A few days ago Bond of Dear Diaspora published her responses to this pro-choice values survey. The questions were thought-provoking enough that I decided to follow suit. I’d be interested in any dissenting opinions, so please drop them in the comments – or include a link to your own blog if you want to respond in detail.
My own responses are actually a little more restrictive than Bond’s, since I do see moral and philosophical reasons for state regulation in the final stages of pregnancy. The fundamental reason I support abortion rights is that unwanted pregnancy severely compromises women’s bodily autonomy – and thus our access to full legal and moral personhood. If the fetus is clearly able to survive outside the woman, then her right to autonomy can be honored without destroying the fetus.
Do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
1. Every woman has the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy regardless of when during the pregnancy. Actually, I think Roe was correct in asserting that the state has a legitimate interest in regulating abortion beyond the point of fetal viability. “Viability” is somewhat spongy, since advances in technology may push it back beyond the current limit of 22-23 weeks, and I’m torn on the wisdom of trying to save the lives of such early preemies, who almost always have grave health problems in the unlikely event that they survive at all. I believe abortion should be universally and inexpensively available up to the point of viability. But I’ve got moral qualms about permitting termination on demand at a point when the fetus could survive outside the womb. I wouldn’t impute full legal “personhood” to that fetus, but if it’s able to survive outside the womb, then the argument for women’s autonomy is pretty weak. At that stage of pregnancy, I’d prefer induction of labor over abortion, though I realize most doctors wouldn’t oblige. If a woman wants an abortion at 27 weeks without any medical or psychiatric grounds, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect her to see the pregnancy to term, or alternatively to look for a physician who’s willing to induce early.
2. Abortion should be allowed even beyond 24 weeks of pregnancy. Well, 24 weeks is a reasonable proxy for viability, and so I support some legal restrictions on third-trimester abortions. However, there need to be broad provisions cases of medical necessity, including serious fetal deformity, fetal demise, and a serious threat to maternal health. I’d define that last category fairly broadly. As far as I can see, George Tiller’s practice served women who had compelling reasons for needing late abortions, and I’d have no problem seeing his practice guidelines enshrined in laws.
3. Parental consent should be required for any teen under the age of 18 requesting an abortion. Parental consent laws ought to be viewed as a crime, themselves, because they amplify the harms of sexual abuse. I’m not suggesting that every underaged pregnant girl has been abused, but if she was impregnated by a family members, these laws often force her to obtain consent from her abuser. Judicial bypass is terribly inadequate, because the more immature the girl, the less likely she’ll feel able to make her case in court.
4. Women who have more than 5 abortions are irresponsible. If they are irresponsible, is that a positive qualification for motherhood? Yipes!
5. Women who have more than 10 abortions are irresponsible. I do agree that a woman who has five or ten abortions probably has issues, but moral outrage – while it may feel satisfying – won’t help her avoid another unplanned pregnancy. Assuming she’s of at least average intelligence, she’s unlikely to be clueless about birth control. The question then becomes, why doesn’t she consistently use birth control? Those reasons can more complicated than simple ignorance or financial and practical barriers to access. Does she feel that she has no hope – no control over her future – and thus sees no point in trying to steer her fate? Is she re-enacting earlier traumas? Is she torn between a desire for motherhood and the reality of a life where she can’t care for a child? Does she have a controlling or uncooperative partner? Does she actively eroticize the risk of pregnancy? Is she embroiled in any sort of addiction? There are lots of reasons people fail to use birth control. Shaming women won’t help reduce the need for abortion. Understanding why women and their partners don’t consistently use effective contraception just might help.
6. Women should not use abortion as a form of birth control. Not as a primary means of birth control – of course not. Abortion must be available as a back-up, though. And I’m very wary of the “abortion as birth control” trope, because I hear it constantly when I teach about abortion. It quickly devolves into woman-blaming and a good-for-me-but-not-thee condemnation of women who’ve had more than one abortion.
7. I think reproductive health advocacy organizations should promote the use of emergency contraception in order to decrease the number of abortions in the US each year. This is a no-brainer. Every heterosexually active woman at risk of unwanted pregnancy should have Plan B in her drawer. Its side effects are no fun – much like early pregnancy, though mercifully shorter! But its costs – financial, physical, and emotional – are much lower than the costs of abortion and unplanned pregnancy. Community clinics and college health centers should give Plan B away for free. Then again, I think all forms of birth control should be free! Even a cold-hearted cost/benefit calculation would show that prevented unwanted pregnancies will lead to net savings in public expenditures – which is why anti-choice politicians’ opposition to family planning subsidies is so revealing. They’d rather limit women’s options, sexual and otherwise, than pursue a fiscally conservative policy that would ultimately reduce government spending.
8. I feel uncomfortable if a woman has an abortion because of the gender of the pregnancy. Yes. I tend to think that if you’re having a baby, you need to accept that you cannot mold it into your imaginary ideal child. Apart from the potential for misogyny (or even misandry, as women in the U.S. tilt toward preferring girl children), it’s just lunacy to have a baby if you’ve got rigid ideas about who and what your child must become. You’re setting yourself up for bigger surprises and disappointments. Even worse, you’re setting the stage for your child to feel loved conditionally, only if she or he meets your arbitrary standards.
9. Male partners should have the right to be a part of the decision to terminate a pregnancy. The right to bodily autonomy can’t hinge on a partner’s whim. In a healthy relationship, women will weigh his desires and preferences, but the final decision still has to be hers. If the relationship is dysfunctional, then it’s even less appropriate for the law to barge in and give the male partner any “rights.”
10. I think a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion is an absolute and inalienable right no matter what. Up to the point where the fetus can survive outside of her body – yes, absolutely.
Finish the sentence:
1. Abortions are: an essential aspect of women’s bodily autonomy, and thus our full moral and legal personhood.
2. Women who have abortions are: your next-door-neighbor, your friend, your sister – a pretty ordinary cross-section of those who are fertile and female.
3. A woman facing an unwanted pregnancy needs to: search her heart for her own best path, although in an ideal world she’d also be able to turn to her loved ones for counsel and support.
4. In this country, abortion should be: not only legal but affordable and accessible – even (especially!) in places like Mississippi and North Dakota, where the closest clinic may require a full day of travel.
5. People working to restrict abortion should: stop trying to violate the Constitution by imposing Christianist laws on the rest of us; we’re a democracy, not a theocracy.
6. People working on behalf of women’s right to choose should: be celebrated as heroes, because lots of them are putting their lives on the line.
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
Interesting responses, Sungold! I totally hear you about late abortions… My main reason for wanting to stay hands-off there is my understanding that most are for serious (and often tragic) medical issues that weren’t discovered earlier, a la the late Dr. Tiller. But I may be mistaken there.
Thanks, Bond. I thought your answers were really stimulating, hence my follow-up post!
The sorts of tragedies Dr. Tiller helped handle are often discovered relatively late in pregnancy – perhaps around week 20-22, or at least that was my experience when I was told in mid-pregnancy (!!!) that I carried a cystic fibrosis gene. By the time we got the relatively reassuring news that my partner was unaffected, we were at 22 or 23 weeks, and I’m not sure anyone in Ohio would have provided an abortion, had we gotten bad news and decided to terminate.
I’m leery of state involvement in this, and that’s why I think the model Tiller followed – two doctors’ opinions, coming from sympathetic docs – provides a check against abortion on demand in those final weeks where it does start to verge on infanticide, while leaving adequate space for compassionate care.
Ugh, and cystic fibrosis is a very, very difficult condition for the child to live with, not to mention the very short life span. I am so happy for you that your husband was not a carrier.
Yeah, we got lucky. I supposed had a “mild” version of a “good” mutation (R117) – but even so, it’s possible for male children to have congenital absence of the vas deferens with just one copy of R117. We’ll see if either of my sons has any problems down the line …
Great responses to the questions. Well thought out and articulate. I applaud your patience – mine tends to run out pretty quickly when this subject comes up.
Thanks! We may yet hear from folks who try my patience greatly.
Great post.
I would like to expand on the abortion-past-viability argument. Not only is it a different ethical issue once the fetus can survive outside the womb, which I think is the most important point and fully agree with the original post, but there are also more minor points on the post-viability issue worth discussing.
First of all, the mythical late third trimester abortion is the perpetual straw man of the anti-choice debate. Even in arguably unrelated topics, I see it brought up all the time. Especially in online discussions on other topics of birth advocacy, someone will drop a “Isn’t it awful that ob/gyns will let women abort their babies up until the day of their birth, but they won’t allow (insert practice X the commenter supports).”
I am pretty involved in pro-choice dialogue as a member of Medical Students for Choice and an internet pro-choice rabble rouser, and I have really not heard any organized support of post-viability elective abortions. That doesn’t seem to make a difference to the people who continually use this example. But, I think the pro-choice movement can do a better job emphasizing that most of the country agrees on the middle ground, and being on the “right”ethical side of this can only help.
Also, as a future abortion provider, I know that abortion procedures do get more difficult for providers in later pregnancy. In later pregnancy, it is harder to find health care practitioners willing to do the procedure, and the harder it is on the remaining ones to provide.
Yep, it’s a big fat strawman. If you look at the women Tiller actually helped – well, the online stories I’ve read bristle with trisomies and anencephaly and all kinds of other anomalies that we can only be grateful if we never encounter. (You, as a practitioner, probably *will* see them. As a parent, I know I’ve been lucky.)
As I mentioned in a comment above, I’m not at all certain that anyone in Ohio would take on a 22-24 week abortion, even for something as uncontroversial as anencephaly. I just don’t know if anyone has the skills. If they claim the skills, could we really believe it? There are so few people performing those very few late abortions that I honestly would not know where to turn, or where to direct a student in need.
I am somewhat in awe that you are going to step up to the crucial task of providing abortions – in whatever form that takes for you. Myself, even if I had medical skills (which I so, so don’t!) I can’t imagine doing Dr. Tiller’s work. I have kids. You have kids. We have to keep them safe. But perhaps there are ways of helping that won’t compromise your family’s safety, or your own.
What they most likely would do, in the case of an anencephaly and no one able to perform a second trimester abortion, would be an induction with no resuscitation. Well, you can’t resuscitate an anencephalic fetus anyway, but they would probably not offer any care to prolong life, since the condition is incompatible with life.
Anencephaly would most likely be diagnosed around 18 to 20 gestation weeks, based on typical prenatal screening and diagnosis.
Yes – and by the time follow-up testing is conducted, a genetic counselor is seen, and a decision is made, you can easily arrive at 24 weeks plus.
As so often, the pregnant woman is heavily dependent on her physician. My own ob/gyn, as it turns out, would have urged me to continue the pregnancy even if my husband had turned out to be a CF carrier. I suspect I would have found very little support had I chosen to terminate under those circumstances. I honestly don’t know what I would have done, but it was disconcerting to see that I could well have had to travel for a termination.
Thanks for a thoughtful abortion post. I tend to agree with your views because I would prefer to leave weighty moral and medical decisions to those who are personally afftected and thus have most knowledge about specific circumstances in each case. I find your characterization of pro-life views as “Christianist” interesting. Is that because you think Jesus might be more radically in favor of social justice and full personhood for women than many folks who claim to be his followers? I have always suspected (based on the accounts in the gospels) that many who claim to be Christians might find that Jesus is a real troublemaker if they spent more time thinking about the gospels in historical context. In any event, please provide some more insight into your term Christianist.
“Christianist” is a term Andrew Sullivan likes to use, in analogy to extremist Muslims being called “Islamist.” I think it captures an important distinction, because many moderate Christians reject the extreme views of the fundamentalist, Christian fringe. (And I realize that by calling them “fringe,” I might appear to imply that they’re few in number, which is clearly not the case!)
Oh, yeah, Jesus was a major troublemaker! I don’t know what he’d have to say about full personhood for women if he were to reappear today, but given that he hung out with some pretty marginal folks during his lifetime, I like to imagine him as a strong proponent of social justice.
To all potential commenters on this post and others: as my comments policy states, constructive criticism is welcome. However, I’m not happy to host trolls. Rants against women who choose abortion fall in the latter category and won’t be published. The person who’s currently hoping to see his rant appear can find other venues who will gladly welcome him.
Time is too precious to squander it wrestling with trolls.