I’ve been subject to a flurry of emails surrounding the recent opening of a “women’s health” clinic in Livingston, Montana. It’s an abortion clinic. I get that. The people sending me the emails are acquaintances who I know through a relative, and their concern is heartfelt. They are among those picketing the clinic.
I have had many go-rounds with these folks. They are all devout Christians. I mean that sincerely – their faith is as much a part of them as any saint who ever lived. So when they send me photos of aborted fetuses and tell me that I am an evil man for supporting such an awful practice as abortion, I have to take stock.
I answered one of their emails this morning, facing the subject as squarely and forcefully as I could, not wishing to indulge myself in self-absolution. This is what came out:
You folks have been a curiosity to me, focused are you are on abortion and oblivious to all of the other horrors we inflict on one another. I was once young and naive, and I believed fervently in my God and country, and was as fervently concerned about abortion. It was such a horror – me the father of five, I could not imagine such a practice.
What changed? Why do I now “favor” abortion? I don’t. I hate it. I think it is ugly. But I’ve learned a thing or two about life, and one of those things is that we are often confronted with ugly choices. And with abortion, most times it is an early-pregnancy procedure that frees a young woman to pursue a productive life. Late-term abortions, which is what those awful pictures we see are about, are horrible, and I cannot bear to see them.
Contrast this, say, with my country, which I loved and believed in, and its “choice” to kill three million Vietnamese by the most horrible means imaginable – half a million Cambodians and Laotians. My country supplied the list of names so General Suharato could kill his millions of his own Indonesian citizens. See how my country recently made a similar “choice” to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, again by horrible means. See how over two million Iraqis had to flee their country because my country made life so horrible it was their best option.
I try now and then to help you see how big the crimes are around us, and what I get is something like “it is a lie”, it is unavoidable”, “the good outweighs the bad”, and other such self-delusions. You so willingly and easily accept evil when done by your country that I conclude that you are part of it, and therefore think your caterwauling about abortion to be insincere.
What has this to do with abortion? Nothing, and everything. I am inured to the rough edges of life, I see how ugly humans are to one another, and how humans justify it all and say it is noble and good. I see hypocrisy all around me, masked in saintliness. Jill [name changed] has repeatedly tried to get Jack [ditto] to face death in Iraq and contrast it with death by abortion – to no avail. Jack prefers to be a saint on the one hand, and a blind man with a cane on the other.
So, how do I feel about abortion? I let it be. It will go on, no matter what. Always has, always will. I cannot dictate the lives of others. I live with those choices, ugly though they may be. I leave you to your picketing with the reminder that you and your country are involved in far greater crimes, and suggest you stop ignoring that part of life too. Were I to think you genuine in your heartfelt concerns, I might also find you carrying signs and protesting the Iraq war, but you don’t do that. That part of death and destruction and horrible killing you seem to accept with glee.
There it is – I cannot stand abortion. I think the euphemism “choice” is meant to mask something that is very ugly. It’s another way of saying “collateral damage”. I am part of life, and not above it. I accept without judgment mothers who abort their fetuses as being human, as am I. Can I ever forgive my country in a similar manner? I seem to suffer from a mirror contradiction to those at whom I directed this morning’s email.
Piece of Mindful 
The age of so many women confronting unplanned pregnancy should be noted. Young men and women do all sorts of things without considering the consequences. The young fight our imperial wars. Drunk driving, or texting behind the wheel leads to unplanned and unwanted death for far too many. We have a lot more teaching to do before we can honestly say we’re not all in this together. It’s easy to blame the other. Blame simplifies life and strife by excusing finger-pointers. Denial is how Amerika copes. One day protesters may celebrate equally those representing the vast majority who will never need to contemplate unwanted pregnancy.
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On this point I must stridently disagree. Choice isn’t a euphemism at all. To have an abortion is *a* choice, one among many. The term refers most simply to reproductive rights for women, and to those who are ‘pro-choice’, that is exactly what we argue (fight) for. If that includes the struggle to keep abortion safe and legal, then so be it. You are correct that abortificants predate pretty much all leech craft, but not the cycle of human on human violence.
Given that, as to the rest I strongly, if sadly, agree.
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Consider that “pro lifers” are giving emotional voice to society’s need to reproduce itself.
I cannot dictate the lives of others.
Don’t be so coy. The political discourse today is a frenetic log of telling each other when, where, and how much to smoke, eat, drink, drive, pay, earn, shoot, learn, work, swim, walk, talk, etc.
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There’s plenty of advice around, to be sure. That’s what led us to prohibition – the idea that we know what is best for others. There is no law about smoking or driving or earaning, but there are those who want to make abortion illegal. They are the ones to fear.
Laws about how much to pay? Pretty good idea. Prevents sweatshops.
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There is no law about smoking or driving or earning…
Maybe not total bans, but the statutory restrictions via taxation and regulation are vast, vast, vast.
…there are those who want to make abortion illegal. They are the ones to fear.
Not everyone is a political gimp. Some people are genuinely concerned about individuals and the propagation of society. I think we can acknowledge that we are tapping into something deeply primal. A ban on abortion has been the norm for, what, four billion years or so? Some new territory is being mapped here.
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A ban on abortion has been the norm for, what, four billion years or so? Some new territory is being mapped here.
That’s just plain wrong.
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Abortion is one area I actually agree with Clinton. They should be legal, but rare as possible.
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That’s just plain wrong.
There is evidence that abortion and infanticide have been around since neolithic times, but I don’t know of a culture or society that has had abortion as a casual option. “Unplanned” pregnancy (heavy emphasis on the quotes) is a part of how society perpetuates itself. Take that away, and you may hasten demographic decline.
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Research project for you: Was abortion legal in the U.S. in 1776?
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So I get to teach myself? Awesome.
Here’s a quote from Brian Byrne off the Britannica website:
Not only were the Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution pro-life, it was in fact law in England and the Colonies and the states after them. English common law recognized unborn human life as protected in law from quickening, which was the earliest point in time in that period when a pregnancy could be proved. There is no doubt when the Founders and Framers spoke of a right to life, the unborn were included. And as knowledge of embryology improved, states adopted positive laws against abortion from the moment of conception. England did this as early as 1803. By 1910, every state in the union had a similar law – not because it was necessary by statute to recognize the unborn as among those who enjoy a right to life, but to be clear above and beyond the common law, with the new information from science, that right was properly recognized at the moment of conception.
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Vincent J. Genovese writes: The Angel of Ashland: Practicing Compassion and Tempting Fate
Contrary to popularly held beliefs, abortion is not historically steeped in illegality. In colonial America there were actually no written laws banning abortion. It was rather loosely controlled by common law (unwritten laws handed down over generations). Abortion was permitted so long as it was done before quickening occurred. Quickening referred to that point in time when a woman could feel movement of the fetus (usually around the fifth month).
Your turn.
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Contrary to popularly held beliefs, abortion is not historically steeped in illegality.
I disagree. Until recent history, abortion has been a marginal activity. Social mores have been to coerce/induce women to bear children. If the battle has to be fought at the abort/don’t abort line, a society has retreated too far.
Abortion was permitted so long as it was done before quickening occurred.
I’d close with that deal.
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Even your own quote said that it didn’t become completely illegal until 1912 or so.
Anyway, I think we are coalescing around prohibition of late term abortion, as virtually all of us find that repugnant. That plus the morning-after pill might put this argument to bed.
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