THINKING ABOUT THE ISSUE OF ABORTION IN PUBLIC POLICY
By: Patricia Reed - "Presumption of Personhood"
(From 2020) In the recent Vice Presidential debate, Sen. Kaine gave a less than compelling catch-all of catch-phrases to explain why he does not feel inspired to advocate for his own religion's teaching on abortion in the public square. Kaine began by earnestly assuring us that he is “personally against” abortion. (Many onlookers have concluded that apparently he keeps this belief in a small, locked box that is never opened.)
When someone says they are personally against abortion but don't want to impose their values on others, I'm bemused. These same people are usually more than willing to impose their views on others on a multitude of issues. So the next time someone says that to you, ask them, “WHY are you personally opposed to abortion?” Because there's really only one reason to feel uncomfortable about abortion at all: and that is: because it's murder. If it isn't, why are you personally opposed? If it is murder, how do you reduce it to a so-called “privacy”(!) issue? Privacy ( a word not found in the Constitution) is not a permit to commit murder. Not in the US Constitution. Not anywhere.
Every society in the world prohibits murder (almost always with exceptions for self-defense and just war). In order to have clarity and consistency in its laws on murder, society cannot avoid defining what constitutes a person in that society. To put it in American context... at what point in its early life does an unborn baby's little ship sail into the safe harbor of personhood, thereby able to claim the protections of the US constitution?
Roe v. Wade tried to thread the needle by granting that protection to a fetus once the pregnancy entered the second trimester, with supposedly rare exceptions for special cases. It was a time in our history when there was widespread uncertainty about when a fetus is entitled to the presumption of personhood. Roe v. Wade gave the benefit of the doubt to the pro-abortion faction in the first trimester, and the benefit of the doubt to the unborn baby during the remaining six months. Roe v. Wade was terrible constitutional law—it was forced to be wildly creative to find a "Constitutional" justification for that first-trimester acceptance of abortion. But I believe it was a good-faith effort to find a reasonable balance, a reasonable compromise from a purely utilitarian point of view.
That balance, that compromise quickly came unglued because many "pro-choicers" were not content with legal acceptance of some abortions. They would settle for nothing less than abortion on demand, and for society to actually celebrate abortions instead of mourning them. With the help of the media, the pro-abortion lobby carried the day. They warned that any weakening of Roe would cause the nation to revert to the days of coat-hanger abortions in back alleys, and women being criminally prosecuted for abortions. Never mind that those things had stopped happening long before Roe. It turned out, in fact, that the slippery slope ran wholly in the other direction.
Roe v. Wade is not the operative law of the land. Abortion on demand is. Abortion on demand (abortion at any time for any reason) is enshrined in the platform of the Democratic party—not in those words, but in fact. The first-trimester limit is violated at will.. Someone seeking an abortion can always find someone else with medical credentials who is willing to certify an abortion as “medically necessary.” (Although very few such abortions are necessary in fact.)*
When in the Illinois legislature, Sen. Barack Obama voted for a law that would allow even a baby born alive to be killed. Sen. Barbara Boxer, asked when a baby achieves personhood, replied, “When it leaves the hospital.” That's where we are. That's what we have come to. That is where the real extremism lies. [Before Dobbs, the de facto law of the land in the USA was one of the most extremely pro-abortion positions among the legal systems of the world.]
Kaine said he opposes abortion personally (although, tellingly, he never says why), but also supports Roe v. Wade as the law of the land (and he does tell us why). Okay, let's take him at his word. What would the public career of a person in that position look like? Upholding the legality of Roe does not require Kaine to be a pro-active cheerleader for abortion. It does not even prevent him from being a cheerleader for alternatives to abortion, or for more education on the developing fetus. He could use the bully pulpit as he chooses, without opposing Roe v. Wade per se. That balance exists as a possibility, but somehow it never is illustrated in practice.
Not one single politician who has said they were “personally opposed to abortion” has so far done one single thing to educate the citizenry on alternatives or on the biological reasons for those alternatives. Not one single thing, and that's for one single reason: they would lose the support and donations of the pro-abortion lobby. Nope, they sure don't want to go there.The selling for profit of body parts of aborted babies is a horror that should have aroused universal outrage and condemnation in no uncertain terms. To their everlasting dishonor, pro-abortion advocates did not do so. Instead, they opted to shoot the messenger. That's where we are. That's what we have come to.
Kaine concluded his talking points with the disingenuous question, “Why can't we trust women to make this decision?” Umm.... maybe because we can't. Women are members of the human race, in fact they constitute about half of it; they are not angels aware or unaware. As a result of them being trusted to make that decision, there are millions of abortions each year, many for very weak reasons. Does Sen. Kaine find that acceptable?
Kaine says that government should stay out of questions of reproduction, intimate relationships and “personal” morality. Those should completely be “personal decisions.” Wow! Every culture in human history has regulated marriage, and most have regulated reproduction. In fact, for many cultures, that was how government began and was government's chief reason for existence. (By the way, is polygamy between consenting adults okay with Kaine? If not, why not?)
The reason of course is that these decisions do not affect only the people who make them; they often affect other people in myriad ways, and those people have rights too. Intimate relationships do not float in some sort of ether, disconnected with the societies they exist in. To pretend that they do, is an oddly simplistic perspective for someone who supposedly believes “It takes a village” and “Stronger together.” (What'll ya bet Kaine supports smoke-free public buildings, requiring helmets for motorcyclists, and many other regulations that affect “personal choices?”)
In the years since Roe, science has come to more and more support the pro-life position as we continue to learn about the amazing responsiveness, interactivity, and individuality of even a first-trimester fetus. Let's see, where have we heard about that before? Well, Isaiah 139 contains passages like “Thou has covered me in my mother's womb” and “Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them.” Then there's Luke 1:41,” And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb....” Gosh, those Israelites were smart! (And/or inspired.) They didn't even have ultrasound!
Similarly, the original Hippocratic Oath (since altered) forbade abortion. Science and religion are slowly but surely converging. Interestingly, the folks who scream “Science!” at the top of their lungs to silence opponents on certain issues, are themselves strangely silent on this one. Science is coming close to backing up some of the intuitive (and/or inspired) wisdom of the ages.
We respect the oral traditions, ancient texts, and sacred teachings of other cultures, as indeed we should. Maybe we should even start paying attention to our own.
- Patricia Reed
* Editor’s note: I felt compelled to include some statistics to back up Patsy’s statement regarding the overused “medically necessary” terminology. You can draw your own conclusions from what’s presented here:
Source: Guttmacher Institute
Date range: 2015 - 2019
Women aged: 15 - 49
-Average annual # of pregnancies: 5.7 million
-Average annual # of abortions: 890,000
-Average annual # of unintended pregancies: 2.6 million
-Average annual % of unintended pregnancy ending in abortion: 34
-Average annual % of all pregnancies ending in abortion: 16
Source: Human Life International
-Abortion due to medical necessity: <0.1%
Have been banned commenting & posting for 30 days on Fb - thankful for Substack & your articles!