I remember reading something by that famously spiritual sage Dan
Savage about abortion. He was reporting an argument he had with
another guy about abortion, with Savage taking the position that if a woman hadn’t gotten around to having an abortion by the time she was in her third trimester then she should go ahead with the
birth.
It struck me at the time that this famously
liberal, gay sex columnist was taking the stance that as the fetus progressed
it became more deserving in rights, and at the time I chocked it up to his
Catholic upbringing. But now it
makes more sense to me. As a fetus progresses from a potential life to a viable life, the rights
of the mother to terminate that life should, in my opinion, decrease. This idea was reinforced after reading Steve Waldman’s seminal piece called Safe,
Legal & Early – A New Way of the Thinking About Abortion.
He writes:
This belief that life within the womb is on a continuum is
not explicitly reflected in the political debates about abortion. We debate
whether we should have parental notification–not when we should have it. We
question politicians on whether they’d provide government funding for abortion,
not ever asking whether subsidies should be provided for early abortions but
not late.
And Waldman suggests this way forward on the abortion
debate:
My fantasy is that if the political system embraced the safe-legal-early
doctrine, a few activists might even accept the legitimacy of part of their
opponents’ argument. Pro-choicers who accepted this framework would be
implicitly conceding that, for at least part of the pregnancy, there’s a
“baby” in the womb–and the woman’s right to terminate that life is
neither absolute nor nine months in duration. With early abortions not only
legal but easier, pro-choice activists could then have the confidence to accept
what many of them have publicly avoided but privately wanted: reasonable,
tightly written prohibitions on third trimester abortions while genuinely
protecting the life of the mother.
Open minded pro-lifers would take note of these concessions
from their “enemies,” viewing them as a sign that these pro-choicers–far
from being hideous baby killers–fully embrace a moral dimension to the
abortion decision.
Meanwhile, any pro-lifers who accept this framework would be
making a concession, too. They’d be saying, in effect, that if the other side
can concede that something precious is alive – and becoming more alive with
each day – then they could, in turn, acknowledge that reasonable people, of
different faiths, can disagree about when exactly that baby becomes alive
enough to have legal rights.
Waldman may be on to something. My guess is that his proposal will be viewed
with suspicion and hostility from both sides – which is probably as good of proof as any that it may provide a way forward for the issue of abortion in this country.
posted April 27, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Rod Dreher has a post on his site on this article and a nice little debate going on in the combox, mostly with the usual suspects. I don’t have much to add except that I think Roe v. Wade is built on exactly the reasoning that Waldman is using. It’s nothing very new.
But one thing this article did do for me was help me clarify my own position. I am pro-choice, not pro-abortion. I do feel that life begins at conception and so the issue of whether a woman is “taking a life” is not in question. She is. The issue of the timing of viability also doesn’t really move me much. The same moral questions apply.
The only issue that is relevant for me is whether the woman makes a choice to complete the pregnancy and give birth, or if she will be forced to do that against her will. Is a woman’s womb a baby farm to be owned by a man, the state, or is it hers to use as she chooses?
I have moved on this over the years, to the point of thinking that I would hope that if all is well that the woman would choose to give birth to a new life, and not choose to terminate it. But that choice is hers alone. The father’s wishes should have some weight, but ultimately she must have the freedom to make the choice. Nothing else makes any sense.
posted April 28, 2009 at 8:46 am
This is the problem with ignorance, Paul, people such as yourself are easily led into nonsensical, illogical reasoning, which you then spread because you are unable to differentiate between that which is socially productive and that which is not.
Please stop writing these silly articles. Do some research of your own, come to some reasonable and logical conclusions of your own, and then publish your thoughts.
posted April 28, 2009 at 4:41 pm
This is NOT a silly article, it is raising a point I’ve been feeling strongly about for a long time. Government needs to separate the spiritual arguments about abortion from the civil arguments. Until a fetus is viable, the only “citizen” in question is the mother. Prior to viability the fetus is a part of the mother’s body and that is all it should and can be in the eyes of the government. At viability it begins to have rights separate from its mother, but not before.
On the other hand, to say that fetus, if left alone, will grow up to be anything but a human being is soul-less. If both sides could make these concessions, we might actually see some real progress toward seriously reducing abortions in this country.
For those who believe that life begins at conception and who want to abolish abortion I ask this question – do you or does your church offer funeral services for miscarried fetuses? If not, then I would suspect your position is more based on the need to control pregnant women than it is about compassion.
posted April 29, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Nowhere in your post do I see acknowledgment of the simple fact that, in the US, late-term abortion is only performed when a woman’s health is threatened, and it generally involves a woman choosing whether to end a wanted pregnancy or lose her own life as well as that of her potential child.
Does your continuum of fetal viability include compassion for women who must make the hardest choice of their lives? Or does your philosophy of “safe, legal and early” mean some women must die if their health is threatened too late in their pregnancy?
posted April 30, 2009 at 9:23 am
Given the overwhelming support among conservative American Christians for torturing people whom they dislike, I am having a great deal of difficulty believing that they actually care a the slightest bit about the unborn child.
For them, it is purely and simply a matter of controlling all aspects of a woman’s life.
Were they to truly care about all life, they wouldn’t support torture.
Those of us Christians who actually do respect life need to stop hiding behind the “well, they are just a small but very vocal minority” excuse and strike back. Strike back hard. People who actively engage intorturing American citizens will stop at nothing.
And to think I actually had to listen to people here telling me only a few months back that I was paranoid and had nothing, as a gay man, to fear from the conservative Christians. They were only interested in the good of my soul. Well, now we know what methods they prefer for attending to the souls of those whom they dislike.
To them, seeing a young girl bleed to death on a bent coat-hanger in a back-alley abortion is God’s will and they delight in it.
What horrible, horrible fruit has fundamentalist Christianity brought forth in the US.
posted May 6, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Dagnabbit, Shelly, I’ll be durned! Thar hasn’t been a compromise this durn good since they made them thar slave folk three-fifths of an Amarycun citusun. Ya know, fer that ther census thang!