We love for things to be simple. A clear yes or a clear no. One clear line in the sand. But life is messy and complicated and doesn’t often lend itself to clear answers. A sign of maturity and intelligence is the ability to wrestle with a very complex issue and resist the urge to lean on a simplistic answer.
If you’d like to test someone’s ability to wrestle with complex issues, ask for their opinion on abortion. Rarely is there an issue that fits this test better. It is complex and for most people it stirs very deep and difficult to manage emotions.
Abortion fits this test so well as you have two things that very much matter, a fetus and a woman, and in the scenarios that we debate, their interests are at odds. For every simple and clear answer that you think you can find, once you change the assumptions or scenario, that simplicity evaporates.
The question of abortion also reveals someone’s ability to exhibiting care and understanding for others whether that other is an unborn fetus or a living woman. The language that someone uses, the examples that they chose… reveals a lot.
If you are of the mind that abortion is a simple matter, then I hope that the below walk through of my take on the topic reveals many aspects that you had not been consciously considering. This topic is one where we can very quickly see that the answer will always be context dependent and a constant weighing of the relative importance of conflicting needs.
A fetus
Let’s start before conception and imagine an IVF clinic. Here is a classic thought experiment:
You are in a building when suddenly the fire alarm goes off and you realize the place is engulfed in flames. As you run to safety you pass an IVF clinic. Inside the open door to the IVF office you see a container holding hundreds of frozen embryos and next to it a crying 2 year old child. You only have the strength and time to save one. Which do you chose?
Nearly everyone will chose to save the child. Why? Because while an embryo certainly does have value, it’s value is far less than that of a living child. That child has thoughts, and feelings, a fully functional nervous system that can experience pain, that child has attachments, and has begun forming an identity, a story. While the embryo’s have none of that.
This thought experiment illustrates that the value of an embryo grows as it does. Most of us would agree that abortions are less objectionable the earlier in a pregnancy that they happen, and many of us would find a late term abortion to be similar to that of murdering a baby. So let’s move to the very difficult topic of late term abortions.
If you were thinking that this one is quite clear, then I’ll tell you about one line that changed my whole perspective on this topic. Years ago I read an article written by a doctor who performs late term abortions, the line that changed my mind was simply “the people who come to me are people who have already painted the nursery.”
The stories she preceded to tell about why prospective parents ended up in her office were absolutely gut wrenching stories of medical tragedy. Situations where the baby won’t make it, and the mother might not either. Stories where the options are let the baby slip away in peace now, or force the parents to watch their child live in pain and cry in gasps for it’s last breath of air.
The abortions she performed were not done out of revenge or regret, they were a tragedy management tool that saved lives and eliminated certain suffering.
With these examples we can see that the bar for when abortion is a decent thing to do raises as that fetus develops. But thus far we’ve only thought about one end of the equation, the fetus, but we can’t forget that women also matter. The life and the well being of a woman also has value.
A woman
Thus far in my life I have had two pregnancies. Both well planed and both that resulted in the birth of a healthy child. I have been responsible, but I have also been lucky.
Being pregnant was an amazing experience. I had uncomplicated pregnancies and it was mind blowing to feel these new people develop and grown inside my body. They had distinct personalities while still in the womb.
I have not been faced with having to make a difficult decision about terminating a pregnancy, and I hope that I never have to make those choices. It would be gut wrenching to end a pregnancy. It is a death of sorts, certainly it is a great loss and a tragedy. But when it is my body, my fetus, without a doubt it is my decision.
Burden and choice are flip sides of the same coin. Those with the skin in the game are those that are best suited to make the choices. Someone in a fancy suit hundreds of miles away who will not have to live with the outcome of the situation is wildly unfit to make difficult reproductive choices for others. No one has more of a right to make to make reproductive choices than a pregnant woman.
Giving someone else the rights to make these difficult choices is to disrespect the rights of women. It is to remove bodily autonomy and make women slaves.
While childbearing is certainly natural, it is never easy, and quite often it is very dangerous. Statistically speaking, being pregnant is currently the 6th most dangerous job in the United States. Some years it’s more dangerous than being a police officer.
In parts of the world without modern health care, complications from pregnancy and childbirth is the leading cause of death for young women.
When a woman chooses to bear a child not only does she risk her life, she is certain to undergo a very difficult and traumatic experience. Birthing a child is incredibly gruesome work. For most of us we will have a moment of finding our selves laying in a pool of our own blood and feces wishing we could pass out. With my second child I was unable to get an epidural and I’m pretty sure I maxed out my bodies ability to feel pain.
Can you imagine what it feels like to have your body ripped apart from the inside out? No I am not being dramatic, ripped is the right word. And let’s not forget that the recovery is likely to last years.
What right does someone have to force another sovereign being through such a process?
And I will only touch on the topic of rape. I think any decent person would be appalled by the idea of a women being assaulted and then forced to risk her life in enduring childbirth.
So which one matters?
Both obviously. And that is the difficult and complicated part, that it’s both.
I imagine we’ve all seen the very publicized examples of very crass abortion supporters who have done things like throw an abortion party, etc. That’s ugly. And it says that women matter but a fetus does not matter.
I’m sure we can all also think of an example of a staunch anti-abortion campaigner who would like to see women forced to carry their rapists babies. That’s horrific. And it says that a fetus matters but a woman does not matter.
The tricky part about all of this is that it’s both, and it’s not simple at all. The life and well being of a woman matters, and a fetus also matters. In tragic times and places when the their needs are at odds, then very difficult choices about which matters most have to be made. And the ‘answer’ to that will differ in every situation. It’s a constant weighting of conflicting rights at different points in time in different situations. It’s not simple. We can’t make it simple.
If we can take a step back from our very understandably intense emotional connection to this topic, we can see that any clear and simple answer crumbles under the reality of varying situations. Having a considered and caring take on abortion requires the capacity to hold complexities. It requires maturity and intelligence.
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