Abortion Law
May. 15th, 2008 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueThis is a post about abortion. It's spurred by a Parliamentary vote on tightening British abortion laws (already not particularly lax). I suggest you avoid reading this if you are anti-abortion; I am pro-choice, and this is a post about my frustration with people who aren't. I'm venting, and I'm not looking for a debate. This means that if you leave a comment telling me I'm wrong, I'm both going to delete it and going to be angry with you, because I warned you not to read the entry. I'm in a bad mood already.
It makes me absolutely furious.
While I don't take abortion lightly, I don't think most other women do either, including those who choose it. And there are times when I would - if, for instance, I discovered the fetus was not healthy, and would only live briefly and with great pain. I would find it crushing; I would find it awful. I would also find it necessesary.
These debates always assume the fetus is a healthy baby, when it might not be healthy and certainly is not a baby. It is the potential for a baby. It may resemble a baby, and thus engage our deeply embedded emapathic systems. However, these systems are also engaged by cats, by dolls, and by cartoons. It's not a baby until it can survive outside the body of the mother.
Losing a potential baby is sad; miscarriages are sad; infertility is sad. These things remind us that we will die. But to criminalize the choice not to have a baby - to criminalize not fulfilling potential for a baby - starts a slipperly slope which ends with the belief that at all times women should always be pregnant or trying to conceive. This is something some religious people believe. I myself find the idea repellant as a feminist, an environmentalist, and a person who values quality over quantity.
I have friends who are pro-life, although they are not pro-life campaigners. We don't discuss it, because that would be pointless - for them, it's an id issue which no amount of reason could affect. I have to respect that boundary by ignoring that they believe what they do. But I resent that at base, anti-abortion breaks down into five possible arguments, all of which offend me.
1. I love babies.
Yeah, well, me too. I also happen to have the convenience of being white, pretty, and college-educated, so that if I had to give a kid up for adoption, I could bet it would be adopted. I live in a society where it is likely, although not certain, that I would survive the birth with few (although certainly some) ill effects. Babies are great; they are also a tremendous drain on resources, both monetary and physical. Not everyone has resources to drain. And not everyone has cute babies; some babies have spines growing outside their bodies. Some babies demand expensive around the clock care. Some mothers of these babies kill themselves. Love is not enough of a reason.
How's this: I love tacos. Let's get some tacos.
2. It grosses me out.
You know what grosses me out? Vomit. Let's outlaw vomiting. It's gross. Chemotherapy upsets me too; I don't like to think about cancer. Let's not think about cancer. Let those people die and never say the word "cancer." That must be right, because it feels right. It's a relief to be able to ignore the idea that my body might someday start mutating into something that will kill me.
3. People use it as birth control.
Abortion is a form of birth control. That's why people use it that way. Abortion is your second line of defense if a condom fails, or if you were too drunk or stupid to put one on. Abortion is your second line of defense if an egg implants even though you were on birth control. Abortion is your second line of defense if the man you planned to raise a baby with suddenly starts threatening you. No woman uses abortion as a first defense; it's a last resort. Even if it's something you resort to because you were stupid.
The thing that gets me is that late-term abortions are the least likely to be whimsical. They are not the morning after pill. They tend to happen when something is seriously wrong - so wrong and so scary that a woman who has spent months planning for a baby suddenly has to reverse gear. Alternately, they happen to extremely responsible women who didn't realize they were pregnant because how could they get pregnant - they were on birth control. Or they happen to extremely young and uneducated women who didn't realize they were pregnant because how does one get pregnant?
4. It's what God wants.
How on Earth would one know? It's my feeling this could go either way. I think it's dangerous to start talking about what God wants and doesn't want, because it tends to be whatever you want him to want, only it's more unassailable because there's magic behind it.
5. My genes are more important than women's freedom.
This is the one people aren't willing to say, but it's in there. "I don't care about quality of life; I should be able to impregnate as many women as I like and spread my genes as widely as possible." This is deep primitive animal stuff. It's not responsible; it's not civilized. It turns life into breeding, and all of us into mere animals. Yes, I should be able to stop from having children if I don't want them, for the same reasons that I should have legal protections if you want to take things from me even though you are bigger and stronger. I believe in government, and in technology. It's facile to worship nature; better to rise above it.
It's not that I don't understand the pull of any of these arguments; I do. But they are not good enough reasons to make laws. They don't help society; we aren't desperate for more babies. They don't punish wrongdoers; plenty of bad people have babies and plenty of good people don't. They don't give us a better electorate, or a higher quality of life. They don't protect citizens, unless one believes fetuses are citizens (in which case, why not kidneys?). They are not the business of government. They are decisions best left to the individual, her partner, and doctors.
The thing that breaks me down is that a lot of the most rabid anti-choice crowd is the same group that believes in small government, and in the absolute right of parents to make all decisions concerning their children's upbringing and education.
It doesn't make sense. It's unchecked id. Which makes it, rather than abortion, similar to murder.
It makes me absolutely furious.
While I don't take abortion lightly, I don't think most other women do either, including those who choose it. And there are times when I would - if, for instance, I discovered the fetus was not healthy, and would only live briefly and with great pain. I would find it crushing; I would find it awful. I would also find it necessesary.
These debates always assume the fetus is a healthy baby, when it might not be healthy and certainly is not a baby. It is the potential for a baby. It may resemble a baby, and thus engage our deeply embedded emapathic systems. However, these systems are also engaged by cats, by dolls, and by cartoons. It's not a baby until it can survive outside the body of the mother.
Losing a potential baby is sad; miscarriages are sad; infertility is sad. These things remind us that we will die. But to criminalize the choice not to have a baby - to criminalize not fulfilling potential for a baby - starts a slipperly slope which ends with the belief that at all times women should always be pregnant or trying to conceive. This is something some religious people believe. I myself find the idea repellant as a feminist, an environmentalist, and a person who values quality over quantity.
I have friends who are pro-life, although they are not pro-life campaigners. We don't discuss it, because that would be pointless - for them, it's an id issue which no amount of reason could affect. I have to respect that boundary by ignoring that they believe what they do. But I resent that at base, anti-abortion breaks down into five possible arguments, all of which offend me.
1. I love babies.
Yeah, well, me too. I also happen to have the convenience of being white, pretty, and college-educated, so that if I had to give a kid up for adoption, I could bet it would be adopted. I live in a society where it is likely, although not certain, that I would survive the birth with few (although certainly some) ill effects. Babies are great; they are also a tremendous drain on resources, both monetary and physical. Not everyone has resources to drain. And not everyone has cute babies; some babies have spines growing outside their bodies. Some babies demand expensive around the clock care. Some mothers of these babies kill themselves. Love is not enough of a reason.
How's this: I love tacos. Let's get some tacos.
2. It grosses me out.
You know what grosses me out? Vomit. Let's outlaw vomiting. It's gross. Chemotherapy upsets me too; I don't like to think about cancer. Let's not think about cancer. Let those people die and never say the word "cancer." That must be right, because it feels right. It's a relief to be able to ignore the idea that my body might someday start mutating into something that will kill me.
3. People use it as birth control.
Abortion is a form of birth control. That's why people use it that way. Abortion is your second line of defense if a condom fails, or if you were too drunk or stupid to put one on. Abortion is your second line of defense if an egg implants even though you were on birth control. Abortion is your second line of defense if the man you planned to raise a baby with suddenly starts threatening you. No woman uses abortion as a first defense; it's a last resort. Even if it's something you resort to because you were stupid.
The thing that gets me is that late-term abortions are the least likely to be whimsical. They are not the morning after pill. They tend to happen when something is seriously wrong - so wrong and so scary that a woman who has spent months planning for a baby suddenly has to reverse gear. Alternately, they happen to extremely responsible women who didn't realize they were pregnant because how could they get pregnant - they were on birth control. Or they happen to extremely young and uneducated women who didn't realize they were pregnant because how does one get pregnant?
4. It's what God wants.
How on Earth would one know? It's my feeling this could go either way. I think it's dangerous to start talking about what God wants and doesn't want, because it tends to be whatever you want him to want, only it's more unassailable because there's magic behind it.
5. My genes are more important than women's freedom.
This is the one people aren't willing to say, but it's in there. "I don't care about quality of life; I should be able to impregnate as many women as I like and spread my genes as widely as possible." This is deep primitive animal stuff. It's not responsible; it's not civilized. It turns life into breeding, and all of us into mere animals. Yes, I should be able to stop from having children if I don't want them, for the same reasons that I should have legal protections if you want to take things from me even though you are bigger and stronger. I believe in government, and in technology. It's facile to worship nature; better to rise above it.
It's not that I don't understand the pull of any of these arguments; I do. But they are not good enough reasons to make laws. They don't help society; we aren't desperate for more babies. They don't punish wrongdoers; plenty of bad people have babies and plenty of good people don't. They don't give us a better electorate, or a higher quality of life. They don't protect citizens, unless one believes fetuses are citizens (in which case, why not kidneys?). They are not the business of government. They are decisions best left to the individual, her partner, and doctors.
The thing that breaks me down is that a lot of the most rabid anti-choice crowd is the same group that believes in small government, and in the absolute right of parents to make all decisions concerning their children's upbringing and education.
It doesn't make sense. It's unchecked id. Which makes it, rather than abortion, similar to murder.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-16 09:35 pm (UTC)I still recall the (female) Prime Minister of Iceland quoting that comment that it's a far greater crime to bring children into the world unloved and unwanted than aborting a fetus.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-03 05:52 am (UTC)Because while I hate abortion, as you know I do, I wouldn't vote it down. What makes me miserable most is a society that doesn't prevent the need. I wish - because you know I spend all this bloody time captioning Fox - that everyone would sit down and just try to generally end the misery for everyone, rather than pile it on more. I think sometimes the extremists on the anti-abortion side simply misplace their frustration over a world where people are constantly hurt, starved, and brutalized to this one issue - because it's a rant against people they can reach, rather than ones they can't.
I'm tired and a bit tipsy, so apologies if this in any way came across as anything but thoughts on the complexity of the whole issue. It's a hard subject. And deglazing wears me out.
Love you,
V
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-03 10:02 am (UTC)Mostly, it pisses me off that the debate tends to be between the extremists, and tends to be highly theoretical, and tends to operate around this imaginary blithe woman-who-uses-abortion-casually, when I don't really think that woman exists. I think it's a no-win decision women have to make sometimes, and I don't think it's right to make it even scarier and harder, and to shame the woman by making her a criminal. It reminds me a little of how I often feel in debates over illegal immigrants fleeing corrupt and dangerous places - yeah, they're cheating and they shouldn't be here, but they shouldn't really be back there either.
Love,
Romie