm not just talking about paying for food and shelter or even a college education. All those who advocate for driving a stake through the heart of a woman's right to choose must help bear the financial burden of that child's upbringing. They must be legally as well as morally bound to provide the child brought into this world at their insistence with decent clothes to wear; a toy to play with; a bicycle to ride -- even if they don't consider these things 'necessities.' Pro-lifers must be required to provide each child with all those things they would consider 'necessary' for their own children. Once the kid is out of the womb, don't wash your hands and declare 'Mission Accomplished!' It doesn't end there. If you insist that every pregnancy be carried to term, then you'd better be willing to pay the freight for the biological parents who can't afford to. And -- like the good Christians that you are -- should do so without complaint.”
- Quentin R. Bufogle, SILO GIRL
“Let's pass laws that state the biological father is 100% responsible financially for all their children from they are born to 18yrs, then we will see their true colors.”
- @politizoom
Comment on “Anti-Abortion Zealots Trying To Rebrand From “Pro-Life”“
"And by the way, my belief is that if men were the ones getting pregnant, abortions would be easier to get than food poisoning in Moscow."
- Dennis Miller
“You can believe passionately that the best choice is for a woman to bring a pregnancy to term, give birth to that child, raise that child. But in order to get to that place, we have to ask, what are we doing to assist them in that? What’s policies? You know, during my time in the pro-life, anti-abortion movement, I raised tens of millions of dollars to end Roe v. Wade. Will those same donors give those same amounts of money, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, billions, actually, over the course of the national movement in all of its quarters, will they give that same amount of money to assist women with health care, with housing, with childcare, with job training? Will they use the same force in their voting privileges to vote for candidates who support public policy that provides those things for women in crisis pregnancy and their children all the way through their lifetime? Right now, the answer to that is, on the whole, no. They will not. I think that’s an indication already that there is a big problem with our argument on abortion. But I do believe you can be pro-life and you can support all those things.”
- Reverend Rob Schenk
Overturning Roe v. Wade has been the goal of a decades-long campaign by activists like Rev. Robert Schenck. He was a high-profile organizer and spokesman for Operation Rescue in New York State, a particularly aggressive anti-abortion group. Then a series of events forced Schenck to re-evaluate the term “pro-life” and the power of words, as he explains to Michel Martin.
“Too many women are forced to abort by poverty, by their menfolk, by their parents... A choice is only possible if there are genuine alternatives."
- Germaine Greer
"No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg."
- Frederica-Mathewes-Green
“My fellow pro-lifers and I will also need to make the case to expectant mothers, and fathers too, that their unborn children are, like the rest of us, dependent and needy persons.”
- Erika Bachiochi, a conservative legal scholar From “What Makes a Fetus a Person?”
“I personally am opposed to abortion, but I will not judge anybody else's right in that regard because I am not a woman and I could never face the actual reality of it.”
- Martin Sheen
“Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness.”
- Alveda King
As a lawyer who once worked in the anti-abortion movement, Opinion columnist David French says there’s a crisis of hope driving this increase in abortion in America. To see a meaningful decrease, he says, the right needs to look past its legal victory and approach this issue in a more holistic way. He says:
“There’s no way to a culture of life without reaching hearts and minds.”
“Loving our neighbors means meeting them where they are, not where we want them to be.”
- Rob Schenk
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) has built something of a brand as a “moderate” on abortion Republican, in which she insists she’s “pro-life” while nonsensically differentiating herself from her caucus’s “pro-life” stance. Mace has long called for a nonexistent “middle ground” on abortion, suggesting that expanded access to birth control and rape exceptions (that can be unhelpful in reality) are a good enough compromise for the government taking away women’s bodily autonomy.
In a Monday morning stop at The View, Mace’s central arguments quickly fell apart once she faced light scrutiny from Whoopi Goldberg who has been open about her own abortion story which antiabortion politicians rarely encounter on cable news.
In response, Mace referenced her experience surviving sexual assault and the importance of not placing victims “in a position where they have to decide to have an abortion or not.” Members of her party, she said, “have to find a balance to show we’re pro-life but we care about women, and find that balancing act.” Mace then suggests we find a middle ground by determining a gestational limit at some point in the second trimester, and says Congress has done “nothing” to “ensure we have greater access to birth control.”
At this point, Goldberg interjects to politely call bullshit. She said,
“No law says you have to have an abortion. There’s no law on the books that says you have to have an abortion. Why am I being held to someone else’s religious belief?”
Goldberg then asked Mace, “Do you want the government telling you how to raise your family?”
to which Mace stammered, “I
don’t want the government, but, but...”
Ultimately, despite trying to distance herself from anti-abortion extremists, Mace whipped out the Republican party’s go-to talking points: lying about Democrats supporting abortion up until birth, supposedly around nine months, which doesn’t happen.
“I also am pro-life. I want everybody to have a safe life. I want them to be safe and do all the things that they should be able to do. But when it comes to what is best for my family and I, why isn’t that my choice and my doctor’s choice without bringing anyone else in?”
- Whoopi Goldberg Excerpt from Nancy Mace’s ‘Moderate’ Abortion Stance Crumbled Under Mild Scrutiny on ‘The View’ By KYLIE CHEUNG
By MARC THIESSEN and ALYSSA ROSENBERG https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/05/bipartisan-family-policy-rosenberg-thiessen/
We hail from opposite ends of the political spectrum. One of us is a pro-choice liberal who believes pregnancy and parenting are so momentous that no one should be forced to take them on. The other is a pro-life conservative who believes unborn life is sacred and that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was a godsend.
But we agree that the high court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization guarantees more babies will be born, many of them in challenging circumstances. And we stand together in our belief that Republicans and Democrats must come together to better support these children and their families.
This is especially important at a time when inflation has driven up the cost of everything from diapers to baby formula. Child-care costs are rising at nearly twice the rate of inflation.
Easing these burdens should be a moral imperative across the political spectrum. For pro-choice Americans, it’s the least the country can do for women who are seeing choices stripped from them and their children. For pro-life Americans, it represents a chance to build what Pope John Paul II called a “culture of life” in which the dignity of every person is upheld and supported at all stages.
For both parties, a comprehensive family agenda should be a political imperative as well.
Family policy is a place to start, especially because Democrats and Republicans have already cooperated on a wide range of bills to tackle many of these problems. Despite the bipartisan goodwill, little family legislation has been enacted. It’s time for Biden and congressional leaders to make this a priority.
To nudge them along, we compiled a set of proposals to improve family life in the United States from conception to college that are abortion-neutral and fiscally realistic. Compromise was inevitable: Alyssa set aside major investments in child care; Marc couldn’t persuade Alyssa to sign on for school vouchers. But the most heartening part of the exercise was how much we — and our congressional counterparts — agree on.
1. Make pregnancy less dangerous
2. Help parents afford babies
3. Support child-care needs
MAKE PREGNANCY LESS DANGEROUS
America’s failure to support young families is most bluntly expressed in its disgraceful infant and maternal mortality rates, which even before the pandemic reached rates unseen since the early 1970s and disproportionately affect Black women.
1. To bring those numbers down, Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) have proposed an ambitious program to review how maternity care is taught to doctors and nurses. It also seeks to expand access to doula care, telehealth maternal care and to devices such as glucose monitors for women with gestational diabetes who are on Medicaid. This is a great place to start.
2. The federal government can also use its convening and data-gathering power to learn more about how to keep moms and babies healthy. Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), for example, introduced a bill to establish a national Maternal Health Research Network within the National Institutes of Health. Sen. Tina Smith (DMinn.) introduced the Data to Save Moms Act, pulling together more information on maternal deaths up to a year after birth.
Given the firepower to gather these statistics and analyze them, the federal government might facilitate greater understanding of tragic conditions such as postpartum psychosis.
3. What happens outside the doctor’s office matters, too. To get care to moms who need it, the Senate should pass and Biden should sign the bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by Reps. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) that the House passed with a huge 390-26 margin last year, to expand the federal home health aide visiting program for poor pregnant women and new moms and babies.
4. Lawmakers should also back the proposal from former Nebraska representative Jeff Fortenberry (R) to set up a federal-state collaborative aimed at identifying ways to help those pregnant get housing, stay in the workforce or school, and reduce Medicaid costs. Same goes for the bill introduced by Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to set upprograms at the Department of Health and Human Services to determine which mentoring and support programs for new mothers produce the best results.
5. In terms of protecting expectant mothers, the bipartisan Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which passed as part of last year’s appropriations bill and requires employers to accommodate workers’ needs while they’re pregnant or after birth, is an excellent start.
To protect the rights of pregnant college and university students and their babies, Congress should also pass Rubio’s bill requiring colleges to let students know about oncampus resources should they decide to have children while enrolled in school and to document and address complaints that schools discriminate against pregnant students in violation of Title IX.
HELP PARENTS AFFORD BABIES
Everyone knows that once babies arrive, they are expensive. Here are several ways lawmakers could ease that burden.
1. Given the benefits that accrue to kids whose parents are married, it’s obvious marriage penalties should be eliminated from federal welfare programs. Sen. Mike Lee (RUtah) has proposed legislation to do so.
2. We also support increasing the maximum child tax credit. Start with Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) bill, which would raise the credit from $2,000 per child to $4,200 for children younger than 6 and $3,000 for those aged 6 to 17. He has also introduced legislation to allow women to start claiming the child tax credit during pregnancy. The credit should be fully refundable for those who don’t owe taxes. To enable bipartisan support, Romney’s legislation should be amended to state that nothing in it intends to affirm or deny the humanity of the unborn fetus.
3. Then there’s the matter of extending Medicaid coverage for mothers and babies until a year after birth. Many Republicans and Democrats have recognized the wisdom of this idea at the state level. For example, in signing a law to do so this spring, Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves described the step as part of a “new pro-life agenda.” It’s time to adopt it federally, too. Both parties should also embrace Rubio’s proposal to expand the eligibility of new mothers for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) from one to two years.
4. To further reduce costs of parenting, the government could exempt diapers from sales taxes, as House Democrats and Indiana Republicans have sought to do. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has gone so far as to make all baby items cribs, strollers, clothing, diapers, wipes tax-free. Other states should follow suit. Those savings wouldn’t be enormous, but parents would certainly welcome them in a time of high inflation. Indiana’s law saves parents $66 per child per year on diapers. Florida’s law shaves $17 off the price of a modest Ikea crib. Congress could even consider making these items tax deductible and fully refundable.
5. In the post-Dobbs world, we will need more loving families to open their homes to adoptive and foster children. One way to do so is by passing legislation expanding the adoption tax credit and making it fully refundable, a change to tax law that’s been a bipartisan priority for a decade, and that was most recently reintroduced by Davis alongside Reps. Blake D. Moore (R-Utah), Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), Randy Feenstra (RIowa), Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.). We should also increase federal adoption assistance funding, and funding for states to recruit, retain and support foster families.
6. And we should make sure Americans know what resources and protections are available to them. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Rubio have advocated a federal database of pregnancy-related resources. That’s a good idea (even if a URL other than their proposed “Life.gov” would make more sense both politically and for boosting search results). The site could boost awareness of the new Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and Pump Act, which expand protections for pregnant and breastfeeding women. Fortenberry’s Care for Her Act would be a boost to pregnant students, helping them with family-friendly campus housing, on-campus child care and space for breastfeeding in classroom buildings.
SUPPORT CHILD-CARE NEEDS
1. One of the toughest policy questions to crack has been that of paid parental leave. Neither Democratic proposals for a national paid leave scheme nor Republican suggestions that parents fund their leave through Social Security savings are viable in this closely divided Congress. As an alternative to this stalemate, we’d like to see lawmakers enact a universal tax-exempt parental leave and family savings account to cover parenting-related expenses, including parental leave and children’s sick days off from school.
Those accounts should be portable from job to job. As with 401(k) accounts, companies could deduct their matching contributions to employees’ family savings accounts from their corporate taxes. Those savings could grow until parents need them, at which point they can be spent tax-free. Any unused funds could be rolled into other savings vehicles such as 529 educational accounts. In 2019, then-Reps. John Katko (R-N.Y.) and Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.) introduced the Working Parents Flexibility Act, which would have allowed individuals to put away up to $6,750 per year in such accounts, but the bill was never enacted.
Such a program could break the ideological deadlock over paid leave. It would also give parents maximal flexibility while providing government and businesses a way to invest in family life together.
2. While we’re considering family leave, Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) proposal to amend the Family and Medical Leave Act to give both moms and dads time to recover from and grieve a stillbirth or miscarriage would be a sensitive gesture.
3. Then there’s the cost and availability of child care. One no-brainer: Raise the amount parents can save pretax in dependent care flexible spending accounts from $5,000 to $10,500, as Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) have proposed. The current limit hasn’t been updated since 1986 and bears no relation to the actual cost of child care.
4. Let parents who hire caregivers write off the cost of workers’ compensation insurance and fees for payroll services such as Care.com. Making it easier to pay these workers fairly and legally would be good for everyone.
5. Republicans will be averse to major universal child-care programs, but they should consider former House member Louie Gohmert’s (R-Tex.) bill to help the most vulnerable young mothers. He proposed creating a block-grant program to pay for child care for teen parents so they can stay in school or work. Congress should also add flexibility to existing federal block-grant programs for child care so that states can find innovative ways to support new parents. For example, Indiana’s Hoosier Families First Fund provides $45 million to bolster agencies that support healthy pregnancies, child care, foster and adoptive care, and other programs.
6. All this expanded child care will require more child-care workers. Immigration reforms could help. Expanding the H2B visa category, or even creating a new visa category altogether, could help bring day-care workers into the country. And raising the limit on the number of au pairs who are allowed to work in the United States could expand access to a new, lower-cost option for families willing to open their homes and facilitate cultural exchange. (Full disclosure: Alyssa’s father-in-law chairs the American Institute for Foreign Study, which operates Au Pair in America.)
7. Once children are a little older it’s worth experimenting with care models that work for their families. Sens. Todd C. Young (R-Ind.) and Hassan had a bright idea to add an innovation fund to the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act. That effort would explore the effects of offering child care at nontraditional hours, which would be a huge boon to parents who are shift workers in fields such as law enforcement. Wenstrup’s proposal to expand tax credits for businesses to build on-site day-care centers and study the effects of expanding employer-operated child care could spur other creative solutions.
8. Changing the school day and year could also make life easier for working parents — and help address pandemic learning loss, too. Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-N.Y.) proposed piloting 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. school days in 500 elementary schools, providing children with extra instructional time and freeing parents from the struggle to find aftercare.
Similar experiments could examine the effect of year-round school, expanding on the pilot program in Florida proposed by a Democrat and signed into law by DeSantis or the universal camp-like summer programs for students in Birmingham, Ala.
Our
list is not
comprehensive, and there are many ideas that we didn’t include because they wouldn’t stand a chance of passing bipartisan muster.
In any case, nothing in these proposals requires either side to concede its position on the underlying question of abortion. This shows that our fundamental disagreement on one of the most vexing moral questions of our time should not prevent people of goodwill from working together on something most Americans agree on: supporting families.
If two Post columnists who agree on little else can do it, then Democrats and Republicans in Congress can as well. Because whether we are pro-life or pro-choice, we can — and must — be pro-family.
5.4 SOME TOPICAL CORRESPONDENCE
In an attempt to better understand their position, I sent an email (and a follow-up email) to a variety of Pro-life groups. These included the following:
1. NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE mediarelations@nrlc.org
2. 40 DAYS FOR LIFE info@40daysforlife.com
3. ELLIOT INSTITUTE elliotinstitute@gmail.com
4. STUDENTS FOR LIFE OF AMERICA info@studentsforlife.org
5. LIFE CANADA info@lifecanada.org
6. CAMPAIGN LIFE COALITION CLC Ottawa
7. END ABORTION NOW help@endabortionnow.com
Sadly, my inquiry was largely ignored. I received two responses which can be found below. Perhaps my questions were too difficult. Or too pointed. Perhaps, they didn’t want take the time to defend their position, preferring to pursue changes in policy and/or laws that would further their plan to place additional shackles on more people.
RESPONSE FROM: CAMPAIGN LIFE COALITION
Sent: July 26, 2023 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: Questions on a difficult subject
Hello Ted,
Thank you for writing in. We appreciate your questions. Please see some answers to your questions below (right underneath your questions). God bless.
-Sophie (for Debbie)
Debbie Duval
Campaign Life Coalition Ottawa 613-729-0379
National March for Life May 9, 2024
Sent: 15 July 2023 8:27 PM
To: Debbie Duval <debbie@clife.ca>
Subject: Questions on a difficult subject
“It takes a special strength to take care of a child, and a whole different strength to admit you cannot.”
I am seeking to better understand the abortion issue in all its varied complexities. I know that different positions on abortion often reflect different values and beliefs, such as the sanctity of human life, the autonomy of women, the protection of vulnerable groups, and the common good. That said, I wonder if you might be able to shed some light on the following questions:
1. How might legislating men to be financially responsible co-conception partners change the abortion issue?
• Of course, men should take responsibility for the life they helped to create. We already have a certain level of legislation concerning fathers' financial responsibility in the care of their child should they choose to abandon the mother in the form of alimony payments. However, this is not strictly adhered to. You're asking about hypotheticals here.
3. In the case where an abortion is denied, both mother and child risk being handicapped in the long-term. Do we really want to handicap both mother and child before it’s really ‘go-time’ (i.e. after the birth of the child)?
• Abortion physically and emotionally harms the mother; it also increases the risk of breast cancer despite the mainstream media's denial of that fact. There is also the meta-physical aspect of 'knowing' your mother considered aborting you. Some say that stays in the psyche of the baby and adds to the despair that is already so pervasive in our young people...As to the baby - well it's death for the baby, not a handicap.
• Are you implying that the denial of an abortion leads to hardship for the mother and baby? Yes, there are certainly hardships certain women must endure. Sometimes they are poor or without a supportive father/family. Unfortunately, these circumstances do not warrant the murder of a pre-born child. Would you offer your three-year-old because you couldn't pay for dinner? No, you wouldn't, so why would you offer your younger child, still in the womb?
Ultimately, the argument comes back to: is the murder of the pre-born justified? No. If a woman cannot afford to have children but finds herself in a crisis pregnancy, there are many resources available to her, including adoption. So many women want but cannot have children...
5. In the case where an abortion is denied,
a. Who will pay for the unwanted babies?
b. Who will care for the unable-to-be-properly-cared-for children?
c. Who will support the ill-prepared mothers (and fathers, assuming they’re still involved)?
d. Who’s paying for the downstream impacts of unprepared mothers and unwanted children? Include comments on impacts on our healthcare, law enforcement and penal systems.
• Refer to the previous question and also please consider that there are direct consequences for ALL of our actions. If you choose to have sex, you are agreeing to the possibility of new. If you do not want that life or cannot support it, do have sex to begin with. Adoption is also an option. I am not refering here to cases of rape, which make up less than 1% of abortion.
6. What might be the societal costs of having an abortion versus not in the case of an illprepared mother (and possibly father)?
• See other responses...
7. Why should we care if someone else wants an abortion? How might it affect those not directly involved in the decision?
• Your bad decisions do not just affect you. They affect everyone around you. We set the example for people around us whether we admit that or not.
9. Who benefits from the forcing of pregnant women, unwilling or unprepared to give birth, to do so?
• The forcing of pregnant women? What are you even saying? Where? In Canada, as in other countries, a woman can abort throughout ALL 9 months of pregnancy.
7. How is society made better by virtue of the chosen path? Put another way, does forcing unprepared mothers (and possibly fathers) to have unwanted children benefit society?
• How is society made better by allowing abortion? How is society made better by accepting the murder of innocent human beings? How is society made better by false arguments like the ones you are presenting under the guise of compassion? No one is forcing women to have unwanted babies. (See note about all 9 months of pregnancy.) No one forced the people to have sex in the first place. Maybe if we put more care into developing deep and meaningful relationships over fleeting love affairs, we'd all be better off...especially the babies.
Looking forward to your feedback.
Ted
RESPONSE FROM: END ABORTION NOW
Sent: December 18, 2023 10:45 AM
Subject: Re: Questions on a difficult subject
Hi Ted,
thanks for reaching out and for your questions. I have responded to them in order below.
1. What is the upside of forcing unprepared or at-risk women to give birth to unwanted children?
No one forces a woman to give birth. This is a natural result of being pregnant. Our position is that once pregnant, a woman does not have the right to murder the child she doesn't want. People are not valuable based on whether or not we want them.
2. What is the upside of forcing women to pursue non-viable pregnancies?
Along the same lines, we don't advocate for killing people that can't survive on their own.
3. What is the downside of allowing personal reproductive choices?
Once a woman has made the choice to reproduce, she should not be legally allowed to murder the baby that came about as a result of her making a reproductive choice.
Hope these help,
Zach
Zachary Conover zach@endabortionnow.com Director of Communications
END ABORTION NOW
Sent: 18 Dec 2023 10:59 AM
To: help@endabortionnow.com
Subject: Questions about abortion
I am writing to this email address as there is, surprisingly, no apparent way to directly communicate with the leadership of END ABORTION NOW, no apparent way to engage with leadership beyond perhaps writing a physical letter. What I’m looking for is a greater understanding of the abortion debate beyond a discussion of personhood - a more holistic consideration.
I appreciate your passion in addressing abortion. In fact, I respect your opinion. Clearly, you believe that abortion is wrong.
I believe that if you believe that abortion is wrong or immoral or against your religion, you shouldn’t consider it.
But there is no law on the books that forces anyone to get an abortion. Which begs the questions:
• Who has the right to impose their beliefs on others, thereby affecting the lives of people in whose lives they have no stake?
• Who benefits from imposing one’s beliefs on others?
• To what extent are we prepared to compromise the health of the living while prioritizing the unborn, an act that could easily handicap the quality of the lives of both mother and child?
• To what extent are we prepared to compromise the lives of the living by forcing women to give birth regardless of the health of the fetus?
A doomed pregnancy is itself devastating. Being forced to continue one is torture.
• How might we consider compassion, empathy and our understanding of others?
• To what extent should governments be imposing legislation that puts the healthcare of women at risk?
• To what extent should governments be imposing legislation that compromises the quality of the lives of women?
That said, I would appreciate your feedback on the following:
1. What is the upside of forcing unprepared or at-risk women to give birth to unwanted children?
2. What is the upside of forcing women to pursue non-viable pregnancies?
3. What is the downside of allowing personal reproductive choices?
Look forward to your feedback.
Wishing you the best of the season.
Ted
Concerned citizen
SOME OTHER THOUGHTS ON THE MATTER
'Outrageously cruel': The impact of extreme abortion restrictions on TX women
MSNBC Political Contributor Matthew Dowd opens up about he and his ex-wife’s painful experience with Texas’ abortion restrictions 25 years ago and the impact that the current state of abortion legislation is having on pregnant people across the United States. “That’s where legislation driven by people’s religious beliefs meets the real world. And in the real world, those things are causing immense trauma.”
Abortion rights advocate says every abortion is an emergency abortion
Kate Cox, the Texas woman who needed an abortion to save her life, and the Kentucky woman who has a dead fetus in her womb are clear cases of medical emergencies that went untreated due to their states’ abortion bans. Freelance journalist and abortion advocate Danielle Campoamor argues that an abortion is an emergency for any woman who desires an abortion, no matter the circumstance. She joined guest host Julián Castro on American Voices to elaborate.
The Texas Supreme Court, including one judge who was arrested for protesting abortion clinics, just denied a potentially life-saving abortion for a woman whose fetus had a fatal diagnosis.
Pregnant Florida Woman Denied Emergency Abortion, Sent Home from Hospital: ‘I Knew I Would Die Within … Days’ (Exclusive)
Thursday's 'Impact x Nightline' will spotlight America's hidden healthcare crisis as abortion bans cause medical trauma for women with unviable pregnancies
How Texas Tried to Torture a Woman for Being Pregnant
Republicans are struggling to justify the draconian laws that forced Kate Cox to flee Texas in order to terminate a potentially deadly pregnancy
When Kate Cox was forced to flee Texas after state authorities denied her pleas to terminate a potentially deadly pregnancy, it laid bare the true cost of state control over women’s reproductive health. It’s also made plain that Republicans despite their claims to hold the moral high ground on abortion cannot defend the policies they champion when they present real-world consequences.
Reality of women and pregnancy complications leaves GOP flummoxed
The legality of abortion is one of the most polarized debates in America but it doesn't have to be.
People have big feelings about abortion, which is understandable. On one hand, you have people who feel that abortion is a fundamental women's rights issue, that our bodily autonomy is not something you can legislate, and that those who oppose abortion rights are trying to control women through oppressive legislation. On the other, you have folks who believe that a fetus is a human individual first and foremost, that no one has the right to terminate a human life, and that those who support abortion rights are heartless murderers.
Then there are those of us in the messy middle. Those who believe that life begins at conception, that abortion isn't something we'd choose and we'd hope others wouldn't choose under most circumstances, yet who choose to vote to keep abortion legal.
It is entirely possible to be morally anti-abortion and politically pro-choice without feeling conflicted about it. Here's why.
There's far too much gray area to legislate.
No matter what you believe, when exactly life begins and when “a clump of cells" should be considered an individual, autonomous human being is a debatable question.
I personally believe life begins at conception, but that's my religious belief about when the soul becomes associated with the body, not a scientific fact. As Arthur Caplan, awardwinning professor of bioethics at New York University, told Slate, “Many scientists would say they don't know when life begins. There are a series of landmark moments. The first is conception, the second is the development of the spine, the third the development of the brain, consciousness, and so on."
But let's say, for the sake of argument, that a human life unquestionably begins at conception. Even with that point of view, there are too many issues that make a black-andwhite approach to abortion too problematic to ban it.
Abortion bans hurt some mothers who desperately want their babies to live, and I'm not okay with that.
One reason I don't support banning abortion is because I've seen too many families deeply harmed by restrictive abortion laws.
• I've heard too many stories of families who desperately wanted a baby, who ended up having to make the rock-and-a-hard-place choice to abort because the alternative would have been a short, pain-filled life for their child.
• I've heard too many stories of mothers having to endure long, drawn out, potentially dangerous miscarriages and being forced to carry a dead baby inside of them because abortion restrictions gave them no other choice.
• I've heard too many stories of abortion laws doing real harm to mothers and babies, and too many stories of families who were staunchly anti-abortion until they found themselves in circumstances they never could have imagined, to believe that abortion is always wrong and should be banned at any particular stage.
I am not willing to serve as judge and jury on a woman's medical decisions, and I don't think the government should either.
Most people's anti-abortion views—mine included—are based on their religious beliefs, and I don't believe that anyone's religion should be the basis for the laws in our country. (For the record, any Christian who wants biblical teachings to influence U.S. law, yet cries “Shariah is coming!" when they see a Muslim legislator, is a hypocrite.)
I also don't want politicians sticking their noses into my very personal medical choices. There are just too many circumstances (seriously, please read the stories linked in the previous section) that make abortion a choice I hope I'd never have to make, but wouldn't want banned. I don't understand why the same people who decry government overreach think the government should be involved in these extremely personal medical decisions.
And yes, ultimately, abortion is a personal medical decision.
Even if I believe that a fetus is a human being at every stage, that human being's creation is inextricably linked to and dependent upon its mother's body. And while I don't think that means women should abort inconvenient pregnancies, I also acknowledge that trying to force a woman to grow and deliver a baby that she may not have chosen to conceive isn't something the government should be in the business of doing.
As a person of faith, my role is not to judge or vilify, but to love and support women who are facing difficult choices. The rest of it the hard questions, the unclear rights and wrongs, the spiritual lives of those babies, I comfortably leave in God's hands.
Most importantly, if the goal is to prevent abortion, research shows that outlawing it isn't the way to go.
The biggest reason I vote the way I do is because based on my research, pro-choice platforms provide the best chance of reducing abortion rates.
Abortion rates fell by 24% in the past decade and are at their lowest levels in 40 years in America. Abortion has been legal during that time, so clearly, keeping abortion legal and available has not resulted in increased abortion rates. Switzerland has one of the lowest abortion rates on earth and their rate has been falling since 2002, when abortion became largely unrestricted.
Outlawing abortion doesn't stop it, it just pushes it underground and makes it more dangerous. And if a woman dies in a botched abortion, so does her baby. Banning abortion is a recipe for more lives being lost, not fewer.
At this point, the only things consistently proven to reduce abortion rates are comprehensive sex education and easy, affordable access to birth control. If we want to reduce abortions, that's where we should be putting our energy. The problem is, antiabortion activists also tend to be the same people pushing for abstinence-only education and making birth control harder to obtain. But those goals can't co-exist in the real world.
Our laws should be based on reality and on the best data we have available. Since comprehensive sex education and easy, affordable access to birth control the most proven methods of reducing abortion rates are the domain of the pro-choice crowd, that's where I place my vote, and why I do so with a clear conscience.
SOME COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY
“Yes. I don't like abortion, but it's not my decision to tell someone what they can and can't do with their own body and the choices they make for their future.”
- EtherealPizza
“This is my feeling as well. I could never accept an abortion in my life, but I have no right to dictate it to others. And politically I have a lot of problems with the current infrastructure in place, or more correctly, not in place, to handle the impact of the overturning of Roe V. Wade. The medical community is in disarray. There is not sufficient support for unwanted babies. In ten years time, when the first generation of babies born who would have not existed before, we will see the disaster that has been caused by banning abortion without first passing support laws. But we have seen that Republicans never take responsibility for their actions, and care more about stopping abortion than taking care of children.”
- Who Cares
5.6 SOME EXCERPTS FROM reddit
Posted by u/[deleted]5 months ago
If abortion is deemed as “murder” then woman (and men) should be able to walk into their doctors office and get sterilized on demand with ZERO push back.
RANT
Not to beat a dead horse, I know that this topic is talked about fairly often on this subreddit but just lemme talk my shit please and thank you.
When it comes to the topic of abortion, the conversation of whether it’s moral or not is irrelevant. One side thinks it’s the equivalent to killing a human life and it’s downright cruel to cut short the life of a human being without giving them a choice, the other side thinks that it’s just a clump of cells incapable of having thoughts or feelings and the person who presently exists matters more than that of a fetus. We don’t know who’s right, nobody can tell what a fetus is capable of and the argument of when a fetus has personhood is difficult to argue because after all the vaginal canal is not some portal that grants personhood status…. Me personally though I don’t give a flying f k about a fetus, if someone doesn’t want to have a baby, then that’s between nobody but them and their doctor
If abortion IS “murder” then why isn’t sterilization as easy to obtain as birth control? If it is the equivalent of killing a human child why can a doctor tell ANYONE no when they politely ask to throw their Fallopian tubes in the garbage??? Never mind the possibility that someone might regret it, if there’s a chance that they could commit a crime thats supposedly equivalent to murdering a child why would you even consider denying them??? Doesn’t that make you compliant to a murder???
But of course, it’s not about saving kids. It’s about controlling women.
Posted
by shriek52
- "Hi doctor, they say abortion is murder, so I don't wanna do the murder. Will you sterilize me so I don't do the murder?"
- Hmm no, I think you should think carefully before you let me prevent you from doing the murder
- "But if I want to do the murder, they'll blame me for doing the murder!"
- No, they'll prevent you from doing the murder. But then you'll be punished for not doing the murder, because you'll have to spend the rest of your life dealing with the consequences of the murder you didn't commit.
How to Have Effective Conversations About Abortion at Family Gatherings
By ANDREA SCHMIDT https://msmagazine.com/2023/11/20/talk-abortion-family-conversations-holidays-thanksgiving-christmas/
Now is not the time to stay silent, even if it’s more comfortable to do so. The good news is that open, civil dialogue is the best way to make your voice heard and hopefully change hearts, minds and cultures. Here’s what I’m keeping in mind as I go into holiday gatherings with my family.
1. Assess whether it’s worth the conversation in your specific setting.
2. Arm yourself with facts.
3. Don’t automatically write people off.
4. Remember: Abortion is healthcare, and reproductive freedom states like California have a moral responsibility to provide it.
5. Help destigmatize abortion by sharing your story.
6. Practice with a like-minded friend.
7. Keep in mind that this will likely take more than one conversation.
Excerpt from
Need a Safe, Private Abortion? Ask Charley.
By CARRIE N. BAKER https://msmagazine.com/2023/09/12/need-an-abortion-charley-chatbot-private-anonymous-secure/
“The goal of Charley is to provide people with easy-to-access information about how to find abortion care in every state even states with restrictions.”
In early September 2023, reproductive health experts launched a new online chatbot named Charley to help abortion seekers in all 50 states find quick, accurate and confidential abortion information, tailored to their individual needs and circumstances.
“There’s a lot of fear and confusion out there about how abortion is available, especially in restricted states, and there are different resources out there. But there hasn’t been a single resource that includes all the information. Charley does that. Charley walks people through their options and then directs them to the resources that are available to help them find more specific information.”
- Elisa Wells, co-director of Plan C
An Open Letter to Women’s Magazine Editors: It’s Time to Save Reproductive Rights
If you perused most women’s media websites today, you’d have no idea that abortion rights are under attack, maternal mortality and infant mortality is on the rise, and Republicans are eyeing a nationwide abortion ban.
Perusing the happy headlines featured on women’s media sites, their readers would have no idea that abortion bans have demolished the rights of women in 21 states.
Nor that the maternal mortality rate has spiked in those states and that the number of newborns dying has shot up for the first time in 20 years. And that’s for babies, whose parents are from every background.
Neither have their audiences been informed about women who have lost their fertility when they were denied medical care after a miscarriage.
All of that news should be critically relevant to the 66 million American women of childbearing age (15-44), who may not realize that the dismantling of reproductive rights will affect them, no matter where they live in this country.
5.10 Excerpt from
Pro-choicer gets called a 'murderer,' responds with questions about what it means to be 'pro-life'
Now that's what you call a "life" lesson.
By BROWNWYN ISAAC https://www.upworthy.com/pro-choice-vs-pro-life-philosophy-rp
A recent screenshot posted on the Murdered by Words subreddit showed a heated exchange between a pro-choicer and the pro-birth person who called them an advocate for murder.
The pro-choicer ignored the initial insult of "murderer" and continued the conversation by grilling the pro-lifer about how they intend to help build a world where people can healthily raise children.
The response read:
"What happens next? Once you have succeeded in your quest to stop the termination of a pregnancy - disregarding the circumstances for why the woman or couple wants to terminate (failed birth control, rape, lack of financial stability, unsuitable environment, domestic violence, mental health issues, lack of employment, medical issues, lack of comprehensive sexual education) - what happens next?"
Screenshot via Reddit
"Who pays for the prenatal or postnatal care? Surely not a couple working a minimum wage who can barely afford their rent. Who provides healthcare and funds medical bills for a single woman with no place to live? Or a married couple who struggle to afford the children they already have? Who assists the millions of children in foster care, still waiting to be adopted? Who helps them when they hit the street at 18 with no money or life skills?"
“Will you and your ilk - the self-proclaimed 'pro-life' community help to fund comprehensive sexual education for teens? How about access to affordable birth control? Why not promote a vasectomy as a viable option for men who don't want children? How about funding scientific research so men can have more birth control options than just condoms? Is your community going to help pay for healthcare and education costs? Once you have succeeded in stopping the termination of a pregnancy, what role will you have in ensuring a quality of life for the foetus you so desperately wanted to save?"
The pro-life person simply responded by claiming it's the parents' responsibility, which ushered in a final call out of the hypocrisy of many factions of the pro-life movement.
It has been and always will be about control, and their walking orange mouthpiece for their unbridled, vitriolic hatred is in full view.
Women around the world are inconsolably angry, and we have every right to be. White men, white women, and Latin men sealed the deal for Trump as a Latin woman, I am disgusted.
Black people understood the assignment, especially black women. Yet again, they were betrayed, as we all were when desperately clinging to hope.
The creatures emerge
There has been a heinous surge of misogynistic, vile behavior since Trump won, and we cannot be surprised. Teenage boys have been chanting loudly while in school, “Your body, our choice.”
This is where we are as a society, and it is horrific and shameful.
Truth Social and X (Twitter) are brimming with threats of violence.
While part of me wants to run to another country and say goodbye to America for good, the other part of me is so filled with rage that I wish to stay and fight. To be a beacon for my queer brothers and sisters who need it, for my fellow woman who needs a shoulder to cry on, anyone who knows deep in their hearts what we are truly fighting against.
Pro-choice is Pro-life.
“Abortion is healthcare, especially if the mother's life is in danger. All the people proposing blocking abortion rights have enough money to go out of the country if anyone close to them needed one. I used to be pro birth. Then I grew up and realized life isn't so simple. People with complex pregnancies, dead fetuses, non viable fetuses, or even just in abusive relationships with someone who wants to use a pregnancy to force a woman to stay with them all need the option of choosing what is right for their bodies and their own circumstances.”
