"Good" abortion vs. "bad" abortion?
Feb. 11th, 2008 09:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseAn interesting op-ed piece from a couple years ago on the morality of abortion because of medical problems with the fetus vs. financial or other personal reasons, and specifically the refusal of many women who choose the former to acknowledge that they're making the same choice as those in the latter category. For those who are too lazy to click, here's the meat of the matter:
The prejudice is widespread that a termination for medical reasons is somehow on a higher moral plane than a run-of-the-mill abortion. In a 1999 survey of Floridians, for example, 82 percent supported legal abortion in the case of birth defects, compared with about 40 percent in situations where the woman simply could not afford to raise another child.
But what makes it morally more congenial to kill a particular "defective" fetus than to kill whatever fetus happens to come along, on an equal opportunity basis? Medically informed "terminations" are already catching heat from disability rights groups, and, indeed, some of the conditions for which people are currently choosing abortion, like deafness or dwarfism, seem a little sketchy to me. I'll still defend the right to choose abortion in these cases, even if it isn't the choice I'd make for myself.
As Barbara Ehrenreich (who, incidentally, wrote the fantastic working-class exposé Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America) points out, it seems a bit odd for women who decide to abort a fetus with Down's Syndrome to not consider it a "real abortion" - they may want a child, but if they don't want the specific child they're carrying and choose to abort it, then what they're doing is exactly that - exercising their right to choose.
Pretty much no one who reads this blog will be surprised to learn that I fall on the "abortion for medical reasons is just as valid as any other" side of the fence. But seeing a woman who's had an abortion put herself morally above others who have for any reason - because it was for medical reasons, because she's an active pro-lifer who's probably saved hundreds of other babies, because she's spent every day of her life since regretting it - makes me feel truly sorry for her, because she apparently feels the need to justify a very personal and often painful choice to others.
And, sadly, because it's that very kind of hypocrisy that often motivates those who are loudest about denying others the same choice.
The prejudice is widespread that a termination for medical reasons is somehow on a higher moral plane than a run-of-the-mill abortion. In a 1999 survey of Floridians, for example, 82 percent supported legal abortion in the case of birth defects, compared with about 40 percent in situations where the woman simply could not afford to raise another child.
But what makes it morally more congenial to kill a particular "defective" fetus than to kill whatever fetus happens to come along, on an equal opportunity basis? Medically informed "terminations" are already catching heat from disability rights groups, and, indeed, some of the conditions for which people are currently choosing abortion, like deafness or dwarfism, seem a little sketchy to me. I'll still defend the right to choose abortion in these cases, even if it isn't the choice I'd make for myself.
As Barbara Ehrenreich (who, incidentally, wrote the fantastic working-class exposé Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America) points out, it seems a bit odd for women who decide to abort a fetus with Down's Syndrome to not consider it a "real abortion" - they may want a child, but if they don't want the specific child they're carrying and choose to abort it, then what they're doing is exactly that - exercising their right to choose.
Pretty much no one who reads this blog will be surprised to learn that I fall on the "abortion for medical reasons is just as valid as any other" side of the fence. But seeing a woman who's had an abortion put herself morally above others who have for any reason - because it was for medical reasons, because she's an active pro-lifer who's probably saved hundreds of other babies, because she's spent every day of her life since regretting it - makes me feel truly sorry for her, because she apparently feels the need to justify a very personal and often painful choice to others.
And, sadly, because it's that very kind of hypocrisy that often motivates those who are loudest about denying others the same choice.
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This may be a little off topic
Date: 2008-02-12 03:20 pm (UTC)When he was asked about what he thought of abortion he said that his opinion was that his opinion didn't matter on the subject because he wasn't a woman.
It's women that make the decisions to abort whether it's for medical, financial, or emotional reasons. Being an advocate of zero-pop growth. I can see all the positive reasons to have an abortion. Here in the states we have the highest per capita rate of child-birth survivors than anywhere else. We also have 1/2 of all fetuses conceived aborted.
Responsibility is a delicate thing and it's you women that make the choices. We men can only stand idly by and hope that you take our opinion into consideration.
Even today's films show how little men get to put their input into decisions of childbirth. Look at "Juno". And I'm not bitching, I'm stating the facts.
There is no moral superiority in my mind for any women whether they have an abortion or don't for any reason. It's your body and you choose what to do with it. No matter why or what for. Period.
Re: This may be a little off topic
Date: 2008-02-12 03:55 pm (UTC)I think what really pisses me off the most about the pro-life movement is that, in so many ways, it's not about "saving babies". I mean, sure, that's what some of the individual people who participate in it care most about, but there are far, far too many people enfolded under the "pro-life" banner who don't care one whit for babies. Instead they're using the excuse of pro-lifeness as a means of asserting dominance over women, so they can punish them for being "sluts" and "whores". How many times have you seen the "If she didn't want to end up pregnant she should've kept her legs shut" argument? How many women does that exclude? Women who were raped, or molested; women who got drunk and/or made one bad decision; women who were using multiple birth control methods but were cursed with hyper-fertility. All these women, under pro-life reasoning, are doomed to (at the very least) nine months of pains in the ass, and then (depending on race and social class, since there isn't a huge market for interracial/lower class babies) often trying to raise a child on limited means (financial, social and often emotional). Where are all the "Please don't kill your baby!" folk when a child cries all night because her mother can't afford to turn on the air conditioning? Where are the "Abortion is murder!" people when a woman who is so traumatized by her rape she can't stand to look at her baby starts neglecting it? They're all busy trying to "save" the next batch of the unborn, so it looks like the already-born are on their own.
I'm sorry, I realize I'm probably preaching to the choir here. Obviously this is a subject I'm pretty passionate about. But I appreciate your input, and your viewpoint. Here's hoping more folk adopt it, too.