I’ve been thinking about writing this for the last several
days, and I’ve also been trying to avoid thinking about it. Perhaps if the
reason for my anger and frustration were limited to the ignorant comments of
Rep. Akin of Missouri, I would be finishing the chapter on endocrinology in my
medical transcription textbook right instead of tapping away into a new Word
document. Unfortunately, Rep. Akin is only part of what’s pissing me off.
Shortly after his explanation of why he believes abortion should be illegal in all cases, including those of rape and
incest, the Republication Party added that same position to its national
platform. And of course the news about various “personhood” bills in state
legislatures and on ballots across the nation is neverending.
I’m not writing this as a simple rant, though. There has
been much ranting already, and I don’t believe I can add anything new, despite
my love of making up new blasphemous phrases. No, I’m writing this because I
think I have to explain the evolution of my own beliefs and thinking about
legal abortion.
I grew up in an extremely conservative Christian household.
I accepted Jesus into my heart at six years old, and I was a sincere, if rather
confused, believer well into my teens. My family has been Republican for
generations, and the rise of the evangelical/religious right cemented that
loyalty. In addition, I suffered from depression and anxiety and was quite
bookish and nerdy. I wasn’t exposed to a lot of popular culture, and I rarely
saw my friends outside of school. I was sheltered from certain things about the
world and life, I was very naïve, and I tended to see most things in black and
white terms. I was conflicted about many things in my religion, but from the
moment I understood what abortion was, I was staunchly prolife, and utterly
opposed to and horrified by legal abortion. I was 14, 15, 16 years old, I’d
never been on a date, I didn’t expect to have sex until I was married, and I
was rather deeply shocked each and every time one of my friends announced that
she’d lost her virginity.
Much of what I believed, or was willing to acknowledge I
believed, about the world, life, and humanity, changed between age 16 and my
early 20s. I inched away from fundamentalism to a quite liberal Christianity,
then into theism, then into Deism, and finally, around the age of 21,
acknowledged that, for all intents and purposes, I was now an atheist. In fits
and spurts along the way, I recognized that my beliefs about what a society is
meant to be and how people should treat other were much more consonant with all
those crazy permissive socialists I’d grown up horrified by. I can’t tell you
exactly when I became pro-choice, because I didn’t think about it in those
terms; I believe I was reluctantly pro-choice for years before I found myself
articulate a pro-choice position in a conversation with a friend and was
surprised to discover where I stood.
What had happened in the meantime? What had changed my mind?
For one thing, I discovered that abortion isn’t new. Whether abortion is legal
or illegal, women have been trying to find ways to terminate unwanted
pregnancies for millennia. Women have sickened, been rendered infertile, and
died, in their desperation. I began to comprehend how complicated and difficult
contraception is, that no method is foolproof, and that not every woman who
finds herself pregnant is completely irresponsible or moronic. I also realized
that even women who become pregnant intentionally sometimes receive appalling
news about the health of their child-to-be and must consider the best course
for themselves, their family, and that child. There are myriad circumstances,
and that simple, black-and-white view that a blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is
living and genetically human and therefore must always be carried to term is, well, far, far too simple. What of a
woman who has no intention of having children because she is the carrier of a
gene that will result in serious illness for her offspring if passed on? What
if her contraception fails? What of a woman who is raped and happens to be on
prescription medication that may cause birth defects? Would we, as a society,
take it upon ourselves force her to make the decision to stop taking a
medication that may be vitally important to her or to take it and risk the health
of the fetus?
To this day, I’m uncomfortable with some of the language
used by pro-choice groups. Whether you wish to admit to it or not, you are terminating a life when you
terminate a pregnancy. Anyone who’s had a miscarriage will tell you that. Anyone
working to end sex-selective abortion in countries like India will tell you
that. But the prolife camp makes a larger mistake: They talk as if that life is
completely independent, as though the woman or teenager or, god forbid, child
who carried that life until birth is relieved of all responsibility afterward,
which isn’t the case even if the child is adopted immediately. People who
oppose legal abortion don’t simply want to force women into the role of
incubator; they’re forcing on them an enormous financial, legal, moral, and
physical responsibility. They’re denying that woman, or teenager, or child, to
choose, for herself, the course of
much of her life. They may well be denying her the choice to limit the size of
her family so that she can provide a better quality of life for children she
has already chosen to give birth to. And the personhood laws which are being
passed, personhood laws which may very well outlaw many of the most reliable
forms of contraception as well as abortion, whatever their intent—those laws
seem to me to be nothing less than an announcement that women’s potential and
futures mean less to a great many people in this country than the futures of
unborn children those same majorities of people are equally happy to see born
into poverty because they are the 5th, 8th, 13th children in a family with a
single income, in a segment of the population whose median income hasn’t
increased in decades.
So, yes. I’m pro-choice. Yes, I’m comfortable with it these
days. I’m comfortable with it because I want to make my own decisions about my
body, about my future, and about my child’s
future.
