The Nerve Of Some People!

I don't really have much to add to what Emily wrote. I agree completely with her points. It is painfully ironic that so many pro-choicers can struggle with the knowledge that abortion kills an innocent life, and yet they must still defend it. An armchair psychologist would have a great time with terms like cognitive dissonance ... but I'm not any kind of psychologist, and I don't actually own an armchair.

In addition to the article by Jennifer Baumgardner that Emily analyzed so well, there is a similar article called "Point of No Return", in which a pro-choicer confesses her distaste for late-term abortions:

I've never said this out loud before, that I have such reluctance about abortion past a certain point — which in my case is definitely before Andrea's five months, when the fetus kicks, has a heartbeat, and sucks its thumb. Being pro-choice with reservations is taboo. It is to wrestle with guilt and doubt and feel that you must be silent. And I understand why. Last year, my colleague Lynn Harris wrote a great essay about how she and her husband help women get access to second-term abortions. I hear and agree with everything she says. I see how it's a class issue, and I appreciate the many totally legitimate reasons why many women can't or don't get them before they're so far along. I applaud Lynn. But privately, I still can't get over this deep moral anxiety about it. And I think that's something we should talk about. At the same time, I fear that by saying such a thing I'm stoking the fire of the fundamentalists, giving comfort to a political enemy that would also restrict access to safe and effective birth control if they could.

We sat in the waiting room until Andrea was called. There were women of all ages there. She went in and wasn't inside very long before she came out. "That was it?" my mother asked, surprised. "I have to come back tomorrow," Andrea said. When my mother asked why, Andrea said, "Because I'm at five months. They do the dilation one day and the extraction the next."
My mother — a pro-choice feminist who marched in demonstrations for the Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell and is one of the bravest people I know — turned pale. She could hardly speak. We left the clinic, through the gauntlet of protestors, and took a cab home. That night, we were watching TV in uncomfortable silence when the phone rang. It was Steve.
I took the phone into the bathroom. "Steve," I hissed, "why aren't you here? And why is she showing?"
"We didn't know until a couple of weeks ago that she was pregnant!" he yelled. "I saw the bloody tampons in her every month. I swear to God! And where do you get off? You won't even get her pot."
"What?"
"She told me she asked you to buy her weed and you wouldn't. You're so selfish."
I was fleetingly impressed that he cared enough to be concerned about her stress level, even if he was hundreds of miles away.
"She's stressed out," he said, sounding stoned.
"Maybe she's supposed to be!" I yelled back. "Maybe this isn't supposed to be easy!"
Immediately, I felt guilty. I did know people who could get her some pot. My mother and I weren't being as comforting as we could be. But then I saw Andrea in the living room, flipping through magazines and joking with her friend, her stomach pushing past her unbuttoned jeans, and all the disapproval came rushing back. This is what I had shouted for at all those demonstrations? This girl, chain smoking and doing her nails and seemingly fine with her decision? Steve's right not to interrupt his busy pot-smoking schedule to take care of a baby that was only four months from being born?

Been there, thought that. When I was pro-choice, hardened though I was, I remember thinking the same way. I would fight tooth-and-nail to defend the right to abortion for poor women, abused women, rape victims, and other women who "deserved" the chance to abort. But some part of me knew that many abortions were not for those "deserving" women, but rather for women who simply didn't want the child that God, fate, or whoever had given them. Career women who didn't want a baby to derail their fast track to the corner office. Single women who didn't want to sacrifice the carefree lifestyle for motherhood. Women who hated kids, but refused to give up their "right" to sex. Etcetera....

I wasn't marching for them. I certainly wasn't spending time at the clinic, "in the trenches" if you will, for people's right to be selfish. I was there for the women who needed abortions ... right? Being reminded that many abortions had nothing to do with "need" made me angry.

Ironically, becoming pro-life has removed a lot of my judgement and condemnation. I don't have to worry about women who abort for the wrong reasons, because there aren't any right reasons. I don't have to worry about who really "needs" an abortion, because nobody needs an abortion. The question is simple now: Does the unborn child threaten your life in such a way that the only possible remedy is to abort? If not, then it's wrong. Being pro-choice required me to keep spinning these complex arguments to defend a "choice" like the one that Amy Richards made. How do you defend such a decision? More recently, how can you defend the decision that a child with Downs is better off dead? Simple, you can't.

I just know that someone is going to read the above paragraph and accuse me of being intellectually lazy. "Gee, it must be comforting to not have to think!" On the contrary, I quite enjoy thinking. However, I prefer it when my thoughts have some constructive purpose. Just like a carpenter doesn't get much satisfaction from building houses that collapse as soon as they're finished ... I get frustrated by spending my mental energies to defend something that is indefensible. It's much better to build on a solid foundation of the truth.

Ms. Calhoun is thinking some good thoughts. She's on the beginning of a road that can lead her to the truth, if only she has the courage to follow it. Here are a few questions to help her (and you, if you're in the same place):

1. If you're opposed to late-term abortions, why? What happens between six weeks' and twenty weeks' gestation that changes a simple medical procedure into something more horrible?


2. If you believe in a "right" to abortion, what level of restriction is acceptable?


3. To follow-up on the last question: How much restriction is possible before a "right" isn't really a right anymore?


4. If you're opposed to "abortions as birth control", why?


5. If a woman should have some justification to abort, then what level (or type) of justification is acceptable?

(cross-posted to Naaman the Ex-Leper)