Abortion in the Heartland

The radical religious right is at it again. Attempting to ban abortion, which is a constitutionally protected option for women (and men, now that there's been one man who has been pregnant.) The right to an abortion is protected on at least two fronts: the First and the Ninth Amendment.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion. The belief in a human "soul" is a religious belief. To suggest that one cannot have an abortion because "life" begins at conception when the soul enters the body is a religious argument and therefore an invalid one.

So let's get rid of the soul. Is a fertilized egg "life"? That too depends on personal beliefs. That it is a potential human life there can be no question. But then an unfertilized egg also has the potential to become a human life as well: it just needs to be fertilized. (And scientists have already produced a mouse capable of reproduction without the use of sperm.) An unfertilized egg is only one step further from being a human life than the newly fertilized egg. But what it is that defines human life? When can we be certain that human life has begun? (No, this isn't going to turn into a deep philosophical discussion.)

Anti-choice supporters make several arguments in their attempts to justify their imposition of tough anti-choice laws. One is that the fetus feels pain after 20 weeks. But a report based on analysis of more than 2000 scientific papers concludes that nerve connections in the brain simply aren't there before 29 weeks and therefore, an aborted fetus will feel no pain. (And, if you think about tiny premature babies, they sure don't seem as if they're in distress despite all the tubes and needles and wires stuck to them.)

The anti-choice forces dismiss this report, saying that sonograms prove otherwise. That when touched, a fetus will react, thereby proving that it can feel. But this again is not supported by scientific evidence. Take the case of acardiac twins. In the most common form of acardiac twins, an abnormal connection is made between the umbilical cord of one twin to the umbilical cord of the other. The one twin is then pumping blood for both twins, which puts a strain on the heart of the "pumping" twin and may result in the spontaneous abortion of both twins. However, even if the pregnancy goes to term, the one twin will most likely be born without a head, chest, upper extremities or upper abdominal organs, including heart and lungs. And yet, when shown on a sonogram, this severely abnormal twin is moving under its own power. The legs kick and it twists but it has no head, no upper body and no heart or lungs. It will never be a human life and it will never feel pain because it has no brain. Yet if it is touched, it moves.There is also no way to determine how much of the movement seen during a sonogram is the result of the mother's emotions and physical condition.

The laws passed in Nebraska and Oklahoma place an undue burden on women who seek abortions by subjecting them to trauma at the hands of the medical profession. The law in Oklahoma, which requires that a doctor not only show the ultrasound screen to the woman, but possibly even stick a sensor up her vagina to get the pictures to begin with, and verbally describe the size of the fetus, the number of fingers/toes and the heart rate, among other things. Imagine if you're a fifteen year old girl who was raped, impregnated and now you have to go through this as well? Because the Oklahoma law makes NO exceptions, not even for rape victims.

All living human beings take oxygen into their lungs and exhale carbon dioxide, even if a machine pumps that oxygen. A fetus does not.

All living human beings take nutrients into their digestive system, even if it goes in through a feeding tube. A fetus does not.

All living human beings expel waste after it passes through the digestive tract even if it comes out through a colostomy bag. A fetus does not.

There are two points in time when we can be sure we are dealing with a human life that does do all those things independent of anyone else, even if only for a split second. Those two points are at the moment the baby is out of the birth canal and the moment the baby draws its first breath. Whichever of these comes first, from that point on, the child has all the same rights as every other living human being (or at least as every other human being should have because we all know that's not really the case even in the US.) Before that, the unborn fetus must have no legal rights whatsoever (although it already does in many states.)

Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, a woman's right to decide whether to continue a pregnancy was never an issue. In 1858, the American Medical Association launched a successful campaign to have abortion made illegal, in part because it wanted complete control of medical practices. It wasn't making money by providing abortions, which were often performed using pills available at the local pharmacy. But the larger reason for outlawing abortion was to gain "control of women's bodies and the meaning of motherhood in defining women's social place." It had absolutely nothing to do with "fetal rights" or any religious/moral reason. The reasons were socio-economically based and were about men controlling women. And these reasons are in violation of the Ninth Amendment, which includes a right to privacy even if it's not specifically mentioned.

Whether it is a moral act or not, whether it is a sin or not is not for the US government or any state government to determine. It is not the job of the US government or state governments to define morality for anyone, since morality is based on personal beliefs, which are protected by the first amendment.

Abortion is like prostitution: no matter how much you don't like it, you're not gonna get rid of it. Nevada decided to legalize prostitution so it could regulate it and tax it. This protects everyone in the end. Then, theoretically, the only people you have involved in prostitution (I know, it's idealistic) are those who choose to be involved. The prostitutes have legal recourse against being robbed and beaten and the johns have legal recourse against acquiring a disease from the prostitutes. And the state gets money from what was previously undeclared income.

But let's take Nevada's example a bit further. Let's eliminate the socio-economic factors that make abortion necessary: poverty, rape, abuse, sexual exploitation of women and children. Instead of spending billions of dollars every year trying to get a law passed that's not going to be overturned by the US Supreme Court, let's spend that money and effort on fighting poverty, on teaching young girls that they don't need to have sex with their boyfriends to "prove" their love, on teaching all youth how to use birth control and practice safe sex, on fixing the welfare system so that it doesn't trap those who need to use it in a continuing cycle of poverty. Let's get rid of the racism that's still so prevalent in our society and makes it harder for minorities to get jobs that have decent pay.

Passing laws that ban abortion is only putting a band-aid on the problem. Let's try to get rid of the problem all together by fixing society so that all people really are treated equally and have equal opportunity to avail themselves of their unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.