Abortion

Ever since Republicans got a majority of seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate in 1995, they have been trying to pass a bill that would ban partial birth abortion within the United States. A bill which would have done this, HR1833 was passed by the House and Senate only to be vetoed by President Clinton on May 5, 1996. Later attempts to override the veto were defeated, the most recent being on September 18, 1998 failing to achieve a 2/3’s majority by 3 votes.

“Partial Birth Abortion” as it has become known is a legal term used to refer to a dilation & extraction or intact dilation & evacuation. This is an abortion process used mostly in second or third trimester abortions, where the fetus is almost or fully formed. What this means is that the vagina of the mother is stretched (dilation) and the fetus is partially delivered. The doctor turns the unborn child into the "breech" position (feet first) and pulls the child from the mother until all but the head is delivered. He or she then forces scissors into the base of the skull and inserts a catheter to suction out the child's brain. This procedure, while more complicated and messy than some, is less allegedly less harmful to the mother than other such abortion techniques, such as saline or prostaglandin induced abortion, which chemically poisons the fetus.

Like most arguments over abortion in general, the debate over partial birth abortion has sparked more than a fair amount of discussion, splitting people into the groups of pro-life and pro-choice. The pro-life organizations have spoken out against partial birth abortion in specific and abortion in general based upon Religious, Moral and Medical Arguments.

First, the religious argument against abortion. Many people who are anti-abortion rely upon this argument above all others, if indeed they use any other arguments. Quite often they will quote passages from the Bible to back up their claims that abortion goes against God’s laws. This is not limited to individual activists or religious leaders. Whole groups, such as Texans United for Life, devote substantial portions of their webpages towards explaining “what God says about abortion”. One of the more quoted passages is Psalm 139:13-16, which allegedly deals with when God says life begins. I quote in part...

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.”

The second argument is that of morality. Many pro-lifers argue that, religious issues are set aside, there are still the issues of right and wrong in regard to abortion. They say that even if abortion is not a sin, it is still an act of needless killing and should be treated as murder. Those who plead the moral case usually point to alternatives to abortion such as adoption or encourage abstinence which would prevent the need for the abortion in the first place.

The third argument against partial-birth abortion is a medical one. Many doctors now claim there is evidence that partial birth abortion, aside from being a messy and disgusting process, may well be harmful to the mother’s life. One of these doctor’s groups, PHACT, say on their website that PBA is dangerous because it involves “a forcible dilation of the cervix to 5cm over 48 hours by laminaria, risking infection and future cervical incompetence” and that doctors must perform this procedure “partially blind and with sharp instrumentation (which is put) within the uterus to evacuate the baby's brain, again with the possibility of lacerating the uterus with the scissors or the sharp shards of bone from the baby's skull. These last three procedures all risk peritonitis, or massive hemorrhage, necessitating immediate hysterectomy -- both obvious threats to the fertility and life of the woman.”

The opposing arguments are just as strong where the focus is upon the values of freedom, morality and medical arguments. First, let us discuss the idea of freedom. As it was decided in the case of Roe vs. Wade, a woman's right to an abortion is protected under the 14th Amendment; specifically, the right to privacy in regard to one's own body. The value of freedom is very important to those who are pro-choice. Indeed, the right of a woman to control her own body is the very core focus of the pro-choice movement.

Secondly, there is morality. Many in the pro-choice camp concede the point that abortion is a terrible thing and that all that is possible should be done to prevent it. However, there are many cases, such as rape and incest, where many people believe a woman should not have to be forced to have the child. And then there are things such as birth complications. If not for abortion, how many women are there who might die in child birth if doctors are not allowed to abort the fetus and save her life? It is the position of these people that preventing the anguish a woman might suffer from being forced to have a child she doesn’t want and the loss of life through complications outweighs the loss of life. Moralists also point out that there is no clear definition of when life begins. According to the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance webpage, most people in the pro-life camp say it begins at conception. Pro-choice say it begins “when the baby can live outside the womb, once it loses its’ gills starts to look human-shaped, once it shows signs of brainwave activity (7 months or so) or after it has taken its first breath.”

Finally, there is the medical argument. One argument for the Dilation and Extraction (D&X) is that it is, despite what many pro-life groups say, a life saving procedure that is relatively harmless to the mother. According to an article on the Planned Parenthood of Houston/Southeast Texas Website, an Ohio federal court ruled that "the D&X (partial-birth) procedure appears to have the potential of being a safer procedure than all other abortion procedures" in the later part of the second trimester. A Nebraska Federal Court made a similar judgment D&X is the safest abortion method in the later part of the second-trimester, and banning it subjects women "to an appreciably greater risk of injury or death than would be the case if these women could" obtain the banned procedure..” Further support for the safety of the “partial-birth abortion” can be found on the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice webpage. Besides stating that the procedure is safe, it notes that for all the attention it has been given, the D&X is rarely used. “This procedure is actually one of the least-used forms of late-term abortion because it's needed only in certain situations, usually involving a severely deformed fetus (where) Other procedures, such as induced labor or vaginal delivery, would present higher risk to the woman's life, health or future childbearing. In these cases, Intact D&E may be safer than other procedures because it reduces blood loss and prevents tearing the woman's cervix and uterus, leaving her able to get pregnant and give birth later.” The RCRC website also gives specific statistics on how many D&X’s are performed in a year, saying that about one percent of all abortions take place after 20 weeks. D&X’s are usually only performed during labor and it is estimated that there are only 600 third-trimester abortions a year nationwide, this making up a minuscule fraction of a percent of the total number of abortions done.

Having looked at both sides and read the arguments, I find myself on the side I started on, my opinions unchanged but with a better understanding of those who disagree with me. I am pro-choice, having found no convincing argument to be otherwise. I will argue this position based on the three values of the pro-life side I mentioned earlier. Let us discuss the religious argument first. I would not call myself religious by nature and would not identify myself as a member of any organized religion, even though I do believe there is a God. Nevertheless, I have read the Bible and have found a good deal of wisdom in what is written in it. But as a former debater I have very little respect for anyone who limits themselves to one form of argument and even less respect for Bible Thumpers in particular. While the former merely limit they ways in which they can express themselves, the latter actively assume that I am wrong for no reason other than I speak against them. It’s odd, but I have noticed that those who quote the Bible very rarely read the Bible itself. More often that no they are merely repeating a portion of what they heard the local pastor say or what Pat Robertson or the like said on TV. I looked up the aforementioned passage from the Texans United for Life page, which I shall repeat...

"For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works: and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

These verses are used to prove that human life begins at conception, but we see no mention of the soul. We read that a blueprint, of sorts, is used by God to form our bodies. Nowhere here does this describe anything but the making of the human form. Nowhere here does it describe how we are imbued with a human soul. There are however passages which DO describe this. I quote from Genesis 2:7...

"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

This passage suggests that first a body is maid, then the body breathes and then it receives a soul. This passage then could be used to support the pro-choice argument that life beings after the baby’s first breath upon delivery. Since the Bible has been shown to be a tool usable by both the pro-choice and pro-life sides, I think we can conclude that the Religious argument against abortion is very weakly founded.

In the case of morality, I do agree with the pro-life position somewhat, as I believe most pro-choice people do. While I do not personally believe the fetus to be a living being with a soul, I do believe that abortion does end the potential for a being to come into existence. As such, abortion should be discouraged at every opportunity simply because there are much better alternatives. For example, abstinence will keep a woman from getting pregnant in the first place. Birth control, while not being 100% effective, is also better than nothing. And even if a condom or a pill should fail, there is always the adoption option. That said, I must explain why I come down pro-choice on the Morality argument. It is true that man abortions might be prevented through abstinence, the use of birth control or adoption. But what about the many cases where the pregnancy could not have been prevented? What if a woman is raped and impregnated? Does society have a right to tell her she has to have the child? Can we really ask a woman to raise a child, brought into existence because of circumstances that she could not control, especially if she might become traumatized by being reminded of the rape ever time she sees her child? Or what if the rapist is a family member? Should any woman be forced by the state to have a child that could be inbred? For that matter, what if there are complications in birth and an abortion is the only way possible to save the mother's life? Will the female mortality rate rise because of all these mothers, who might have been saved had it not been for the Religious Right's distaste of a certain medical procedure? And what if the woman cannot afford to support a child? Would we have this child grow up in squalid conditions, perhaps becoming beaten and abused by a mother who never wanted it? Or maybe the child will be, in an incident I hear repeated on the news all too frequently, abandoned in a trash dumpster? That is why I am pro-choice. For while I may agree that abortion should be prevented at any cost, I would argue that it is more moral to allow one potential life to end than for two potential lives to be ruined.

Finally, there is the medical argument. Based upon everything I have read on the Internet, I must again say that I am pro-choice upon the medical point. Yes, the description of the procedures for a D&X are gruesome. But so are many medical procedures once you hear them described or see them performed. The procedure is safe and done only in emergency situations. Even then it is used sparingly, only dozens of times a year according to my aforementioned source. It seems somewhat foolish to me to waste so much time over a procedure that is used in less that 1% of the total amount of abortion cases. Also, the pro-choice sites I saw were overall better organized than the pro-life sites. By this, I mean that they all had similar figures and statistics as opposed to some of the pro-life sites I saw which were like unto snowflakes in a field: no two of them alike. To me, a well organized argument is a good indicator of how valid it is, since the people who most often think through their beliefs also take time to organize their thoughts.

And so it is that I must conclude that because of the Bible being an ineffective tool to plead the case of God being against abortion, that the stopping of one life is a lesser sin than the ruination of two and that there is no medical reason to doubt the safety of the D&X procedure that the pro-choice argument is the correct one.

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