Pro-life
It is a commonly held belief
on the Left that the Right is all for rights for fetuses but once it is
actually a baby, they could care less.
And unfortunately, this view is fairly accurate. Conservatives want to outlaw abortion in all
cases, even rape and incest, and even to save the life of the mother. However, at the same time, they actively
pursue policies that guarantee the perpetuation of abortion, by absolutely
refusing to consider anything that would actually reduce the need for the procedure.
So, in light of the Hobby
Lobby decision, which goes back to one of the specific root causes of abortion,
I am writing this to call out the Right on it's hypocrisy. If they want to actually limit the number of
abortions, they need to begin to change positions on a number of things.
Before I continue, though, I
just want to dispel one common myth, that women use abortion as birth control
and that they do it lightly. I have
known a number of women who have had to have an abortion, and was one of the
hardest decisions any of them ever made.
It is not something they did quickly, or without anguish. However, in all of their cases, it was
necessary, and they deserved to be treated respectfully for having to do what
they did. And in this, it is time to
stop shaming women who chose to have an abortion. It is their decision, and no one has a right
to criticize or second guess them.
Period, end of story.
Also, we need to accept that
abortion will always be a necessity.
When a woman is raped, she should not be forced to bear her rapist's
baby. If she chooses to, from her own
belief system, that is also her decision.
But that must be her decision and hers alone. To do otherwise is to essentially state that
she was complicit in her own victimization, and that is absolutely
unacceptable. No woman (or man for that
matter) deserves to be raped.
Also, when the woman's life
is in danger, she should not be forced to continue a pregnancy that could kill
her. Many times, when a mother's life is
threatened by a pregnancy, the fetus will not carry to term, or will suffer
profound disability. To forbid an
abortion in this situation makes a clear statement that a woman's value is in
her status as a walking womb. No woman
should have to face her own death just for
the possibility of giving birth.
Accepting that these types
of abortions will always be a necessity, what could be done to reduce the
others that don't fall into these categories?
First, we need to understand what situations cause the majority of abortions.
1) Unplanned Pregnancy
2) Financial instability
3) A defective fetus (sorry to be so inconsiderate here,
but I can't think of any
other way to describe this that isn't blunt)
Often, it isn't even just
one of these factors, often two or all three apply. Like I said earlier, abortion is not
something that isn't an anguishing decision for a woman, and often it takes
several factors to put a woman in a spot where she chooses to terminate a
pregnancy.
So how do you reduce the
need for abortion? Mitigate the
circumstances that force it as the only rational choice.
First, make pregnancy
something that is always a decision and never an occurrence. This is where the Hobby Lobby decision really
screws up. In fact, I have seen a number
of Right Wing bloggers say that contraception allows for consequence free sex,
as if a baby was a punishment. This
attitude that if you screw around, you deserve to get pregnant is one of the
most anti-child and anti-woman things I have ever heard. Babies should always be a choice, never
something imposed on you. A baby in
certain situation is basically an 18 year prison sentence that can ruin one (or
two) people's lives. I absolutely respect
people who have an unplanned pregnancy and chose to have the baby, but that is
their decision, no one forces them to.
However, outlawing abortion would turn an unplanned pregnancy into a
prison sentence.
To mitigate this, two things
are needed. First easy and unrestricted
access to effective and reliable contraception.
In all cases, at any age. Coupled
with that is the need for detailed and scientifically accurate sexual education
that begins when people can potentially reproduce. I know this will enflame a lot of people, but
it is a simple fact.
We have artificially extended
childhood for at least a decade beyond sexual maturity, and then expected
children to abstain from their biological urges. The human body is at it's most fertile, and
the sex drive is at it's strongest in the late teens, yet we expect our
adolescents to ignore all of those urges.
We compound that by making masturbation equally sinful, so they can't
even get relief that way.
This goes against biological
law and historic traditions. Until the
last century or two, a woman was of marriageable age as soon as she began to
have her period. This changed in the
Victorian Period, but then, they fought it by depicting sex as terribly
unpleasant and a duty that a woman must submit to. This worked then, but now the cat is out of
the bag, teenagers today know sex is fun and feels good. Pandora's box is open. (I'm sorry I couldn't resist)
Therefore, the only way to
combat teenage, and actually any unplanned
pregnancy is to give people proper sex ed and to make sure that they can
obtain contraception without shame or judgment.
The reality is that they will have sex regardless, but at least we can
make it safe.
This is in direct conflict
with the Right's view that STD's and Pregnancy are punishment for sex outside
of marriage. If they were truly serious
about reducing the number of abortions, they would be insisting that everyone
have access to proper knowledge.
The second reason for
abortion is that the parents cannot afford to raise a baby in their current
financial situation. This could be
easily changed with a whole host of "Liberal" solutions that are dead
on arrival.
First, there is the student
loan problem. Many adults are delaying
or even forgoing having children because of their debt from college. The latest numbers indicate that people with
a high debt burden delay both children
and house purchases until they are well into their thirties just because of the
crushing burden of student loans. Returning to low cost or even free higher
education would dramatically reduce the financial encumbrances that make people
unwilling to start families.
Second, we need to be able
to have people support families on one income, or provide a long term, paid
family leave. This would allow a parent
(mother OR father) to remain home with the baby for that critical first year. The United States
Third, we need to provide
free daycare for all children above the age when paid family leave ends, say
one year old. This would allow parents
to return to work and not have to work just to pay for day care. I have one friend who quit her job after
realizing that her family would actually have more money if she didn't work and
didn't have to pay for a daycare. Combine
this with vigorous after school and summer programs for kids and you remove a
huge financial burden.
And before you claim that
you are shifting burdens from individuals to society, and the taxpayer is
subsidizing the children, realize we already do that with welfare, food stamps
and other social safety net programs.
This is just a more pro-active and dignified way to provide the help.
Finally, there is the issue
of the health of the child, and how much it costs to care for and raise a
disable child. Also, how much of a
grinding burden it is. These are also
easy issues to solve. Universal, single
payer health care, that has no lifetime limits or throws the bulk of the care
burden onto the parents would ameliorate this problem. If a national insurance
program provided in-home and lifetime care for a disabled child, there would be
less reason to abort.
Right now, many parents with
handicapped children fear what will happen to their child when they die. That is a very valid concern. They can make sure their offspring is well
cared for while they are healthy and functioning, but what happens after the
parents are gone. Sometimes siblings or
other family will step up, but often the reality is that they know when they
are gone, their child will know nothing but suffering in some sort of nursing
home. I would not want to sentence a
child to that future, and that is a very responsible attitude.
So, in the end, you can
embrace a suite of Liberal Social programs that would drastically reduce abortion,
or you can try to force people to have children they don't want or can't care
for. And before you claim, just put them
up for adoption, remember, there are far more children in foster care than
there are forever homes for them, and very few people want to take on a
handicapped child. Also, unfortunately,
many people don't want to adopt outside of their race, or at least adopt African
American babies. Instead they adopt from
Eastern Europe , and the brown American babies languish in foster
care. I hate to be this blunt, but it is
a sad fact.
Basically, my challenge to
the Anti-Abortion crowd is put up or shut up.
Be actually Pro-Life, for the entirety of the child's life, or remain
simply Pro-Fetus, and acknowledge that you could care less about actual babies,
you only care about an abstract
idea. Believe me, if God is actually
Pro-Life, He does not stop caring once the baby is born, unlike a lot of people
in this country.
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