Reasons why women should have the right to an abortionThere are many reasons why women should have the right to an abortion, including the one that is most commonly put forth – that a person should have the right to do what one chooses with his or her own body.
And there are several other reasons as well, relating to the public health consequences of making abortion a crime: When abortion is illegal, women are forced either to obtain an illegal abortion or to have an unwanted child, whom they are usually unprepared to care for in a satisfactory manner. Illegal abortions are often performed by unqualified practitioners, under circumstances that often led to horrible infections and death. Unwanted, uncared for children often lead lives of quiet desperation or turn to crime. The resources of our planet are already stretched near to the breaking point, and continued population growth will hasten the day when that breaking point is reached, resulting in human catastrophes of unknown magnitude. Our country already contains the largest number of imprisoned persons of any country in the world, and a larger proportion of our citizens are imprisoned than of any other industrialized country in the world. Do we want to increase the proportion of our citizens who are imprisoned even further?
“Pro-choice” is not a good way, by itself, to frame a defense of abortion rightsThough the phrase “pro-choice” is the most frequent phrase used in the defense of abortion rights, I believe that it is the wrong argument to use, if used alone, either as a sound bite or as part of a reasoned argument. As a sound bite argument it encourages the stereotype that Republicans work so hard to pin on us Democrats: That we are the selfish, immoral people, who care only about our own personal choices, regardless of how immoral those choices are. That stereotype of course is beyond unfair, but I feel certain that the phrase “pro-choice” encourages it.
As a reasoned argument the term “pro-choice” is no better. Here is the way I have seen it argued on DU: “If they (i.e., “pro-lifers”) think that abortions are immoral, that’s fine with me, they don’t have to have one. But they have no right to tell me or anyone else what to do”.
The fallacy of that argument can be seen if we simply imagine the tables turned around the other way. What if we object to the practice of infanticide or child abuse and feel that there ought to be laws against these things (which I’m sure we all do), and someone says to us “If you think that these things are immoral, that’s fine with me, you don’t have to do it, but you have no right to tell me or anyone else what to do”. What would we think of that argument? Well, it’s the same argument that some of us sometimes make to defend abortion rights, only with a different subject.
My point is that this is a bad argument, regardless of the subject, and whether the conclusion is right or wrong. The reason it is a bad argument is because it does not address the central issue, as posed by the other side: That abortion is tantamount to murder. That is their main point, and if we engage in an argument with them and fail to address that one issue, regardless of how many valid points we do address, then we are just talking past each other.
The political consequencesThe Christian right is a powerful obstacle to our electoral success. (I say this even though I don’t believe that Bush won a fair election either in 2000 or 2004 – but without the Christian right he wouldn’t have even received enough votes to make the election close enough to steal IMO). It is true that there are more people in this country who are “pro-choice” than “pro-life”. But the “pro-life” people tend to be much more uniform in their voting patterns. Many of them attend church regularly and are told by their religious leaders to vote Republican, and that’s what they do, as if there was no other issue that mattered. I know people like that in my own family. Some of them are good people, though often quite ignorant (to the possibility of there being other issues on which to base their vote). All they know is that the Democrats want “killing babies” to be legal.
Our “pro-choice” line of arguing this issue has no effect on these people. In fact, it probably even inclines them more towards the Republican Party, because that kind of argument has the potential to infuriate them. And it infuriates them because it doesn’t address their main concern. They probably feel like how
we feel when Republicans use the “cut and run” phrase to characterize our desire to withdraw from Iraq. That phrase fails completely to address our central issue, which is “what good do we accomplish in Iraq if we stay, and does it outweigh the bad?”
So what arguments should we use?We should continue to use all of the arguments I mentioned in the first section of this thread, as well as any other legitimate arguments. But in addition, we must address the central concern of the “pro-lifers”. They say that abortion is tantamount to murder. We don’t see it that way. We must say that we don’t see it that way, and explain WHY we don’t see it that way. (My personal reason for believing that abortion is not murder is that I don’t believe that fetuses have thoughts or feelings, and therefore I don’t consider them to be in the same category as women, who have a lifetime of thoughts, feelings, and experience behind them. I’m sure that that will sound arrogant to some pro-lifers. However, I don’t mean to state that as an established fact, but rather as my belief. And it is that belief that allows me to weigh the rights of the pregnant woman against the life of the fetus in my considering the merits of criminalizing abortion.)
And then, after having established why we feel that abortion is not murder, we can discuss and compare what we consider to be the harmful effects (to the pregnant woman especially, and also to the unborn child and society) of criminalizing abortion against the beneficial effects of protecting the fetus that criminalization of abortion would entail.
My main point is that this issue needs to somehow be addressed. But in addition, we need to address it without showing disrespect for the opposing point of view. I emphasize this because I know that some of us feel that the main motivation of “pro-lifers” is to control the lives of other people. Undoubtedly that is true of some of them. But I’m just as certain that there are others whose main motivation in being “pro-life” is concern for the fetus. So, we if we are going to communicate with them on this issue we must assume that their beliefs are sincerely held and well intended. And by the same token, we would do well to keep in mind that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision was based on trying to strike a balance between the life of the fetus and the rights of the pregnant woman:
Referring to the 14th Amendment to our Constitution, “which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman’s qualified right to terminate her pregnancy”, the Court goes on to say:
“Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman’s health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a ‘compelling’ point at various stages of the woman’s approach to term”.
Nevertheless, no matter how tactfully we put forth our explanation as to why we feel that the pregnant woman’s rights should over-ride those of the fetus, this will be a courageous argument to make, because it opens us up to the possibility of severe criticism and hostility. But it is also a straight forward and honest argument to make in defense of a woman’s right to an abortion IMO. In the absence of such an argument a “pro-choice” type of argument evades rather than addresses the main concerns of the other side.
Will this argument convince most pro-lifers? I doubt it. But will it convince some of them? I think it will, and that just might be enough to make the difference in the next election. Since they’re not convinced by “pro-choice” type arguments, why not try something different? And perhaps, even though we will undoubtedly not convince most of them, maybe at least they’ll respect us more for being honest about it, and maybe that will help open the door to further discourse.
One more argument – which Party is really the pro-life Party?We also can, and probably should, try to co-opt the “pro-life” banner from the Republicans. “Pro-life” sounds so wholesome and so uncontroversial that one would think that only a monster could argue against it. But who is really the pro-life party?
- Leading us into an imperialistic war on false pretenses is NOT pro-life.
- Social policies that send people into poverty are NOT pro-life.
- Withholding funding for levees to prevent the loss of thousands of lives to a hurricane is NOT pro-life.
- Statutes that cause women to obtain dangerous and often lethal abortions are NOT pro-life.
And finally, since they are so concerned about abortion and life, we can ask them to consider the
role of family planning services in reducing the abortion rate, how maternal deaths decreased dramatically following the liberalization of abortion laws in the early 1970s (
page 3 of this document), and how the abortion rate declined significantly during the Clinton Presidency (
page 2 of this document).