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<\/a>I\u2019d been meaning to write about this for a while.<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago, Slate.com published an article, \u201c\u2018I Am an Attorney Because I Had an Abortion\u2019: \u00a0A powerful amicus brief to the Supreme Court is signed by 113 attorneys who shared their abortion stories.<\/a>\u201d about a group of 113 female* lawyers who submitted an Amicus<\/em> brief <\/a>for consideration in the latest Supreme Court case on abortion. \u00a0They later did a follow-up article<\/a> interviewing one of the lawyers.<\/p>\n * yes, I think the tendency to use the word \u201cwomen\u201d as an adjective, e.g., \u201cwomen lawyers,\u201d is grammatically wrong and a bit silly.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a useful read.<\/p>\n The Atlantic also reported on the brief<\/a>, then collected readers\u2019 stories<\/a> of their own abortions.<\/p>\n Folks, common ground is dead.<\/p>\n How often have you heard this: \u00a0\u201cif anti-abortion people really cared about women and babies, rather than just banning abortion, they\u2019d help women in their Time of Need. \u00a0Since they don\u2019t, it\u2019s clear that all they really care about is banning sex.\u201d<\/p>\n But pro-life groups diligently support crisis pregnancy centers, for exactly this reason. \u00a0And then the activists move the goalposts with demands that, to be \u201ctruly pro-life\u201d we are obliged to support a laundry list of liberal priorities: \u00a0extensive state-paid maternity leave, free daycare for the middle class, and so on.<\/p>\n But the \u201cpersonal stories\u201d don\u2019t speak of women in difficult straights, who seek out abortion because they can\u2019t afford to bring a child into the world.<\/p>\n To be sure, some of the 113 lawyers\u2019 stories cite teen pregnancies. \u00a0They say that only due to the abortion were they able to complete high school and go on to college. \u00a0And the reader isn\u2019t able to delve into those stories, to find out how widely available or hard-to-find the necessary support for staying in school would have been in their particular cases. \u00a0But the authors themselves don\u2019t describe any fruitless search for help. \u00a0And it\u2019s already the case that there are young women out there right now who do finish high school and attend college, despite having a child to care for. \u00a0In fact, one of the \u201cteen pregnancy\u201d stories in the brief cites a girl who became pregnant, and whose parents wanted her to keep the baby, but she got an abortion despite that support via a judicial bypass.<\/p>\n Others describe abortions in college. \u00a0One woman says,<\/p>\n I found out I was pregnant just a few weeks\u00a0after moving away from home to start\u00a0college. When I told my resident advisor,\u00a0she told me that pregnant students were\u00a0not allowed to live in the university\u2019s\u00a0dormitories out of a concern for increased\u00a0liability. I was on full financial aid and\u00a0could not afford a place to live off-campus\u00a0on top of tuition, books and food. My\u00a0decision to have an abortion was essential\u00a0to the freedom that allowed me to finish\u00a0college while working more than one job; to\u00a0move across the country two weeks after\u00a0graduation to take my dream job; and to\u00a0attend law school and . . . to continue to\u00a0pursue my dreams.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, one the one hand, it would seem like a slam-dunk lawsuit against the university if they really expel pregnant women from the dormitories \u2014 but the story\u2019s still odd, in that universities with dorms generally have housing for parents, and, let\u2019s face it, off-campus housing is generally cheaper than dorms anyway.<\/p>\n Other women got their abortions during law school, or when just starting their careers.<\/p>\n I had an abortion when I was a young\u00a0lawyer, just out of law school and clerking\u00a0for one of the best known and busiest\u00a0federal trial judges in the country . . . .\u00a0Everything was before me, and I had made\u00a0that happen; I didn\u2019t come from a family\u00a0with a lot of money, or a long history of\u00a0higher education, much less professional\u00a0education for women. I was inventing\u00a0myself and learning to control\u2014to the\u00a0perhaps limited, but still real, extent any of\u00a0us can\u2014my own destiny. . . . I found myself\u00a0pregnant in the middle of my clerkship,\u00a0while in a dysfunctional long distance\u00a0relationship with the man in question. Had\u00a0I not had the choice to exercise control over\u00a0my reproductive destiny by choosing an\u00a0abortion, there is no doubt in my mind that\u00a0I would not have been able to move from\u00a0the clerkship to the amazing fellowship I\u00a0had at the American Civil Liberties Union,\u00a0which played such a significant role in\u00a0forming my life in the law and my\u00a0understanding of our Constitution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Was this woman compelled to seek out an abortion because of lack of provision for Women In Need? \u00a0From her telling, no. \u00a0And it seems as if the bulk of the stories follow this storyline: \u00a0having a child would not have brought insurmountable hardship, but would have interrupted a promising career. \u00a0Indeed, that\u2019s the refrain: \u00a0having abortions enabled these women to have high-powered careers.<\/p>\n Two\u00a0of these stories recount medical issues. \u00a0In one, the woman had a multitude of justifications for the abortion, but added onto those a fear of defects due to being in a room when someone else was being X-rayed. \u00a0In the other, the baby was diagnosed with severe health problems, the sort that would likely cause death at birth or shortly thereafter. \u00a0She says,<\/p>\n I went to my obstetrician\u2019s office, but she told me she wasn\u2019t allowed to terminate the pregnancy because it was too far along\u2014between 21 and 22 weeks. So I asked if I could get it done at the hospital, but she said no, the hospital would just induce labor. Eventually, I had to go to a clinic in Los Angeles, which was one of the few places in the world that specializes in late-term abortions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, perhaps I\u2019m not understanding correctly, but it sounds as if she wanted to make sure the baby was dead, and only an abortion would suffice for that.<\/p>\n But the bottom line in all these stories is this:<\/p>\n Their firmly entrenched ideology is fundamentally not that\u00a0there is insufficient provision in our social welfare system for teen mothers, or unmarried mothers, or poor mothers. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t matter. \u00a0Women, they say, need abortion no matter what. \u00a0It is the only way to ensure the\u00a0\u201cability of women to participate\u00a0equally in the economic and social life of the Nation,\u201d and the only way to provide equality between men and women. \u00a0As such, abortions should simply be as routine as contraception is.<\/p>\n