Thinking about abortion

My niece and I are conversing in an odd way through our blogs, so I guess I'm thinking of her as my audience as I write this posting.

There is a reason I won't allow my students to write about abortion, and that reason is this: they simply parrot back what they've been brain-washed to believe by their parents, their churches, and their peers. Seldom have I had a student actually think about the issue carefully and research it well. I know my niece would be an exception, simply because she is incredibly intelligent and thoughtful. So I want to share with her what my thoughts and feelings are.

I am a feminist, and I do believe that the rights of the living woman (whether or not she is pregnant) are just as important as the rights of the unborn. In some cases, I would say the woman's rights are more important. For example, my niece is the mother of three beautiful children. She has a husband who is at least partially disabled and is much older than she is. If my niece were to once again become pregnant, and if this pregnancy were to cause her to develop a life-threatening condition, as sometimes can happen, I would definitely want her to abort the pregnancy so that her own life could be saved. But what I (and most feminists) would prefer is that unwanted pregnancies be avoided via the use of effective birth control methods.

But should birth control fail, as it can and does, and the woman--any woman--find herself pregnant, shouldn't she have a choice about how disrupted her life will be? I knew a woman once who had just gotten divorced from an abusive husband. She had one child to support already, and she was in school trying to earn a degree so that she could put food on the table and shoes on her child's feet. Then she discovered that she was pregnant. The father was the abusive husband who certainly did not want the baby. There were no family members who could help out. This woman was alone, scared, and trying to make the right decision for not only herself but also for her child. She chose an abortion and did not look back.

I had another friend who admitted having had an abortion because she was a carrier of Fragile X syndrome. Her son had severe autism, and genetic tests had indicated that other children would be affected too. Her son took most of her time and energy, and he was often violent. She just could not imagine facing the prospects of yet another child with similar problems. She and her husband chose to abort.

And I think of women who have children with severe disabilities, like my beloved sister Sally. I love Sally's daughter Amber, but I've watched Sally age rapidly. Her health is horrible, and it's getting worse. Amber's own health is horrible and getting worse. There are times I wonder whether she will live to be 20. I hope so, but I sometimes wonder how different Sally's life might have been if she had not had Amber. For one thing, she probably would not have allowed Amanda to ride home with Jessica the night Amanda and Jessica were killed. Sally has admitted that she was just so exhausted caring for a baby with severe health problems that the idea of letting Amanda have a fun, worry-free weekend with a friend seemed like a good idea. It wasn't, in hindsight. But now Sally lives constantly with pain and guilt, and I suspect Amber also feels some of that guilt. She, the child with severe disabilities who needs so much care and effort, has lived, while Amanda has died.

No, abortion isn't always the best solution. It isn't always the only solution. But when it IS the best or only solution, it should be legal. I am old enough to remember the days when the only abortions available were back-alley clothes-hanger jobs that just as often killed the woman or caused her to be unable to have further children. I saw on the news that the birth rate and the abortion rate for teenagers was rising for the first time in a long time. That is not good news, not for anyone. Children having children is wrong. I remember one day when my son Daniel came home from his fifth-grade class and told me that a girl in his class (age 12) was pregnant with her brother's baby. Anyone who would force that little girl to go through with childbirth would have to be pretty unfeeling.

I don't support abortion-as-birth-control, the way Japan did it for decades. Oddly, the birth control pill was illegal, whereas abortion was not. Not all cultures see the "unborn" as future people. Many cultures see the fertilized egg/embryo/fetus as merely a cluster of cells with the potential to become a baby. For many cultures, life begins at birth and not before. I don't support abortion-as-sex-selection, either, the way India has done. For one thing, I really hate when people think it's somehow "lesser" to have a girl rather than a boy. I would so have loved to have a daughter that it's incredible to me that anyone could somehow value a child more simply because it has a dangling bit of flesh between its legs rather than inserted tidily into its body (because, after all, a penis and testicles are merely an extraverted vagina and ovaries).... Yet in India, a woman can have an ultrasound to determine the child's gender and can abort that baby if it is female, and even if she is near term for delivery. It is much like the ancient Greek practice of leaving an unwanted baby out by the road for it to either die of exposure, be eaten by animals, or kidnapped by gypsies to become a slave. We human beings have often been pretty horrible to children and babies, sad to say.

I am reminded of a van I saw once. There was a bumper sticker proclaiming that abortion was the murder of unborn babies, not an uncommon bumper adornment. Then as we drove alongside the van, I saw that it was full of children of varying ages, and the man who drove the van (the kids' father?) was smoking a cigarette. So, let's not kill them before they are born. Let's wait until they're born and then slowly poison them to death? Oh, and no one was wearing a seatbelt, either. Hypocrite.

So, like a lot of other thinking women, my position is not a knee-jerk "yes" or "no." It is situational. It is rare for any woman to take the idea of abortion lightly. I trust other women to make the best decisions for their own lives and their own families' lives. As a mother myself, I know how deep a mother's love can be. If a woman were so shallow-minded or simple that she did take abortion lightly, we can assume she might be equally as shallow and simple about child-rearing. Are we willing to take children away from mothers who may be "fit" in most ways, but are simply absent the clarity of thought and common sense that they ought to have? No, that won't happen. The world is full of mothers (and fathers) who are sort-of good enough. Not great. Not even really good. Just barely adequate. We let them have and keep their babies and praise them for doing so. But when a really conscientious woman agonizes over a decision that results in an abortion, we call her an abomination and a murderer. That makes little sense to me.

And just for the record, I support some forms of capital punishment. I support hunting. I eat meat. I am a proud American. I am more patriotic than many flag-waving conservatives because I understand what freedom truly means. It means that each citizen (male or female, gay or straight, and anything in between) has certain rights, and one of the most important of those rights is the right to express oneself and to criticize the government if it needs to be criticized. Being a patriotic American does not mean "Love it or leave it," or "Shut up and go along to get along." It means being an active, engaged, involved voter and activist. It means respect.