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A cousin of mine commented on a Facebook posting I made by saying how horrible it would be if health insurance reform led to more abortions (or, as he put it, the “killing of innocent babies”). I explained to him that federal law already prohibits the use of taxpayer money for abortions. I also told him that I understand why some people want abortion to be made illegal, but that doing so would cause far more harm than good.
At some point, he referred to women who have abortions because they “want to have their cake and eat it, too” and also skirted the question about how to enforce the ban he seeks. He agreed (generously, from his point of view) that prison terms would not be an appropriate punishment for women who have abortions. But he did not say what would be appropriate. Bwlow is the text of my final two responses to him:
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The circumstances vary greatly. Abortion is one of those things where seemingly simple principles conflict with the messy reality of real life.
--What do you really want to do when a 14-year-old is impregnated by an uncle who molested her?
--What should be done for a woman in the 4th month of pregnancy who finds out she has an aggressive cancer and needs radiation and chemo? What if that woman has other children at home who need her?
--In some places, women can’t get late-term abortions even if the fetus has died. What about those situations?
--In some very rare cases, it is determined that a fetus cannot survive outside the womb and completing the pregnancy could put the mother at risk. What do you do then?
It’s true that those situations do not represent the vast majority of abortions. But, I would not assume that women generally take abortion lightly or just “want to have their cake and eat it, too.” That is very unfair. I think the best way to reduce (or eliminate) abortion would be to be more compassionate to and supportive to women in a tough situation, not less.
Another thing: I really do think that people who want abortion outlawed need to think through how such a law would be enforced. If there really would be no penalty for women who break that law, then what would be the point?
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Another thing about abortion that is tricky when you think it through: Roe v. Wade – which I am sure you abhor – really was never intended to pass judgment on the moral rightness or wrongness of abortion.
In Roe v. Wade, the court dealt only with when the government could get involved with regulating abortion. On that score, the Supreme Court tried to thread the needle by defining when the state has a legitimate interest at stake.
The justices could have said that the government’s interest begins when citizenship begins – at birth. They also could have decided that every human blastocyst is entitled the same Constitutional rights as, say, a 10-year-old child.
As a practical matter, neither of those positions would have been easy to back up in law or public policy. So, the court decided to set the beginning of “state interest” at viability outside the womb. Before that, the issue would be in the hands of women, their doctors, their families and their religious convictions.
Like it or not, that is the state of the law now. I do not think it will change any time soon, or that there really is a better alternative available that would work in the real world. I understand why people don't like that. But it is what it is. I think the pro-life movement wastes its energy and moral authority when it concentrates on criminalization as the "solution" to the problem of abortion.
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