Why We Need Abortion

When I was twenty three years old, I had an affair with a married woman and she became pregnant. We discovered this shortly after I ended the relationship.

At the time, I was still married myself, though my wife was living thousands of miles away and was well on her way to securing her next husband.

She and I agreed that the best choice we could make for both of our families and the rest of our lives was to terminate the pregnancy. I called my father and asked for the money, we went to visit a clinic, and we tried to get on with our lives.

The things they say are true. You keep thinking back to that decision, wondering if maybe things could have worked out for the best some other way. We got back together once both of our marriages were completely finished, and for the first year or so she would bring it up every once in a while when feeling morose.

I still think that we made the best possible decision at the time, and that's why I'm writing this.

The desire to have children is one of the single strongest biological urges we are provided with. If you are of a Christian persuasion, you understand that God's first command to the life he created was "Go forth and multiply." It doesn't get much stronger than that. When a woman feels strongly enough to go against that deeply ingrained psychological compulsion and terminate the reproductive process, man's law has little to compel compliance. For that reason, I believe emphatically that abortion needs to remain legal, safe, and accessible in the United States of America.

In 1932, estimates of death related to illegal abortions range from 5,000 to 15000. If you consider the fetus, those numbers double. This is an estimated 14% of all deaths related to maternity at that time.

In 1998, the latest year for which the CDC has data, 14 women died of complications arising from legally induced abortions.

Unfortunately, no reliable figures are available for the number of illegal abortions performed in 1932. We do know that in 1998 the number of deaths related to complications arising from legal abortions is less than 1 in 100,000, or 0.001%. If the number of deaths in 1932 was 5,000, and we assume a similar rate of death, that would imply that over 5 billion women received illegal abortions in 1932.

As the population of the US was only 130 million at that time, I think that highly unlikely.

The mists of time shroud our vision on this subject, as very little hard data exists concerning the time in America when abortions were illegal. All we have are the stories, immortalized in movies such as "Dirty Dancing" and books such as John Irving's "The Cider House Rules", about women suffering and dying from infection, internal bleeding, poisoning, and severe trauma resulting from their attempts to terminate their pregnancies illegally.

Fortunately, at least for the purposes of this discussion, there are statistics available about the current ramifications of abortion prohibition.

An estimated 17 million illegal abortions are performed each year, worldwide. Of the 17 million women receiving those procedures, 70 thousand will die from complications. That's 0.4%, which seems like a small number, until you consider death is an outcome 400% more common than we experience in a country which allows legal abortion.

If the sanctity of life is our concern it is clear that outlawing abortion does little to preserve it.

The basic dilemma in this situation is a simple question with a very complicated answer: Which life do we value more? That of the mother, or that of the fetus?

I can't answer that question. No one can. The best we can hope to do is make sure the law is not causing more harm than it prevents.

I don't necessarily believe that abortion is right. I do believe that a woman has the right to choose her own options when it comes to her own body and life.

I started this article with a story about a child I didn't have. I'd like to end with another.

Three years ago, a close friend of my wife became pregnant. She was a young girl, unmarried, a lesbian, addicted to cocaine. She wanted to have an abortion and sought out my wife for advice.

My wife did what I wish every single person who feels strongly enough about the life and well being of the unborn to want to change the law would do.

She told her friend there was no way in hell that she would allow her to abort the baby. She took the girl into her home during the pregnancy, helped her stay off the drugs and take care of herself, and when the baby was born, she assumed full custody and responsibility for that child's future.

Next month, Christian will celebrate his third birthday. He is a happy, active, intelligent child who is deeply loved and has abundant love to return. This is a situation I would wish for every child. I can only pray that, in some small way, it makes up for the past.

While it may feel good to accomplish something, the passing of a law to ban abortion can accomplish nothing. The only effect would be to create more pain, death, and misery. If history has taught us anything, it's that laws don't solve problems, they just create criminals.

The appeal, of course, is that a law is something people can get behind and commit nothing more than some time and energy spent with like-minded people. It can be very affirming and exciting to be part of a cause. Particularly when you are operating under the false assumption something good will come of it.

If you want to stop the needless murder of unborn children, then do something. Instead of further limiting the options of desperate women who feel they have no choice, get off your ass and help someone. Adopt a child, educate a young couple, find a barren couple who is willing to adopt. Work to make adoption more widespread and accessible. Help a poor community build a place worth living in and raising children.

When we address and solve the underlying social issues that cause women to seek abortion, then we won't need laws to prevent them. In the meantime, we need accessible, safe, and legal abortion to remain available.

Recommended Reading:
1) When abortion was illegal
http://socialistworker.org/2005-2/562/562_06_Abortion.shtml
2) Abortion Surveillance, US Center For Disease Control
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5212a1.htm
3) Illegal Abortions Kill At Least 70,000 Women A Year
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/273740