Posted on 02/02/2003 6:22:36 AM PST by madprof98
The story of abortion in America struck a familiar note as the nation marked the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. We've heard this sound track before: Impassioned protests, hysterical fund-raising, stern warnings, and the stampede of politicians to the spotlight. Those on the front lines were propelled by extreme righteousness; those on the sidelines watched with apathy or disgust.
It made me, once again, yearn for another way, a Third Path, an alternative to the yelling and demonizing that characterizes most public speech on this vexing issue. Something that takes advantage of what we've learned in the last three decades and maps out where we need to go.
Seeking some kind of common ground on abortion, unfortunately, is even less popular than it was a few years ago. In fact, the Washington-based Common Ground Network for Life and Choice, which in the 1990s supported dialogue between pro-life and pro-choice individuals, disbanded for lack of funding. The Philadelphia-area dialogue, which I had the privilege of twice attending, has gone on an indefinite hiatus.
The noble Abortion Reduction Task Force of U.S. Rep. James Greenwood, R-Pa., has not met since 2000. There's a dialogue in Boston, and one in Iowa; if anything else is happening to bridge this divide, it escapes notice.
Yet the impasse in American public opinion and policy is likely to last, especially when abortion is framed as a stark win-lose situation. My gain is your loss. Back to the barricades.
I'd like to change the story line. I propose a different kind of abortion conversation, recognizing the dignity of both sides and asking for major compromises from each. The locked-in-battle extremists won't like this, of course, but I'm willing to bet that there are enough Americans in the mushy middle, eager to carve out a third way.
I ask pro-lifers to begin by acknowledging that even devout men and women can believe that life begins at birth, not conception. In the making of public policy, it is men and women, not God, who take sides. No one faith, no one reading of any one sacred text, can be allowed to commandeer the process. Every biblical quote opposing abortion is open to an alternative interpretation. Besides, even many abortion opponents will make exceptions in cases of rape or the mother's health - a tacit recognition that pregnancy is a balancing act of competing rights and interests, not simply a way station between conception and death.
I ask pro-choicers to begin by acknowledging that abortion is about more than protecting a woman's total right to determine her reproductive destiny. There is a developing human being involved - and whether you call it a fetus or an unborn child, it has a role in this drama. It's not a bit player or an inconvenience. The absolutist language of unfettered rights has left no room for talk of responsibilities. That has got to change.
I ask both camps to accept that there is a life developing in the womb during pregnancy - but it is not analogous to anything else in human experience. To treat a fetus as a disposable product defiles the sacredness of the life it is becoming. But to consider it a fully formed human being defies what we know about gestation: that the life in the womb is highly dependent on the mother, especially in the early months of pregnancy, and that not even modern technology can push back the immutable point of viability. Our very notion of being "alive," moreover, is based on the moment we are born.
I wish that pro-lifers would realize that their stealth attempts to limit access to abortion - the waiting periods and judicial decrees, the mandatory counseling sessions and parental notifications - are demeaning and manipulative. These efforts infantilize women at the very moment when those women are being asked to do the most grown-up thing in their lives - take perpetual responsibility for another human being. Can't they be free to make a decision on their own?
At the same time, I wish that pro-choicers would understand that three decades of legalized abortion has contributed to a culture that has decoupled child-rearing from marriage and allowed too many fathers to absent themselves from their children's lives. Abortion may have liberated women from forced reproduction, but it also liberated men from accepting responsibility for their sexual actions. As a result, too many children are growing up without benefit of both parents - and with several strikes against them before they enter the rugged arena of adulthood.
Instead, I wish that both groups would work together to persuade teenagers to postpone sexual activity, to safeguard themselves if they are sexually active, and to teach them that marriage is the very best institution for raising children. That would not only reduce the need for abortion but also improve the lives of children already with us.
Another point of compromise: Acknowledge that abortion has left lasting scars on some women - but not all. For all the anecdotes we hear of regret and remorse from women who once aborted, we'll never know what life would have been like for them had they been forced to bear that child.
There are plenty of opportunities for both sides to work together to reduce the numbers of abortions: provide comprehensive sex education, including abstinence; make adoption more readily available; help strengthen and support individual marriages and the institution of marriage itself. It would help if the nation's leaders, particularly the president, would hold their actions up to public scrutiny and debate, and not seek to overturn decades of policy by quiet fiat.
Common ground is built on mutual respect. After three decades of polarization, aren't you ready for a different conversation?
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Jane R. Eisner is a columnist for Philadelphia Inquirer. Readers may write to her at: Philadelphia Inquirer, P.O. Box 8263, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101, or by e-mail at jeisner@phillynews.com.
There is way that you can compromise with murder or murderers.
Not bible-reading ones.
Every biblical quote opposing abortion is open to an alternative interpretation.
Somebody's in denial.
I ask pro-lifers to begin by acknowledging that even devout men and women can believe that life begins at birth, not conception. In the making of public policy, it is men and women, not God, who take sides. No one faith, no one reading of any one sacred text, can be allowed to commandeer the process. Every biblical quote opposing abortion is open to an alternative interpretation. Besides, even many abortion opponents will make exceptions in cases of rape or the mother's health - a tacit recognition that pregnancy is a balancing act of competing rights and interests, not simply a way station between conception and death.
I agree that devout men and women can look at the religious texts and come to different conclusions. I spent years in church hearing anti-abortion rhetoric, and I never really believed that the Scriptural case against abortion was that strong. I certainly didn't believe that it justified passing a law. However, the religious arguments are only part of the issue. I was persuaded that the unborn child is a person by a pro-abortion woman who told stories of her own child remembering things from within the womb. It struck me that one doesn't build memories from a time when one is not a person.
As I follow the biological evidence backwards, I still don't come to legal protection beginning at the moment of conception. In that sense, I even agree with the writer's later assertions that pregnancy isn't quite like any other situation. However, I do believe that by the time a woman can know that she is pregnant, the child within her deserves legal protection from unjustifiable homicide.
The idea of justifiable homicide brings us to the final sentence in this paragraph. There are opponents of legalized abortion who support a rape exception to a ban on abortion. I am one of those people. The rape exception is based on the idea that justice is not served by putting a rape victim in jail for refusing to carry the child forced on her by rape. A citizen in this country can't be forced to give blood for a transfusion even if the recipient will die without the transfusion. We don't have that kind of claim to one another's lives, so a rapist cannot force his victim to support the baby that he forces on her. However, this situation is completely different from the one where the baby came into existance as a result of the mother's choices.
The mother's life exception should be even more obvious. If the pregnancy is likely to kill the mother, it is also likely to kill the unborn child. Reasonable pro-lifers are not going to support having two deaths when an abortion could have prevented one of those deaths. I can't support the assertion that I'm about to make with hard data, and people are free not to believe. However, my impression has been that most deaths during pregnancy come from things that happen very early, such as tubal pregnancies, or things that happen during the delivery. Fixing the early problems is still difficult, but these babies had little chance anyway. We have made great progress in emergency procedures to reduce the risk of the mother's death during the delivery.
Another paragraph deserves particular notice. It is:
I wish that pro-lifers would realize that their stealth attempts to limit access to abortion - the waiting periods and judicial decrees, the mandatory counseling sessions and parental notifications - are demeaning and manipulative. These efforts infantilize women at the very moment when those women are being asked to do the most grown-up thing in their lives - take perpetual responsibility for another human being. Can't they be free to make a decision on their own?
In some cases, I agree that laws designed simply to harass women making this choice are bad laws. I don't support waiting periods for anything. Mandatory counseling isn't my favorite idea either, but many aspects of medical treatment require that doctors outline alternatives. If we have those laws for other operations, abortion shouldn't be any different. Where the writer loses her credibility on the whole paragraph is her criticism of parental notification. In this country, parents are responsible for their children's decisions until those children reach the age of 18. If the child is having an abortion, the parents need to know. Trying to paint these laws as unjustified meddling is ridiculous.
Summary and Other Points
Abortion is an issue that defies a real middle ground. The middle ground between killing an innocent person and not killing an innocent person is pretty thin [/rhetorical understatment]. I agree that a politician who could successfully stake out a middle ground would be very popular with most Americans, but that middle ground just doesn't exist for this issue.
The issue revolves around whether the unborn child is a person. I think most proponents of legalized abortion really don't see the unborn child as a person. (I know that some Freepers disagree with me on this point, and I respect their arguments.) I think that if they came to realize that the unborn child is a person, then they would oppose legalized abortion. Likewise, I think many of us who oppose legalized abortion would change our minds if something could convince us that the unborn child is not a person. Therefore, the real exchange that needs to occur is an exchange of information leading to the settling of this question. Unfortunately, the writer of this article fails to address this information.
Finally, there is some middle ground in the sense of alternatives to abortion. There are volunteers in crisis pregnancy centers all across America who are working to help women through crisis pregnancies. In many of these centers, there is no talk of legal consequences or "baby killing" rhetoric. Instead, there is real help for women who are willing not to make a terrible decision.
Abortion - Not About Sex
The Exceptions - A Mother’s Life
The Exceptions - Rape
The Rape Exception - More Arguments and Answers
Bill
If God wanted, He could end evil today with a single word. To some extent, He makes a compromise with evil every day that mankind is allowed to continue living. Can you explain your point a little more clearly?
Well, of course. What other eisegesis would one expect from a child of the postmodernist, deconstructionist era?
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