Yesterday, WC regaled me with a conversation she had with her BBBS Little Sister about abortion. It centered on so many of the controversial topics around abortion - when does life begin, quality of life of the child and the mother, etc. As always, she was spot on, in my opinion. But it got me to thinking how I would have answered that question had her Little Sister asked me.
To me, the important question isn't "Is abortion right or wrong?" The reason for this is two-fold. First, it is "unknowable". It is something that relies on framing and background and experience and whatever dogma one subscribes to, so that people will ultimately reach their own conclusion. Most likely, its "right" in some cases and "wrong" in others. Or maybe always "right" or always "wrong". But the basis upon which we make these determinations isn't science and fact. They're feelings and opinions. Everyone is entitled to those so saying someone else is wrong about them is useless. Maybe they base those on faulty facts of what constitutes a "baby", and, sure, those can be corrected.
But the gut feeling of whether abortion, situationally or conceptually, is right or wrong is not something about which it is useful to argue. In the best of circumstances, two mature people will determine their commonalities, and leave the rest of their opinions in the "agree to disagree" area. Neither left with a changed opinion, and neither left having "won". In the worst of circumstances, well, people kill doctors in churches.
Second, and much more relevant to the real question, it doesn't matter. If abortion were "wrong", well, we should try to make sure they don't happen. If abortion were "right", well, we should also try to make sure they don't happen, because no one wants to have to have an abortion. And that gets to the crux of the real question:
How best do we reduce the number of abortions while protecting the health of everyone involved?
Now that's a useful question, and again, the reason is two-fold. First, we can answer that based on facts and evidence and not rely on feelings and dogma. Second, its practical. It does something. It gives us a direction to go with shaping policy and law.
So how do we do that? Well, the rallying call of the anti-choice crowd (I say that as opposed to pro-life, because pro-choice people aren't anti-life) is to make abortions illegal. Unfortunately, as study after study in Europe have shown, making abortions illegal doesn't decrease the number of abortions. This is one of those areas where the threat of the consequences of breaking a law doesn't quash the desire to break the law. For people who choose to have abortions, the threat of a fine or jail time in exchange for not bearing a child at that point in their life is not enough of a deterrent. Sure, some crimes are such that we don't care if they're a deterrent; we actually want the perpetrator to be removed from society (murder, rape, etc.). Abortion isn't one of those. We're not afraid someone who had an abortion will be a menace to society and they will be abortioning all over the community.
Since making them illegal isn't a deterrent, making them harder to get obviously isn't a deterrent either (again, studies done in Europe across different countries with different policies have shown this). This includes reducing the number of locations that perform abortions, restricting the point in the pregnancy at which abortions can be performed (legally - the point at which abortions can be safely performed from a medical standpoint should be determined by doctors - the fact that these two aren't in harmony is another problem), making women go through "educational" videos that show propaganda to try to coerce women into not having an abortion (that instead only enhance the likeliness of post-abortion psychological distress) don't actually reduce the number of abortions performed. They just make them more complicated to get and less safe, physically and mentally.
The corollary of this is also true: making abortions easier to get doesn't increase the number of abortions that happen. Women will not choose to get abortions simply because its convenient.
The flip side to these policies is that some women, usually poor and without other options, end up having children they do not want. This begins and ends with the question "Is that a good thing?" and delves into a lot of emotive topics around whether every soul should be saved and the abhorrent theory that pregnancy is and should be a punishment for sex because sex is inherently bad. Sticking to the statistics and math of it, the facts are that women who have unwanted children (or, more likely, a child at a time in their life when they are not ready to have children) have significantly less education and less earning potential, and are more likely to be on public programs than women who don't (either because they weren't pregnant or got abortions). Their children are also more likely to suffer from the effects of poverty and also more likely to, surprise, have unwanted children of their own.
So, ultimately, we arrive at the single piece of truth from which we can begin a serious conversation: Women, who can, get abortions because they feel the upside outweighs the downside. Its that simple, and the reason its that simple is because that's the equation that is followed with much of life. The threat of making it illegal, making it more difficult, or making it more traumatic doesn't impact that equation, because the scale at which a woman views her upsides and downsides is significantly grander than those petty concerns. We cannot increase the downside to eclipse the upside with laws or hurdles.
Has there ever been a woman who was completely 50-50 about their decision and was pushed to the side of not having an abortion because of the difficulty? Probably. But this is a statistically insignificant number (and again, remember, we're trying to use science and math here).
(An emotive aside. If the reaction to that possibility is "Well, doesn't that one soul make it worth it?" I ask what we sacrifice as a society for that one soul. How many women undergo significantly more mental trauma than they need to in the name of that one soul? How much money is wasted on ineffective programs or campaigns to make abortion illegal that could be better spent to help the children who were born better fulfill their potential? How many women fail to reach their potential because they are forced to bear children they don't want? And how many medical professionals will be assaulted and murdered in the name of saving that one soul? At what point does the potential - potential - of that one soul get eclipsed by the very real problems associated with greater mental illness, the deeper cycle of poverty, the waste of time and money? And when it comes to the death of a medical practitioner to save an unborn child, that's at best swapping one life for another, and at worst, swapping a productive, educated member of society for a unwanted child who has a high likelihood of never reaching its potential because of the circumstances into which it was born.)
So now that we see the path we're currently on isn't working, let's go back to the core question: How best do we reduce the number of abortions while protecting the health of everyone involved?
Okay, now let's have a conversation.
