The Emotional Responses to Abortion

Originally Published at Wrong Speak

As counterintuitive as it seems, we need to remove some of the emotion from our discussions about abortion.  Though it’s obviously an inherently emotional subject, such strong emotions cause us to dig our heels in and lose sight of the fact that everyone’s reality is different.  Military grade stances only ensure that multitudes of people who think differently will be convinced that everyone else is a crazy control freak.  (This piece will abstain from situations involving incest, rape, or severe medical risks, which should occupy their own categories.)

A woman I know is a classic pro-choice liberal (not a woke progressive).  When the subject of abortion rights was broached, she said, “There is no discussion.  It’s a woman’s body, and a woman’s right to choose, period, stop.  There is nothing to discuss.”.

I was perplexed by this.  “There’s always something to discuss, about anything.”

“Absolutely not.  Not about this.”  She was adamant; her emotions caused her to put up a wall, which blocked out her sense of reason.

I brushed her resistance aside and started a discussion anyway.  “So would you think it was okay if a baby was killed after birth and thrown away?”  It was too extreme, intentionally so, for her to ignore.

“Oh my God, no, of course not.  That’s murder.  Nobody wants that.”

I moved the line a bit.  “What about while the mother is in labor, if she used a loophole that the baby was not technically born yet, and her doctor reached in and killed it before it emerged?”

“Oh stop, that doesn’t happen.  Of course I wouldn’t support that.”

Rare, I’ll give you.  Doesn’t happen?  That’s wishful thinking.  So I pushed further.  “How about a few days or weeks before that, when the baby is fully formed, could be born naturally at any time, and would survive without medical assistance?”

She hedged a little.  “Well, I would never do something like that.”

“But the question is, should it be legal for others to do it?”

She thought about it before answering.  “No, I think that’s going too far.”

I admit to some sense of accomplishment.  “You see what’s happening?  We’re having a discussion about it.”

I continued pushing the envelope further back, past stages of lung development, central nervous system formation, and beating heart, until she reached her personal line in the sand.  Ironically, it turned out that her views were not too dissimilar to my own, a fact she would never have considered without open discussion.

The point I was trying to make was not that she should agree with my views, but that everyone has their own comfort barrier about this issue, and often for vastly different reasons which we need to hear first in order to respect.  Emotions displace our ability to respect and understand those views with which we don’t agree.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, some states have moved to restrict abortion further or entirely.  Prior to that decision, two states limited it to within six weeks; 16 to within 22 weeks; 26 to the vague point of “viability”; and six (plus Washington DC) with no limits at all (source: Axios).

Pro-choice advocates focus on a woman’s right to autonomy over her body.  They point out - correctly - that a man can contribute his DNA and just walk away, leaving the woman’s life forever altered.  They bemoan that men are celebrated for the numbers of their sexual conquests and don’t have to physically endure abortions, while women are slut-shamed for the same behaviors and have to live with the abortion procedure and its emotional aftermath.  They raise concerns about women without resources being forced to travel to other states for a procedure they can’t access locally.  They find this an unreasonable imbalance of responsibility, and it most certainly is.  

These people also point out the expansive issues surrounding unwanted children, which affect more than just the mothers whose lives are instantly and permanently redirected.  They recognize the reality that single parent households produce significantly lower chances for the success of their children.  These issues also place additional burdens on society when we must all contribute to the care of more underprivileged kids. 

Most importantly, this affects the children themselves, who are often relegated to lives in dysfunctional families or foster homes and grow up with all the odds stacked against them.  All of these issues are legitimate, and can’t be brushed aside with simplistic labels of infanticide.

Conversely, we can’t live in denial that infanticide isn’t literally what 1.5 million annual abortions in this country are.  Since 1980, the 60 million+ aborted American babies would constitute a larger population than 9 out of every 10 countries in the world. Read that again. 

Though they represent a vast minority of would-be mothers, there are nevertheless some women who flippantly utilize numerous abortions as a form of delayed birth control for their reckless behavior.  (I am not excusing men from that statement as they are often equally complicit, but if women demand autonomy in these decisions they must accept the accountability that goes with it.)  We also can’t ignore that this disproportionately affects some minorities, eg. that the 12% black population currently accounts for roughly 40% of abortions.  

Pro-life advocates argue that birth control and adoption are readily available alternatives.  So while it’s true that a woman should indeed maintain control over her own body, and men are equally responsible for conception but less so afterwards, women do have other choices.  These people can acknowledge the lack of gender fairness, but still feel the balance between the value of a baby’s life and the repercussions of choices in which women play a role is not equal. 

They feel that killing an innocent child - especially once developed - as a response to a poor decision is not reasonable.  Yes you have rights, but doesn’t the baby (who didn’t ask for this) have rights as well?  They wonder at the significant discrepancies between the rights of the already born versus the not-yet-born - the same person, represented just weeks apart in its existence.  There is legitimacy to these views as well.

(Additionally, when I say “rare” about late-term abortions, I mean statistically as opposed to actual numbers.  These procedures account for about 1% of abortions, which is admittedly statistically uncommon.  But 1% of 1.5 million is 15 thousand babies killed in this way each year, a fact we can’t just ignore.)

Many refer to the extreme stances of the religious right, which are admittedly challenging for non-believers.  Opposition to abortion as well as birth control (while promoting abstinence as the only alternative) leaves little wiggle room and is both sexually oppressive and functionally unrealistic.  It also ignores, even for married couples, the financial commitments required to properly raise children.  But if you truly believe that is God’s will, and that eternity is at stake, how could you not fight for that?  Much as many find the requirement of Muslim women to wear burqas to be oppressive and ridiculous, they accept it because who are we to question what others believe?

Look, I’m pro-choice, within reason.  But I also understand that I’m an old man who had a vasectomy years ago and I’m not religious, so I have no skin in this game.  (Additionally, my definition of within reason may not be the same as yours or anyone else’s.)  People from both sides should have places to live where they can feel represented, which was the whole point of striking down Roe and leaving it up to individual states.  Pro-choice advocates are not all soulless murderers, and pro-life advocates are not all misogynist fundamentalists.  That’s all propaganda used by the extremes to rally support - and more importantly funding - from the majority in the middle, and it only serves to inflame our emotions.  

It’s past time we remove those emotions from our discourse, and start to have open-minded conversations with those on the other side.

Zephareth Ledbetter’s latest book, “A White Man’s Perspectives on Race and Racism - Rational Thoughts on an Irrational World”, is available cheap at smashwords.com/books/view/1184004