We knew it was coming. But knowing that a tsunami is approaching and witnessing your house being swept away as it hits is like comparing a mosquito bite to a gunshot wound. As everyone knows by now, the waves have come crashing down. But we refuse to drown. We shall gain higher ground and perspective, We have to! The fight to reclaim our land is far from over
Progressive pundits are all over the news--at least on the news channels I periodically listen to-- with their wild laments. But they're preaching to the choir, as it were, making no effort to stress what I think is the most decisive argument supporting the legalization of abortion. That is the subject of my Strike One for Roe vs. Wade.
Strike One: Abortion is not murder!
The argument that a fetus is already a human being because it has the full genetic endowment of a human being is false, scientifically false. A human being is always the product--from birth to death--of the interplay between genes and environment. Can you imagine a human being without the experience and development that only an environment--one's exposure to the world and its laws--provides? Such a life would have to be confined to a lab. Life in a petri dish may be life, but not human life. A full set of human chromosomes raised in this fashion would be a Frankenstein, not a human being. Chromosomes are only half the story; human life begins when a fetus meets the environment, at birth.
The womb is an incubator in which a potential human being becomes an actual human being at birth.
A fetus is not a child! Abortion is not murder!
Termination of pregnancy is not to be taken lightly, however; the fetus does indeed have the potential of becoming a human being. Equating abortion with murder, however, is like trying to prosecute a soldier for a war crime in a conflict that hasn't yet, or might never take place.
I certainly agree that women have the right to control their own bodies. But when one speaks of a woman's right to choose, abortion opponents hear a woman's right to commit murder. That abortion is not murder, which I hope I have demonstrated, takes the wind out of the sail of a very dark ship that is menacing us all. It will continue to be a menace unless we are convinced that the right to choose has nothing to do with the right to murder. This must become the central argument of those who support the right to abortion; the pseudo-science that a fetus is a human being must be vociferously debunked.
Strike Two: Inordinate effect on the poor
Lower-income persons living in red states will have extra hurdles to obtain abortions in states where abortion is still legal. A poor person living in the middle of Texas, for instance, might not be able to afford travel expenses. Comprehensive family planning services are part of health care, and limiting health care for persons who need it most is immoral.
If, for instance, sickle cell treatment was suddenly not covered by government-backed insurance, many who suffer from sickle cell disease would be left in the lurch. Since comprehensive family planning is part of health care, elimination of coverage for abortion is no different.
Do so-called 'pro-lifers' ever consider the effect abolishing abortion in red states will have on the poor? If they did, they are callous; if they didn't, failure to thinks things over is equally callous.
I remember reading about a Republican legislator, firmly opposed to abortion, who secretly financed the abortion of his pregnant mistress. He should be ashamed.
The poor don't have much of a voice in this country. Legislators of both parties, but especially Republican, trample over their needs.
A Woman's Right to Choose--I agree with this statement, but we must remember that when an opponent of abortion hears this, she interprets it to mean A Woman's Right to Choose...Murder. Those who believe, as I do, that abortion should be an integral part of health care, must make it clear first of all that abortion, for reasons explained in this essay, is not murder. First assert the morality of abortion, then assert a woman's right to choose. Only if one realizes that abortion is not murder does the advocacy of a woman's right thereto make sense.
Strike Three
Republicans generally support the rich through tax cuts, and refuse to fund just about all social programs for the poor and middle class. In their rejection of the right to abortion, Republicans, however, are veritable spendthrifts. The price of an abortion ranges from about 300 hundred to one thousand dollars. The average cost of raising a child from birth to age 18 is over $233,000! In addition, the average cost of having a baby is over $13,900. The government would continue to reap enormous savings, if abortion were legal.
Although there might be many individual acts of supporting a woman and help caring for an unwanted child, it is a generally true that once a baby is born, support stops. For instance, in the 14 red states whose trigger laws against abortion are going into effect as I write this, are the least likely states to fund programs that help young families--day care, WIC, paid parental leave, health care, etc.
Anti-abortionists might celebrate (in the abstract) forcing women to bear a pregnancy against their will; once the baby is born, however, the celebration is over and the mother and child are left largely to their own devices.
The United States, in general, fosters charity to cover the gaps in social programs. This charity, however, is grossly inadequate; as the Europeans say, we need justice, not charity. Just social programs reach many more families than charity does. Reliance on charity to cover funding shortfalls is a further example of legislative--that is, Republican--failure. You don't have to travel far in America to see the wreckage unregulated capitalism has caused.
Summary: Abortion is not murder! Gently explain why it isn't to those who dogmatically think otherwise. As the bible teaches, choose life. The right to abortion is choosing life. The life and well-being of women is what is at stake.
There is enough suffering in this world/ We should never deliberately and unnecessarily increase suffering. Banning abortion--even when the life of the mother is at stake or in the cases of rape--considerably adds to human suffering.
The majority of Americans support the right to abortion. What to do? Vote!
No comments:
Post a Comment