Issues that Divide Us #4: Abortion

Last year, as some of you may remember, I posted a series of essays about issues that divide us as a nation. During that time, I tried to examine the problems of gun control, drugs and health care. I will provide links to those articles on the side, but, for now, let me go ahead with the fourth one in the series, which, frankly, I was and still am quite apprehensive about tackling, because it is probably the most volatile issue of all: abortion.

The reason I have decided to finally examine the issue stems from the heated and hate-filled debate about the matter that arose with the new health care legislation. The focal point of that vitriol was a congressman from Michigan's First Congressional District, named Bart Stupak.

Poor Mr. Stupak gained a lot of unwanted attention when he insisted that the pending health care legislation specifically contained language that prohibited federal funding for abortions. Stupak stated-and he was probably being truthful-that he spoke for about fifteen other Democrats who felt the same way.

If you have been following the story of the healthcare debate, you know what finally happened. Stupak and his followers finally agreed to keep the anti-abortion funding language out of the bill itself, in return for President Obama signing an executive order banning federal funding for that procedure.

As a result, Nancy Keenen of NARAL has assailed Stupak for being "anti-choice" and has urged her followers to support Connie Saltonstall, a pro-choice Democrat, who plans to run against him in the primary. At the same time, pro-life people consider him to have sold out to the baby killers, which is precisely what some of them have called the congressman. They believe that Mr. Obama's executive order does not carry the same force that the explicit language they wanted in the legislation would have carried, hence Stupak's keen interest in aborted fetuses. A rabidly anti-choice Republican, Dr. Dan Benishek, is getting set to run against the incumbent, largely for his acceptance of the compromise that enabled the health care bill to pass. By the way, do not think for one moment that the bill would have passed with the tough anti-abortion language that the right-to-lifers wanted.

Still, I do not want this to be an essay about Bart Stupak or even about health care reform. I want to take the long view of the entire vexing question of abortion. I will look at it from its two most important aspects: funding and legalization.

Funding

To my way of thinking, this issue is quite simple. There are a great many people in this nation who believe, rightly or wrongly, that all abortion is wrong. No government, state or federal, should have the right to apply those people's tax dollars to a procedure that assails the very core of their beliefs.

Should there be exceptions? Certainly, the life of the mother should be an obvious one, because, at that level, we are not talking about abortion anymore, we are talking about saving a human life. Why can the most dogmatic opponents of the procedure not understand this? On the other hand, please keep in mind, I said the life of the mother, not the convenience or even the health of the mother. If a pregnant woman is afflicted with onset pregnancy diabetes, as a number of women are, then they must deal with it and decide to avoid future pregnancies-whatever that takes-if they do not want to deal with the problem worsening.

What about victims of rape or incest, the other commonly invoked possibility in the ongoing debate? Since this part of the essay is strictly about the funding aspect, how is this for a solution: garnishee the rapist's assets to pay for the abortion, if the victim wants one, then kick in with government money only if the perpetrator can be shown to have no assets or insufficient assets or if the criminal never gets caught. Naturally, the rapist or incestuous relative will be in for an extensive stay in the "Graybar Hotel," but that is another story. Again, I am focusing on the money here.

Remember, the momentous Supreme Court Decision Roe v. Wade only established the legality of abortion. It did not guarantee everyone who wanted one a free ride. You may argue that it is the poor who are most afflicted with unwanted pregnancies and who are least able to pay for them, but, in the days before the procedure was legal, they often found a way to get the job done illegally and far more dangerously. What is more, I am sure there are any number of social service organizations that could step in and help in the event of dire poverty.

Legalization

Okay, I want to say, right off the bat, let's stop trying to reverse Roe v. Wade. Not only is it the law of the land, it is a sensible and compassionate decision. As I indicated above, abortion was not non-existent before the 1973 decision. There were plenty of them performed throughout our nation and, because of the illegality, we can only imagine how many women senselessly died in botched, unsanitary "back-alley" abortions. The most prudish people in our society surely believe that the unmarried pregnant woman (or girl) deserves to be punished, not only for her "promiscuity," but for her wanting to terminate the pregnancy, but isn't death a bit radical?

And, yes, I agree with the position of NARAL (and many others) that a woman's body is hers to control and determine, up to a point. There is reasonable ground for compromise, if the warring parties would ever consider such a concept, which is highly doubtful, at least as of now.

In an attempt to magnify the horror of it, pro-lifers call it "partial-birth abortion." In an attempt to soft-peddle it, the pro-choice group calls it "late-term abortion. Call it what you will, the procedure is WRONG, and, yes, it does amount to murder. I am talking about aborting a fetus in the third trimester of a pregnancy. By that time, the entity inside the mother has taken significant steps toward becoming a human being.

What is more, there is simply no excuse for it, other than-again-if the mother's very life becomes at risk. If you did not want the baby, you should have made that decision-even if you got raped-long before the third trimester, while the being you are carrying is but a small, ill-defined conglomeration of cells.

That said, a women who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy should be free to end it promptly, if that is her choice. Of course, the opponents of abortion will strenuously argue that "life" begins with the very onset of pregnancy, but, if you buy that argument, then we are right back where we started. My solution is to allow for abortion-on-demand during the first trimester, for sure.

Frankly, I am not sure what seems a fair solution for the second trimester. I would like to see an honest and reasoned debate on that issue, if I thought there were any chance of that happening. As I typed that last sentence, I got this image of winged pigs flying through the air. If I had to come down one way or the other on the question, I would err on the side of least government repression and allow the procedure.

Finally, what about the situation of underage girls who get pregnant and want an abortion? Should parental permission or even notification be mandated? It is an unfortunate fact of nature that homo sapiens is not a prodigal animal, the way a puppy or a colt is. In most species, the newborns reach sufficient maturity to fend for themselves very quickly, which is typically necessary for their survival and the survival of the species. Our species is not built that way. A year-old puppy is a dog. A year-old child is still a child, and so is a fourteen-year-old. Unfortunately, girls obtain the ability to get pregnant many years before their maturity, even allowing for the pattern that girls tend to mature more quickly than boys.

I do not want to seem like I am copping out, but this is one part of the issue I would let the states decide. South Carolina's views on the subject should not be imposed on New York, nor should New York's be imposed on South Carolina. That said, any jurisdiction that wants to give the parents of a pregnant child that much power must realize, along with the power, must come responsibility. .Of course, we see that quite a bit in our society. I wonder how many people are raising their grandchildren as though they were their own children, because the mother was unable to handle the chore, for one reason or another.

One final note I would like to add: if our society is going to pretend that sex out of wedlock does not exist-particularly among young people-then the problem of abortion is going to be even more widespread than it has to be. To my fellow citizens on the right portion of the spectrum I would say, get off the backs of Planned Parenthood and anyone else who tries to preach the virtues of safe sex. Yes, you and your church should have your turn in the debate, to preach the virtues of abstinence to your children, but you need to face up to the fact that not everybody is going to buy your product. And death from a botched abortion, performed by some unqualified quack, is not a fate that your child, or anyone else's, deserves to meet.

Sources

NARAL, Pro-Choice America

Wikipedia

bostonherald.com