Mindfully Pro-Choice

Abortion is a horrible option to consider. Sometimes, I feel that "right to choose" has an inappropriate air of simplicity.  I was around for Roe v. Wade when "right to choose" was not a lightweight slogan given the condition of women's rights at the time.  Today, however, society has actually evolved, and the terms "pro-choice" and "right to choose" seem to have lost their aura of mindfulness.

Semantics aside, women should have agency over their bodies and things happening in their bodies.  What I find disagreeable is a slogan that suggests only a medical procedure on the woman and nothing more when, in cases there is a viable fetus or the expectation of one, a woman's decision goes beyond the boundaries of self.  Therefore, I would reframe the slogan as "a woman's right to agency."

I would also explicitly remove from the abortion question women for whom the procedure is necessary to remove a non-viable or dead fetus.  This is a medical procedure whose absence does nothing to preserve life.  There should be no controversy whatsoever in such cases.

I do not disagree that there are potential fathers who are engaged with their responsibility and have a stake in the process, but I do not believe this issue has stabilized to where, at a policy level, we can go beyond simply giving the woman absolute agency and solid support before and after, and then mind our own business. 

I am pro-choice in that abortions should be safe and legal without a gauntlet of hecklers at the front door.  Also, many abortion seekers are victims who do not deserve to suffer any further in the court of public opinion.  At the same time, I also believe that abortion is a form of homicide that, like certain other forms, we have given an acceptable context, but abortion should never be taken lightly. Unlike other forms of institutionalized homicide, abortion does not justify itself by serving as punishment, revenge, or deterrence. In the case of abortion, the departed bears no fault whatsoever. 

There are ethics to be wrestled with on both sides.  

On the one hand, pro-lifers must ask what purpose it serves to damn an innocent child to a life of being unwanted, neglected, or abused, or to have tweens giving birth while their elders pontificate, while we have no way of asking their future selves what they would prefer?  Further, how many pro-lifers would bear and raise their rape child or force this on their daughters?  Finally, are such people pro-life or only pro-birth?  What are the complete ramifications of making abortion completely unavailable?

On the other hand, pro-choice adherents must admit that an abortion is an injustice against someone who is blameless and that under the best conditions, an abortion is a sacrifice made in order to preserve something the mother deems more pressing and under the worst conditions, little more than an honor killing to save face.  

One might stand in the mirror and ask:  Are you pro-life enough to adopt one of the children you have saved?  Are you pro-choice enough to answer the phone every night at 3 a.m. to soothe - or save - a woman wracked by guilt?

I believe a safe abortion with adequate counseling - before and after - can be the lesser evil.  However, it is my opinion that beyond a certain point, we are choosing between evils.

In my mind, the "right to choose" is not the right to dispatch one's progeny with ease; it is the right to exert one's duty to make a difficult choice, often in untenable circumstances without support and sometimes with the sad obligation of preserving the children or others who are already present in a family that can scarcely feed them; to preserve one's health or one's marriage; to save one's life or to make a wrenching decision in the case of a child who may suffer horrifically after birth. We need not layer shame on top of such a loss.  Indeed, should we not hope she feels relief after putting a trauma behind her?

The person making the choice must have enough information - information, not partisan hysterics - to make as informed and mature a choice as they are capable of.  That said, all I would ask of a clinic's clientele is to be convinced, from the depths of their soul, that this is their best option, and trust them when they say it is.

It goes without saying that there will always be people who misuse their power of life and death in an immature fashion.  It is essential to shore up medically safe abortions with access to education and birth control to keep this to a minimum.

Once we stabilize the issue of abortion, perhaps then we can fix the broken parts of our culture and of public policy that make its existence necessary and widespread.

Until then, I am pro-choice.