So Congress is saturated with Republicans (so if you cooled it down, some of them would crystallize at the bottom), and Roe vs. Wade’s 30th birthday may be its last. This has been the cue for people on both sides of the abortion debate to leap to their feet and begin shrieking at each other.
I used to be firmly planted on the pro-life side. I remember the Sunday when the church bulletin came with a glossy, full-color insert featuring bloody aborted fetuses, an ultrasound of a mangled uterus and a little girl without arms. I was about seven and it gave me nightmares. But there’s only so much you can do with shock tactics and propaganda.
I grew up, and I figured out that the uterus and the little girl weren’t an argument against abortion in general, only against incompetent abortion. And I don’t know of anyone who’s in favor of that. As for the fetuses – well, that’s where things turn grayer. So gray, in fact, that I can’t make up my mind. The problem with the abortion debate is that each side has a lot to recommend it and even more to condemn it.
Take the pro-life camp. (Actually, let’s call them the anti-abortion camp, because it’s not as if the other side is opposed to life.) On one hand, their position is the safer of the two; since we can’t ascertain whether or not embryos are people, we’d better assume they are and not hurt them. And it’s the compassionate thing to want everyone who could possibly be born to get that chance. Certainly. On the other hand, how about some compassion for people who have already been born? If your aim is to love and preserve life, you don’t go around blowing up doctors. You don’t wave bloody signs in a woman’s face as she walks into a clinic to have a procedure she already dreads and feels guilty about, and you don’t call her a murdering whore.
Of course, most people with anti-abortion views really don’t do those things. But they do often hold other, corresponding but contradictory views — for instance, that sex education should boil down to “Figure it out on your wedding night.” They don’t seem to realize that people, even perfectly nice people with full sets of morals, sometimes have premarital sex. And it’s possible to figure out sex without a lot of diagrams, but birth control isn’t quite so intuitive. I would think, personally, that if you don’t want people to have abortions, you should begin by helping them not to get pregnant.
The pro-choice side (not that the other side is opposed to all kinds of choices) of the debate has a good point as well. Shouldn’t women have control over their own bodies? Historically, they mostly haven’t; that’s one of the key parts of second-class status. As we move toward a society of gender equality, that should change, and has, and is. The pro-choice side also takes a more practical view than the anti-abortion side does. They recognize that people, even smart people, have stupid sex, and that birth control can fail no matter how careful you are. Having an unplanned pregnancy isn’t synonymous with being a welfare-cheating crack whore with an 85 IQ and no teeth. But pregnancy can cancel your education, destroy your career, suck up all your money and chain you to a guy you maybe wish you’d never let near you. If this can be prevented, shouldn’t it be?
Holding pro-choice views does not equate to being gung-ho for abortion. It’s a fairly moderate stance, really. I’ve never heard anyone say, “I can’t wait until I’m old enough to have an abortion!” or “My first abortion was so great, I’m going back for more!” The women I know who have had abortions are glad they didn’t have to stay pregnant, but they don’t exactly recommend the experience to all their friends. It’s a matter of necessity, not enjoyment. But shouldn’t control over your own body mean control over only your own body? We’re allowed to flail our arms around, but not if that means breaking someone’s nose. If your body decides to grab someone else’s body and stuff it in the trunk of your car and drive to New Orleans, you’ll be charged with kidnapping. So by the same token, shouldn’t you have to respect the rights of your fetus, just in case it’s already a person? I don’t know. I like babies, but just the thought of getting pregnant by accident gives me the cold pricklies. I want to say I respect human life, born or unborn, but then my liberal politics jump in. The fact is that I would probably have an abortion. But then feel terrible about it.
Both sides have their arguments and both have their drawbacks. It all comes down to which ideal you want to prevail — human rights or human rights. How can you choose? I can’t. Maybe abortion shouldn’t be a political issue. It’s so personal that using it as part of a platform seems like exploitation, especially at a time when the majority of politicians are men. At its root, abortion has to do with people in less-than-optimal situations making a really difficult choice, and I don’t see how anyone can take a rigid, across-the-board stance on that.
Jackie May ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in English.
