Abortion: Is a Better Conversation Possible?

Yesterday Donald Trump made headlines (again) by saying something that struck him as common sense (again) and which manage to alienate the vast majority of America (again). Riffing (as he does) on the issue of abortion, he said that there should be some form of punishment for women who have abortions.

His team later backtracked on his behalf, saying that the doctors (not the women) should be held responsible. The bi-partisan backlash opens up an interesting window into what we really do (and don’t) want to say about abortion.

I remember earlier this century, probably in other presidential election cycles, there was talk of the hope that the movement of especially younger and evangelical Christians toward Democratic politics due to social justice concerns would help change the Democratic Party’s platform of carte blanche abortion availability. I haven’t heard those hopes expressed recently. I think it’s at least worth asking if those of us who lean Democrat have become institutionalized, unwilling to ask a hard question for fear of alienating our new friends.

So with fear and trembling (I really don’t like conflict as much as it might sometimes seem like I do) I want to ask if a better conversation is possible. And by “better,” I mean, can we have one? Where are the strengths and weaknesses of both positions as they find current expression? What is the good that each side is trying to maintain? Is it possible that there’s a middle ground in this issue between unfettered access and nearly unlimited restriction?

The Right to Privacy

In his off-the-cuff comment yesterday Trump demonstrated that he is tone deaf to the dynamics of power. This might come as a surprise, since his whole campaign is built on the power of bullying and machismo. But like so many others who have leveraged patriarchy to their advantage, he is unaware that there are actual human beings being trod underfoot each time he exalts himself by stepping on someone else. Or, he doesn’t care.

But the backlash yesterday shows that most of us do care.

Republicans as well as Democrats came out saying that punishment of the woman is punishment misdirected. Both sides care about the woman.

The abortion rights movement cares about the power dynamics that kept women subservient to their husbands and under his control with regard to all her life’s doings—including what a woman does with her body. This was the heart of Roe v. Wade.

The fundamental right that was upheld in that case was not the right to have an abortion. Beneath that, as I understand it (and folks who know the law feel free to jump in and correct me here), was the more fundamental “right to privacy.” That is to say, this woman did not have to ask her husband whether or not it was ok to get an abortion. 

The court was dismantling an expression of patriarchy, a notion or law that was keeping women subservient to their husbands. That’s why in its modern incarnation this is a “women’s rights” issue.

Privacy and Secrecy

When decoupled from the issue of patriarchy, and giving women the right to function as autonomous human beings without the permission of the men who have authority over them, I find the “right to privacy” to be a shaky idea, only as strong as the action it’s protecting.

Pro-life advocates will often equate abortion with killing. If you go with that logic for a minute then the problem with “privacy” becomes apparent. There are times when what I do in private become public business, as when my actions cost someone else their life or possessions.

We have a right to privacy, sure. But we don’t have a right to (absolute) secrecy.

Here’s an idea I have been playing with for a long time: privacy protects the weak and vulnerable, secrecy protects the strong.

I think that this takes us to the heart of the abortion debate:

• Advocates of women’s rights are dialed into women as those who have to continue to find their way in a world where men have more power (take a look at Washington: out of a hundred U.S. Senators only twenty are currently women). The right to privacy is essential for women’s protection, including healthcare decisions, in a world that tilts toward women’s being subject to men.
• Pro-Life advocates are dialed into the unborn child as the one who has less power, even, than the woman who is carrying it. If the lack of power a woman has, compared to a man, is relatively little, the lacking power that a baby has compared to its carrying mother is absolute.

Have I fairly articulated the driving positive concerns of both sides? I think that both groups are looking to use legislative means to protect those who otherwise would not have the power to protect themselves.

Questions

Articulating the problems with the other side’s position is where we often work ourselves out of conversation and into a heat that blocks out the light. Even asking questions often feels like a rhetorical exercise, designed simply to make the point about how the other side is wrong. But, maybe can we just ask question as questions this time around and listen to honest responses?

Here are a few:

• If you are generally in favor of abortion rights, is there some point in time prior to delivery when you think that the fetus growing inside the mother is a baby human worthy of legal protection?
• If you are generally in favor of protecting the physical life of the child, what do you make of the need to protect the holistic life of the mother (including social and economic well-being, in addition to physical survival)?
• If you are generally in favor of abortion rights, are you concerned at all that the wide availability of procedures has tended toward elimination of fetuses with genetic abnormalities?
• If you are generally pro-life, does the splitting of cells that begins with fertilization constitute human life? Why? Does this mean that we should avoid IUDs and, perhaps birth control pills, that might cause a fertilized egg to not be able to implant on a uterine wall? Is a miscarriage at any point in the 9-month gestation period the same as the death of a child?
• Should a fetus’s ability to feel pain at some point be one of the markers of when an abortion procedure should be off limits?
• If you are generally in favor of abortion rights, how do you think about abortion? A “good” that’s available to us safely because of modern medical technology? A sometimes “necessary evil” due to a certain confluence of life circumstances? Something in between such as an “important tool” for giving women the opportunity to make the most out of their lives?
• If you are generally pro-life, how do you consider the women’s health issues involved? If we are talking about punishing providers, not the women, with our laws, what are the ramifications for creating only illegal means of being a provider? What will this mean for poor women who seek out an abortion in contrast to rich women who seek one out?
• How does your Christian faith influence you on this issue? Do you think that scripture indicates that life begins at some point? Do you think that scripture is completely equivocal such that we have to use other means of deciding? What strand of the Christian narrative energizes your position?

Crossing Lines

When I was in college I had two friends. I know, that’s hard to believe. But it’s true. I had two.

My friend Rodney was a yellow dog Democrat from North Carolina. He was pro-life as a matter of consistency with his Democratic values of government intervention to take care of the most vulnerable.

My friend Ana was a conservative Republican who was pro-choice as a matter of consistency with her Republican values of minimal government involvement and the freedom of the people (and states) to make decisions that they deemed to be in their best interest.

1992 was a different era in politics. But it was still a time when many Christians were one-issue, and therefore one-party voters. Abortion was everything.

Is it possible to have a better conversation? Is it possible to reimagine the abortion conversation such that we at least see in the folks on the “other side” that there is a genuine concern to protect the vulnerable and powerless? Is it possible to reimagine an abortion position that charts a third way between the poles we’ve been given?

Let’s find out.

Photos:

© University of Toronto Students for Life | flickr | CC 2.0
© Deborah Sweet | flickr | CC 2.0
Featured Image © Elvert Barnes | flickr | CC 2.0 (photo cropped)