Going There - Part II

An intractable disagreement? A friend of mine observed that the abortion debate mirrors the fundamental differences between the left and the right.  In his words: "the left is often vague for fear of being too restrictive, or to provide flexibility. the right seems more comfortable with absolutes. left = life begins at some point...not sure when to exactly define it, but the mother's health and choice in the matter is important. the right = life begins at conception...don't kill babies."  I agree with his analysis of the issue.  

What we call the "left" and the "right" have very different positions on abortion, but even more revealing is the fact that we pay attention to these positions and discuss the issue of abortion in terms of these positions, which each define themselves as victims of the evil actions of the other side.

The point of my last post on this topic, which I don't think is controversial in any way, was that turning abortion into a political issue privileges winning the debate over the decision to get an abortion itself: rhetoric takes center stage, and real, soul-searching analysis of the individual moral conundrum is forgotten.

Case in point: Salon recently published an anonymous account of an abortion.  Here I have quoted extensively:

Last month, while President Obama quietly signed an executive order reaffirming that no federal funds can be used for abortion, I was alone in bed, waking from a fitful, 18-hour sleep, if you can even call it that. There were dried and fresh tears on my face. I was wearing a Maxi-pad that felt like a diaper and was spotted with blood. My breasts were swollen, painful to the touch. The sharp cramps in my uterus were crippling and unrelenting. I was nauseated, dry-heaving despite an empty stomach, nearly incapable of taking the medication and antibiotics necessary to quell the pain and stave off infection.

The day before, on Tuesday, March 23, I had an abortion.

The procedure was not cheap, $450. A financially devastating sum for a freelance writer whose earning potential has been decimated by bloggers and budget cuts. I have health insurance. It's egregiously expensive, all that I can afford, with a high deductible that renders the plan useless unless I get hit by a bus. Filing for reimbursement was not an option.

If this was just about money then perhaps I could set aside my frustration, anger, sadness and resentment over the ban in the name of compromise and a long-overdue, desperately needed overhaul of our nation's healthcare system. I imagine this is how President Obama, who campaigned as a pro-choice president, rationalized his signature. But this is not just about money. It's about becoming a concession in a public and political debate that was, and continues to be, devoid of the inherently private physical and emotional realities of having an abortion.

Not long ago, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced that April was "Abortion Recovery" month. Abortion recovery: What the hell does he know about that?...

...Now, weeks into my recovery process -- I’m still bleeding, cramping, underweight, emotional, grappling with my need for children and a partner with whom to raise them -- I see my experience grossly manipulated by Pawlenty, a man who doesn’t, can’t, know how I feel. But it’s always like this, the moralists and proselytizers stealing the microphone because I, and millions of other women, didn’t make the choice they prescribed.

Just as no one wants to get the flu, diabetes or even cancer -- though people still leave their homes, eat junk food, and smoke -- no woman wants to experience an unplanned pregnancy. But it happens. Each year, almost half of all pregnancies among American women are unintended. When I was pregnant, I'd never before so desperately needed affordable healthcare and services, often two very different things. And I'd never felt more like I didn't deserve them. But when it comes to our health, who deserves what isn't, or at least shouldn't be, the point.

But who deserves what is almost never the point: doctors see disease as an effect to be eliminated regardless of its source: HIV patients are treated the same whether they contracted the disease through an involuntary blood transfusion or a cocktail of anal sex and intravenous drug use.  (I guess one exception to this generalized neutrality of care may be the fact that we don't give liver transplants to alcoholics, but that's another post.)  Nevertheless, pregnancy is not disease.  The idea that abortion is just like any other medical procedure is disingenuous and incoherent.

Like most anonymous editorials, this one traffics in sensationalism, straw-man arguments, grand generalizations. and baseless rhetoric.  The author creates imaginary enemies, blaming "society" for the consequences of her personal decision to engage in casual sex with a friend.  She demands that her personal right to get an abortion be respected, but she fails to take seriously the responsibilities that come with those very rights.  She fails to see the decision to get an abortion as a burden.  She exploits it for political points.

Anonymous attributes the cold disgust shown by her friends to their being either brainwashed by motherhood or barren and jealous.  She whines that Texas's "Right to Know" laws make her decision more difficult, when it should be easy.  The author's enmity is focused on the twisted mechanisms of Fate that have bequeathed her myriad manifestations of physical pain and verbal antagonists of the parking lot protester variety.  She represses any feelings of guilt by foisting blame onto the shoulders of second-rate, misogynist politicians psychologically torturing her from thousands of miles away.  

Legally, we have been very libertarian with abortion; in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court transfered the right of choice from state legislatures to individuals.  With the new healthcare bill, the Obama Administration is merely not mandating that those opposed to what they see as murder pay for it with their tax-dollars; the administration's stance is totally consistent with the libertarian understanding of abortion articulated in Roe v. Wade: your choice, your responsibility.

Nevertheless, morally, it may behoove us to be more prudent.  Joe discussed in a previous post how future generations may judge us barbaric for eating meat.  I think the same applies to our allowing so many poorly-justified abortions to get through because we were too busy playing political games to really examine the issue deeply.  I think at the very least, some national restrictions on abortion are warranted.  Is it reasonable that someone cannot make a decision before 28 weeks, when the fetus becomes viable?  Is there not enough time in the first trimester to conclude whether or not one can raise a child?  And shouldn't we encourage educated decision-making by informing patients of all the details of prenatal development?

We may not be able to be "pro-choice" and "pro-life" at the same time, but we can probably be more "pro-life" without being any less "pro-choice".  We can be open, honest, and non-judgmental; we can allow for individual choice and promote safety, while simultaneously striving towards a society where doing the right thing is all that matters.  

Those who are "pro-choice" must realize that abortion rights are protected by the U.S. government, protesters and moralizing politicians do not legally threaten a woman's right to choose, laws mandating informed decision-making are not to be disparaged, but praised, and an abortion is not a simple medical procedure, but an agonizing moral conundrum.

Those who are "pro-life" must acknowledge that a lack of access to safe facilities means back-alley, coat-hanger abortions, and no one wants that.  If life truly begins at conception, each abortion counts.  Those two realities mean that pro-lifers need to switch focus from trying to stop all abortions to trying to significantly reduce the overall number of abortions.  The clear way to do this is through widespread use of multiple forms of birth control and telling kids the cold, hard truth about life and sex.