Monday, March 06, 2006

The Big One

Well, it looks like it's finally going to happen. Many have been hoping for it and praying for it for years. Some have prayed that it wouldn't. It is a renewed battle over abortion in this country.

The stars began to align not too long ago, with the retirement of two supreme court justices and the appointment of two replacements who seem conservative enough to think about overturning Roe v. Wade. Roe was at the heart of the debate over both candidates, and a particularly bitter battle was fought over the confirmation of Samuel Alito, who once wrote the minority opinion favoring mandatory notification of the father of a potentially aborted fetus.

Wasting no time, the South Dakota House passed a bill that would outlaw nearly all abortions in that state, and its Senate quickly followed. Almost immediately, Mississippi's House passed a similar bill. And on March 6, the governor of South Dakota signed their bill into law.

OK, pro-lifers, where do you/we go from here? Assuming the S. Dakota and Mississippi laws are challenged all the way to the Supremes, and the neo-conservative court overturns Roe, what then? We have to ask ourselves some tough questions.

Most importantly, What's going to happen to all those newborns? Adoption (the loving option)? That will help, but it won't solve the problem. Over one million couples wait to adopt every year in this country, but the number of abortions supercedes by as many as 300,000. And that assumes that every couple that wants to adopt is eligible--financially, ethically--to legally adopt the child. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that all the fathers of those unaborted children rescind their parental rights (as unlikely as that may be)
and
that 80% of those couples are eligible; that leaves 500,000 helpless, unwanted human beings brought into the world.

What kinds of situations would these children be forced into? According to the Guttmacher Institute, women "with incomes below 200% of poverty made up 30% of all women of reproductive age, but accounted for 57% of all women having abortions." This poses a problem. If eligible couples adopt without regard for the economic situations of the biological parents, 285,000 children would be born into poverty. How likely are the children to succeed in life if they are born into the slums of Chicago's south side, Oak Cliff, Atlanta, etc? How will they eat? How will they attend school? The welfare system is already overstretched. Perhaps more importantly, how likely are these children of disadvantaged women to be the victims of abuse?

I ask because not only is the government ill prepared to handle the potential influx of economy-draining infants, the right and the Church are completely and utterly unprepared to do anything about the situation. Most conservatives would not support government handouts for these new mothers, and this Republican-controlled congress would therefore most likely kill any bill that would further stretch the Fed's dollar for welfare "handouts." The impetus would then fall on non-profits and churches. How many of them are financially and logistically prepared to undertake a project of such massive proportions, of caring for 300,000 newborns? I submit to you, none, or so few that their impact would be unnoticed. If neither the goverment nor the church can care for these children, what kind of public support will there be for an abortion ban? Surely, these malnourished, uneducated, emotionally, physically, and sexually abused children would have been better off never having been brought into the world to begin with. Which is the greater evil--to end a dead-end life painlessly before it is even cognizant, or to bring it into the world to humiliate, torture, and rob it of its dignity? The good citizens of these United States will not stand for the mass abuse of hundreds of thousands additional innocent children.

Secondly, you/we, the pro-life camp, need to agree on when life really does begin. Does it begin at fertilization, or does it begin at implantation? I ask because there exists an alternative to invasive abortion, one which could solve the abortion debate, that begs an answer. Plan B, or emergency contraception, can be taken within three days of unprotected sex to prevent a pregnancy. It differs from the controversial RU-486 in that it will not work if a woman is already pregnant. Plan B prevents fertilization or implantation, and it is impossible to control which. Bottom line: a zygote will not survive if it is not implanted in the uterus. Do we defend all human cell integration, or do we draw the line at viable embryos, ones that have a chance of surviving, ones that will certainly develop into a unique human life? A delineation of "human life" (that which contains human DNA) and "unique human life" (that which can and will develop into a unique human being) speaks to other issues as well, e.g. stem-cell research and medicine.

The lawmakers in South Dakota thought Plan B had some merit, and included a clause permitting its use in Section 3: "Nothing in section 2 of this Act may be construed to prohibit the sale, use, prescription, or administration of a contraceptive measure, drug or chemical, if it is administered prior to the time when a pregnancy could be determined through conventional medical testing." I quote Slate's William Saletan: "Look at that language carefully. It doesn't just say you can take a contraceptive drug before sex. It says you can take such a drug after sex, as long as it's before conventional tests can detect a pregnancy."

Pro-lifers, now is the time to get your act together. Want to outlaw abortion? Great--come up with a plan to care for the lives that you defend; no mere Modest Proposal will do. We can say life begins at fertilization, implantation, or sometime in the third trimester (as the law currently reads); nobody's going to listen to anything else. If at fertilization, then writing a provision for Plan B is construing, in ever so small a way, a right to murder a select group of human beings: those who are unfortunate enough to be the product of rape. If at implantation, then we need to fight for contraception, including emergency contraception, to be distributed on-demand and at low- or no-cost. We must be prepared not only to fight, but to win, and to sacrifice our tax dollars, charitable contributions, and volunteer hours to deal with the consequences if we do. The majority of Americans believe that abortion is immoral, but even so most believe it should still be legal. Outlawing abortion will be an uphill battle, and a house divided against itself--believing one thing morally and legislating another--cannot stand.

Sources:
Patterns in the Socioeconomic Characteristics of Women Obtaining Abortions in 2000-2001, the Guttmacher Institute.

About.com Abortion Statistics

Take the Fifth, The Road from Roe, Slate

Reuters

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know too much about babies and pregnancy. Besides it is all good for me, because I am becoming a librel and left more each day!

Anonymous said...

You are exactly right. You can't open up a can of worms without a plan for what you are gonna do with them, and you sure can't stuff them back in. There is a separation between church and state for a reason. We cannot force religious values on a society. Being pro-life is a choice. You can choose to keep your baby, and you can choose to encourage others to do the same. However, abortion is still going to occur. Many lives will be taken with those illegal abortions.
Also, the morning after pill is good, but expensive, and those who are the poorest can't (and most likely won't) take it.

Youssef Sleiman said...

(this is MRS. Youssef :)

You have overlooked a small thing if I might say so... if people weren't getting abortions and these children where alowed to live there couldn't be as many children actually born as their are aborted because of the time it takes to have a baby. One person could have several abortions in a year and in that same year only give birth to one child. The number of abortions that would be prevented wouldn't actually mean that many children would be born.
Yes there would still be many children born probably in bad situations but then hopefully some of those people would avoid sex so much if they were afraid of having more children.

Perhaps the government would do better to spend their money in paying for vesectamies (spelling?) and things like that to just fix the problem before we even have to worry about when a baby is a baby.

Which.. I do believe that a baby is a real person at conseption. When I was pregnant with Lily before I could take a test that said I was pregnant I knew that I was. Not in a normal way.. not even in the panicky way that I was just worried that I was pregnant or anything like that... I just knew.. which makes sence when you think of all the hormones and things that are changed when a woman is pregnant.

Oh... and has anyone thought about how healthcare would be changed? Do you know that one of the leading causes of breast cancer is from women having abortions and also choosing to give formula to their babys instead of breast feeding?

God made us to have one husband have his children and our breasts are there to feed them. Our culture has tried to change every part of that and in the end is stricken with cancer, aids, ect, ect, and depression! If you've ever talked to some women who've had abortions the ones that are honest with themselves and have the courage to tell other people will tell you that they live with guilt about killing their child! A woman can say that her baby is just a bit of tissued lump with no soul, but.. deep down she has to know even if she can't admit it.. even to herself.

I think that it doesn't matter if we don't have the entire plan figured out of how to take care of all the children.. the right thing to do is to save them. God will take care of the rest.

I don't know how it would work out in the end... how much money would be saved from being given to diseases (caused by unresponsible sex and abortion) to those children that could live.

Who are we to say that it would be better if they had of died. Are we God?

Are we so selfish to think that perhaps they should die because we can't take care of them? God will give us the means to take care of them. What we fail to realize is that children are a blessing.

When will we stop thinking of ourselves and choose to love our children?

I wonder how many families with one or two kids who make $30,000 and say they "can't afford" more children would think if they could see how Youssef and I live on less than $10,000 a year with one child and no help from the government.. and how we are well fed and happy... and perhaps no one in our rich country realizes that they could live without endulging themselves in entertainment and toys... perhaps our children and families need time together... perhaps making daisy chains outside in their yard and laughing about the playing squirrels or kicking a ball around could actually be better for them and us then spending that extra $20 for cable or whatever.

... Is it that we don't have enough money to take care of the children... or are we just unwilling to give up our luxuries?

Youssef Sleiman said...

Oh.. and if I might add in response to "Anonymous".. Using the excuse that "They'll just do it anyway" just isn't good enough! And the sepperation of church and state was not so that the state could not be affected by the people who are religeous but so that the state could not force the people to accept a certain religeon. Not allowing someone to have an abortion is not saying that they have to keep their baby... it is not saying that they have to go to a certain church or believe in a certain religeon. It is giving rights to every human being.. even those who can't deffend themselves.

So, should we turn our back on all unwanted babies just because people will have abortions illegaly anyway? Who are we to say that those babies couldn't grow up to be contributing members of society? Perhaps some people would say that they most likely won't so why give them the chance?

... I can't accept that... how many of us demand a second, third, fourth chance at things... and we aren't even allowing aborted babies to have a first chance at anything.

Spoon said...

Mrs. Youssef: I agree with a lot of what you're saying. My problem is separating the ideal from the practical and the moral and logical "shoulds" from the reality of human behavior in a sinful world.

I think Britney Spears makes an excellent case study for a lot of the ideas on the table here. Who has more motivation than she for not having babies? It puts her career on hold and diminishes her long-term market value (think crop tops with stretch marks). She has kid #2 on the way and is keeping him (moral decision or PR?), but I reckon a lot of people out there feel sorry for her children.

Spoon said...

Anonymous, thanks for contributing. I'd love to know who you are.