Speaking of Choice...
The fetus is not the issue. The woman is.
By Dana Goldstein
Wednesday November 15, 2006
Politically, it would be disastrous for progressives to adopt the abortion stance Julian Sanchez recently advocated on Campus Progress. Most people respond somewhat emotionally when it comes to this fraught topic, so to argue for reproductive rights from the black and white philosophical terrain of Julian’s libertarianism would be to cede important political ground in the debate. Julian argues for a pro-choice position based on affirming the non-personhood of fetuses and rejecting the supposed immorality of abortion. Abortion can be a deeply moral choice. It is an option that allows a woman to fulfill her own ambitions and ensure greater stability for herself and her family. But progressives must speak with humanity and nuance on this most sensitive of topics. Julian is right that we must not adopt “middle ground” policies when it comes to choice, but he is wrong that we cannot, or should not, convince Americans to support abortion rights by occupying a rhetorical “middle ground” in speaking about reproductive freedom.
For starters, you don’t have to believe abortion is immoral to admit that having one is difficult for many women. Abortion should never be treated as just another form of birth control; there is no good reason why one-third of American women should have abortions in their lifetime when we can do so much better at providing access to contraceptives. Low-income women are four times more likely to have an abortion, which demonstrates that quality education and health care are the best preventive measures. In terms of effective public health policy, progressives must embrace this approach and talk about it, even as we fully support access to abortion.
To speak about abortion is to speak about sex and parenthood, and we can’t obscure or avoid such discussions. Part of being female is grappling constantly with your body’s magnificent ability to create human life: Research shows that the average American woman will spend just five years of her life pregnant, trying to conceive, and postpartum, but 30 years actively avoiding pregnancy through the use of abstinence, contraceptives, or abortion. The choice to abort in particular cannot be separated from women’s identities as mothers or potential mothers: 60 percent of women who choose abortion are already parents, and half say they plan to have more children in the future. What this shows is that for most women, abortion is not a necessarily a dismissal of the personhood of unborn fetuses, but rather a way to become better mothers to existing and/or future children.
None of this negates the autonomy of women. I agree with Julian that the “life” of a fetus is, philosophically, of zero importance when compared to the life of the woman carrying it. That person must have full control over her body. But nevertheless, as a woman, I’m aware—sometimes painfully so—of the full potential for life within a fertilized egg. Twice in my life, I’ve taken emergency contraception (Plan B) after a condom broke. I certainly don’t regret either of those decisions, nor do I feel sadness or shame. I am proud that I took control of my destiny in each case. But what I also felt both times I took the morning after pill was a sense of awe. To sit in a doctor’s waiting room with your significant other, waiting to receive two tiny pills that can negate your sex act of the night before, is to wonder at both the raw power of biology and man-made medicine’s ability to conquer it. As lucky and relieved as I felt to have access to the best birth control available, I’ve never been able to ignore the fact that contraception and abortion are, at their core, refutations of my own body’s urge to reproduce.
Indeed, it is an intuitive respect for that potential to create life—not a cool-headed accounting of the neural structures within the brain of a developing fetus—that unites most Americans in shared discomfort with abortion. You don’t have to think abortion is, in the words of Hillary Rodham Clinton, “a tragedy” to recognize that abortion is complicated. This doesn’t mean we must endorse any legal restrictions at all on abortion, but if we progressives simplify our reproductive freedom rhetoric to a drone about the non-personhood of fetuses, we will lose the hearts and minds of Americans, and women will suffer. Rather, we must frame abortion rights within a larger conversation about providing Americans with good information about sexuality and health, access to contraceptives and other preventive medications, and affordable health care that allows men and women to have children if they choose to and raise them with dignity. And we must communicate that we are empathetic, not merely legalistic, in our approach to this issue.
Recently, a male friend teased me for using the term “anti-choice” to refer to those who oppose the legality of abortion. I responded that I resent the term “pro-life,” as anti-choicers seem not to respect at all the lives of women who dream of fulfilling their goals, achieving economic stability, or establishing a stable and loving relationship before becoming mothers. Reproductive rights allow women and men to take advantage of modern medicine in order to live satisfying lives. Exercising those choices, however, isn’t always easy or uncomplicated, and it’s counterproductive to pretend it is.
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Comments
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I HAD 4 PREGNANCIES AND 4 CHILDREN. WITH EACH PREGNANCY I HAD THE FREEDOM TO LEGALLY GET AN ABORTION AND DIDN’T. GOD GIVES US CHOICES AND MAN TAKES THEM AWAY. MEN NEVER HAVE THEIR REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM INVADED, BUT NOBODY SEEMS TO MIND SHREDDING WOMENS. HOW MANY WOMEN DO ANY OF YOU KNOW THAT GET ABORTIONS JUST ON A “WHIM” ANYWAY? THIS CONVERSATION SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ANYBODY’S BUSINESS BUT THE WOMAN INVOLVED!
— ernest kight - Nov 16, 03:05 PM - #This is a spectacular column on what remains a difficult subject. As an adamantly pro-choice physician, I firmly believe that the fetus is not a person in any capacity until it nears the point of viability. However, I also realize that this position is too harsh politically, and could drive away many would-be pro-choice advocates. I am glad that you have voiced a middle-ground position that remains firmly pro-choice. This is what our camp needs to remain strong on the issue without seeming cold and unemotional.
— Susan - Nov 16, 03:10 PM - #This is an excellent article. I feel that Goldstein has articulated many of my own feelings about abortion. I’m proud to have her in “my camp.”
— Caroline - Nov 16, 03:42 PM - #I have never seen or heard this argument put so eloquently. Dana should run for office.
— Janet Moore - Nov 16, 05:11 PM - #It is not potential of human life that is being destroyed, it is life itself. Has anyone ever heard of adoption? My heart breaks for those women who think it is OK to terminate a life because it is inconvenient.
— Teri - Nov 16, 08:55 PM - #First, life begins at conception, when a unique, new, self integrating human being is formed. (If it is growing then it must be alive, and if it has human DNA then it must be human)
Where’s the complexity?
Second, people have genders, arguments do not. Therefore, any argument that aims to exclude men is fallacious, intellectually lazy, and, if you want to exclude men from the discussion fine, but let’s be consistent! Let’s overturn Roe v. Wade because it was decided by 9 men. Also, let’s get all “male” abortion doctors kicked to the curb, because men are not allowed to be involved with women’s so called “reproductive rights.”
Third, imbedded in your argument is the notion that abortion and birth control are perfectly safe for women, they are not! They are very dangerous in many cases.
Last, abortion is contrary to the Law of Nature, the basis for morality. The Law of Nature has also been known as Emeth, Satya, Rta, Treowth, Truth, the Tao, the Way, Traditional Morality, it is the way in which the universe goes on.
To live the “Good Life” one must live in truth, in other words, in correspondence with Objective Reality. Reason, the universal human language, is the faculty by which the human mind discerns Objective Reality, or Truth, and the ultimate source of this objective Reality is beyond all predicates. Understanding and acting in correspondence with Reality is to live morally. Maybe some day, pro-death, Malthusian eugenicists will understand that the world is not over-populated, that 80 percent of the U.S. population live on 20 percent of it’s land, and that if you forced every American to take a cross country road trip they would understand how da-gon empty this place is, and if you had every American watch a couple of abortions in which the Dr. pulls the person out by tearing limbs off, they would understand how empty, or ignorant, abortionists hearts are.
— R.S. - Nov 17, 12:20 AM - #The article was great. I feel like it is much more appropriate, and understanding. Abortion is an emotional thing.
I would ask Tina to take some time and look at what actually happens in our adoption system. Most people are only ever shown images of parents unable to conceive, happily accepting a new ‘bundle of joy’. And while I’m happy for those people, there are a whole lot of kids out there without parents and homes. Go talk to a local social worker. Adoption is good, but let’s not over simplify, there is a dark side to it as well.
R.S.- arguments don’t have gender, but the people making them have gender bias. While we’re on the subject of living the “Good Life” that was a really terrible and unneccesarily graphic image to give to people. If you feel that abortion is wrong, how, do you think, that is going to help?
— elise - Nov 17, 02:47 PM - #I thought this article was a very good, reasoned take on the issue of abortion. However, I think it did gloss over a fundamental issue, which is the question of when life begins. Where is the line drawn – at birth? 1 week before birth? 3 months? Conception? And how should the grey areas around this point be handled – after all, if you pick “birth”, a fetus 1 week isn’t “alive” per se, but it really isn’t all that different biologically from a newborn. Should an abortion a week before birth be allowed, when a week later it would be called infanticide (a rather horrible crime).
This is all theoretical (so please don’t argue with my specifics), but I believe it illustrates that there are grey areas and that society can have an interest in regulating access to abortion to some instances. After all, most American favor abortion, but with some restrictions. Refusing to acknowledge that most people hold a middle position forces an all-or-nothing choice that only intensifies the conflict and makes compromise harder. And reasoned compromise is what living in a democracy is all about.
— Ben - Nov 17, 03:23 PM - #Again, people have genders, arguments do not. Gender bias is a non-issue, either an argument is reasonable, or it is not. This “gender bias” nonsense is merely smoke and mirrors designed to move peoples attention away from where it should be, the reasonableness of an argument, and toward somthing else. It is a cop out. And yes abortionists do tear babies apart limb from bloody limb during abortion. And yes babies begin to feel pain between the 9th and 13th weeks when most abortions occur. Abortion is barbaric, inhumane, and so last century.
Elise, I don’t think your black hearted comment, all dressed up and parading around as “sensitive” and “pure” even merited a rebut, -it is not the man standing before me with a crimson face, horns, and a tail that I fear, at least people will know who they are dealing with then. It is the one who swags in, seemingly sensitive, and nice, even “with it” that I truly fear. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that you are a devil, but merely that your comments were written by one.
— R.S. - Nov 20, 10:46 AM - #That’s right I have a black heart, and I’m the devil, sounds like a real reasonable argument.
You still didn’t answer my question, If you are against abortion then how is what you’re doing right now going to help anything? — elise - Nov 20, 12:07 PM - #One fundamental position in this article is key in looking at the state of abortion in America. A minority of Americans agree with our author here and Sanchez, “that the “life” of a fetus is, philosophically, of zero importance when compared to the life of the woman carrying it”. Though qualified (or obscured), the statement itself simply does not wash with most Americans as correct. It is unsupportable under practical, sane, or popular philosophy. Devout and Nominal Christians alike could not support this position under even the most liberal theological systems. Humanist and related thought systems at most can’t say anything about this.
This view however is more prevalent in the pro-choice political powers then is the reverse position among conservative politicians. Both sides could use slippery slope arguments but the fact remains that while at best only half of all republicans on Capitol Hill would support a ban on abortion the overwhelming majority would support a right to abortion under any circumstance from conception, through viability to the very last day of pregnancy without waiting, federally funded. This position is not only seemingly cruel; it is objectively cruel, extremist, unpopular and wrong. (Likewise Republican leadership suffers from extremism on the front of assault weapon control)
This fact will prove a liability to democratic leadership for decades to come that only the most inept and unpopular republican governance imaginable can negate.
— Jean - Nov 21, 09:20 PM - #oops, I meant (while the overwhelming majority of Democrats on Capitol Hill… ) to be in the second para.
— Jean - Nov 21, 11:25 PM - #Well, Elise, if you knew anything about psychology, and conditioning, you would have understood that I have been conditioning you. When you get upset, with the things I have written, you form associations in your mind. Abortion=Stress, Stress=Abortion, the greater the stress, the greater the association, and vice versa. In the future, when you think about killing babies, these associations, which are now inextricably intertwined with your memories, will surface, and if you talk about it with other people you will do so with corresponding emotions. These emotions are contagious, and implicit in them is the notion that abortion is not accepted, and thus, you will be on the defense. As you know, touch downs rarely occur when a team is on defense; it is the offense that usually wins the game. This defensiveness may now become a part of your world disclosive semantic. If it does, then I have won.
— rs - Nov 22, 01:13 PM - #Now you may be asking yourself, why would he tell me this, knowing that now I may know how to undo what he has done? That I can not tell, if you knew the answer to that then it really would undo what I have done here.
As for the morality of this linguistic conditioning, my job is not to tear down forests but to irrigate deserts, and if I can imbed in a person correct associations, the ones with blood and sap in them, (life giving associations) then I have done a good thing. Although you may need to read Aristotle to fully understand why.
You know, I often hear liberals (ie Schumer, Emanuel etc.) argue that we have to moderate our position on the right to choose. I’m sure they wouldn’t say the same thing about the right of African-Americans to vote. I guess some rights are more equal than others.
— AKM - Nov 25, 07:50 PM - #I responded emotionally and angrily to Julian Sanchez’s post— it set me off— but your reasoned discussion was a much more thought provoking response than mine. Thanks for doing what I couldn’t.
— Liz Stein - Nov 27, 10:43 AM - #I am firmly pro-choice in the tradition of Roe, and I very much like the comprehensive and social approach the writer is taking. I think she also wise in pointing out that there are emotional issues one cannot simply side-step. I take issue, however, with what I see as a tendency to bend to the irrationalism of the anti-choice right, and join them in their fantasies or failure to distinguish between potentiality — and that which does not exist — and that which develops and eventually does — the point mutually known, on all sides of the debate, for the most part, as the normal developing fetus nears viability.
For example:
“As lucky and relieved as I felt to have access to the best birth control available, I’ve never been able to ignore the fact that contraception and abortion are, at their core, refutations of my own body’s urge to reproduce.”
You see, most respectfully stated here, but this is where we go astray. For the body does not “have an urge to reproduce” — insofar as we know — this is not a factual point, as the writer asserts. The body has an urge for sexual relationships with other individuals.
There is no core refutation of one’s ability to reproduce when one uses birth control or resorts to abortion. Perhaps for some individuals. But what we are basically dealing with is nothing more or less than the core desire to make choices about how much or how little we reproduce.
So let’s stick to the points that we know.
Otherwise, great article. Thanks.
— RB - Dec 4, 05:48 PM - #In addition to my last post —
“There is no core refutation of one’s ability to reproduce when one uses birth control or resorts to abortion. “
Point on this — a Planned Parenthood site states that one of the least common reasons why people have sex is to reproduce.
Also, birth control has been around for thousands of years. And when people, in addition to those techniques, have not been able to employ abortive techniques successfully, they have resorted to infanticide, a practice still used today, and even in places (for example) in South America where persons, for religious reasons, see THAT as preferable to the “sin” of using a condom or having an abortion during the earlier stages of pregnancy.
What we are dealing with is essentially irrationality — or a reluctance to admit that one’s views are religious, and therefore, one does not have the right to impose what their personal choices would be upon others.
— RB - Dec 4, 09:32 PM - #AKM, RB, Ben and Susan. Please pay close attention to the article. She is saying that the issue of viability is unimportant, that we shouldn’t care one wink about whether we call it a fetus or a baby or if it’s viable, or if by some chance it were to continue developing for another month we shouldn’t blink if it’s aborted using any process. We shouldn’t care if the vast majority of women in the country abort the vast majority of pregnancies.
Taken further, the point is that women have gotten power in the face of a history of no power and that power should be the only thing we talk about when we talk abortion.
This conversation stopper argument or the idea that the life fetus regardless of development is worth, and I quote again “ZERO” when compared to the life of the women carrying it is an extremist position.
Look I’m black and I like that I have the right to vote, I use it often, but AKM’s suggestion that my right should be as non-negotiable as the right for a late term abortion is crazy. Instinctively and rationally people attach some worth, even if it’s infinitesimal to a beating human heart and the greater if not full development of a body that can live on it’s own.
The author of this article is claming to be comprehensive by sharing a personal experience of being awestruck by the power of the women’s body and the beginning of life and that’s supports a sort of “companionate liberalism”. The view itself, awe not withstanding, reduces life itself to a subject of a power struggle and that’s wrong.
Would someone please explain to me why the issue of the “life” of a fetus it a worthless issue philosophically?
— Jean - Dec 7, 08:55 AM - #The Liberal abortion-death penalty contradiction is the best out of many fine choices. Killing off a innocent baby (oh wait, they’re not human) is fine and moral, but executing a child molester who raped and beat a 10 year girl is immoral and “wrong.”
I really can’t believe that someone can harbor such hypocritical thoughts, yet the liberal sheep on this board do.
Abortion is disgusting, barbaric and revolting. Most cases of abortion are murder (purposelly killing a human is my defenition of murder) yet liberals have no problem with murder in this sense. People disagree that it isn’t murder, but tell me how killing a baby that can survive on its own outside the mother isn’t murder? If that is okay, than the liberals on this board should be fine with allowing a mother to kill off her baby after its born and up until the age of two.
But that’s a posistion that the liberals will not take, which is hypocritical.
— Joe - Dec 15, 04:56 PM - #“Life”, as in the social relations which define us as individuals beings with rights begins at birth. This is when babies establish a social relations with the world around them, when they “come into the world” as the phrase goes. This is the decider over when an abortion can happen. Appealing to notions of “infanticide” due to the similarities between a baby 1 week before conception and one week after miss out the fact that until a baby is born it is effectively still entirely dependent on the woman carrying it, it is part of her body and until it becomes a seperate individual, at birth and establishes seperate social relations with people as a seperate being, she should have the choice to abort it.
This also solves the old problem of comparing unborn babies to the old or mentally disabled. These are people who have been born, who have social relations which establish them as individuals with rights to respect. An unborn baby does not have these social relations and therefore does not have the rights those people are accorded.
For those who condemn abortion as murder, what about the conditions of poverty and oppression forced on the working-class women who are forced by you to have babies they do not want and that they cannot provide for due to the crap wages and lack of social services they endure due to capitalism?
Do you support free healthcare, mass investment in child-care facilities, free education and housing which will actually alleviate the suffering the working-class experiences experience and the deaths which are caused due to the conditions of abject poverty they live in? Or are you really just a bunch of hypocrites who posture about the “brutality” of abortion while ignoring the totally brutality of life itself for women, children and all of humanity under capitalism?
— Mark B - Dec 17, 01:47 PM - #Full control of one’s body and over her reproductive rights.
Hmm – that is an interesting one. Now – before you pro-choicers beat me up over this one, I will share with you that I am very anti-abortion (in most cases – not all), yet very pro-choice…and yes, one can actually be both.
I do think a couple of issues should be brought into the discussion. I believe men and women have a right to chose their destiny. As such, most adults are fully aware of the potential consequences of semen entering the vagina. This, on most occasions is what we refer to as the precursor to any debate regarding abortion.
Now – of course there are many ways to get semen in a vagina. I think most of us would agree that in the majority of cases, it occurs when a penis is placed in the vagina with permission, followed by (preferably) an extended period of movement, until such time the penis ejaculates semen.
Regardless of emotional denial, most semen enters a vagina without a physical barrier (i.e. condom.)
I speak in this manner to emphasize the fact that both individuals in the majority of cases do make a decision and have control over their bodies. I know – it is much easier to skip over that part and just pretend that in the midst of that grinding and moaning, we all simply forget that this is how semen became labeled as “baby batter.”
But merely omitting the part where men and women both “make a choice” to participate consensual, unprotected sex is rather silly – wouldn’t you say? It isn’t like it’s a big guessing game – we’re pretty much all aware of the 50/50 chance of splashing the semen on the eggs, right?
I will not address cases of rape and incest, for I staunchly support abortion in these cases – even if one might deem them as an immoral act. These are not consensual acts. I will also not address the cases of condoms breaking, although I have a great deal of experience with condoms, and I highly doubt they break as often as some might like us to believe.
What I am addressing are those instances where abortions are used as a backup – a “just in case,” or as a response to the “I’ll cross that road when I get to it” mentality. My true belief, in these cases (I did say, in these cases) is that the whole “it’s my choice” is correct – but guess what – you already made it. See – the thing about it is – put on a damn condomn. Yeah, I know they don’t feel as good as skin on skin. You know what? I don’t really care if you like it or not – put on a freakin condom.
In these cases, it isn’t about autonomy and choice, it is about trying to go back and make up for some stupid choice you have already made.
Get over yourself and your “I don’t want to be a grownup” fantasies. Geez – have you heard of HIV and AIDS? You have a clue what STD means? Put on a damn condom.
Abortion should be legal – because there are those instances where the REAL burden to the mother is great. And no – don’t think that a woman who becomes pregnant through consensual, unprotected sex, but who doesn’t feel “it’s the right time to have a baby” is a reasonable justification to utilize the procedure as a form of birth control. You have that choice…yes you have it – and again – you already made – got it? You made that choice….you did the marinating dance already – see….that was the choice.
Get me? Put on a damn condom.
And my final thought here – if a man must bear the “burden” of paying for a child until the child is no longer a minor, even if he did not desire that child, how might that be different from telling a woman that she will bear the “burden” of carrying a child to term, should the father wish for that child to be born?
It is a two-way street…and believe it or not, you will never be able to order an abortion with your Happy Meal. It’s not going in that direction – rather, it’s moving toward one where people will need to make choices the first time around.
It is a choice – but be quite careful – for with those choices come consequences, and we are now entering a time when we are being held accountable, rather than focusing on the choice, with blatant disregard for the consequence.
And now that I have everyone’s tits in a wringer for my outlandish gibberish, I remind you – although I’m very anti-abortion in most cases, when the vote comes around, I am never anything but pro choice.
My point is – start making a few responsible choices before you are forced to make the difficult ones.
— Bryce Bonet - Dec 30, 03:12 AM - #