Choice Morsels From Washington

As the long column of over a million pro-choice marchers winded along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. two weekends ago, we were met by a series of anti-abortion counter-protesters. Their posters came in a number of distinct types: gruesome pictures of aborted fetuses; quotations from the Old and New Testaments; and cute pictures of babies, mothers and smiling women, some of which had the line, “women deserve better than abortion.”

Walking past the counter-protesters, I was struck by the extent to which I agreed with some of their basic messages: Babies are very cute. Human life is a beautiful thing. Women need support if they make the choice to bring a baby to term. Our religions want us to make morally informed decisions.

If the counter-protesters realized that many marchers agreed with them on those points, perhaps we could have begun to have a real discussion about the politics of choice. And yet the discourse along Pennsylvania Avenue was too often as frustrating and as futile as marchers calling the counter-demonstrators “fanatics” and the counter-demonstrators calling us “heartless baby-killers.”

It’s time to present a more coherent response to the rhetoric of the self-proclaimed right-to-lifers, a response that indicates our points of mutual agreement and presents the keys of our opposition to their rhetoric.

Anti-abortion activists’ posters begin by shouting that abortion is gruesome. There is no doubt that an aborted fetus is not a pretty thing. However, the widely circulated pictures of dismembered, highly-developed fetuses are deceptive because they imply that all or even most abortions are late-term abortions. In fact, according to 1999 statistics collected by the Alan Guttmacher institute, 88.1 percent of abortions in the United States are done within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion done during the first trimester is one of the most common surgical procedures in the United States, and can be done quickly and safely with relatively simple technology. And the more widely abortion is available, the more likely the percentage of early-term abortions will go up and late-term abortions go down. The emergency contraceptive pill, a pill that can be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the wall of the uterus, is an even more promising way of enabling women to prevent pregnancy before it has technically begun. Late-term abortions are generally done only in cases when the baby would not have been viable at birth because of severe birth defects, or because the life of the mother is in danger. A ban on such abortions, as was recently passed into law, fails to recognize the specific and critical instances when these procedures are recommended.

Aware of the benefits of abortions at the earliest stages possible in a pregnancy, and the even greater benefits of lowering the incidence of unplanned pregnancy, we must call for the continued legality of early-term abortions; wider, over-the-counter access to emergency contraception; and contraceptive education.

A second claim made by anti-abortion activists is that God hates women who get abortions. There are multiple religious positions on the moral justification of abortions. Some interpretations say that abortions are justified until the fetus could be viable outside the womb. Many say that abortion is justified in cases where the life of the mother would be in danger, or in cases of rape or incest. For those who go for evolutionary justifications, some would say that abortions are justified when the woman would be more likely to go on to have more children at a later point in her life when she would be better able to take care of them. Some indeed, dictate that any abortion is unjustified.

From any moral standpoint, however, if we are to discuss God’s position on abortion, we must also consider that God also surely hates men who rape women and boyfriends who discourage their girlfriends from using condoms, and must disapprove of the mixed messages children get about sex in many communities. Decisions about whether to have an abortion are not made in moral vacuums—rather, they have always taken place within a much broader calculus of moral issues. Central to the belief of pro-choice advocates is the belief that personal decisions about reproductive health can and should take into consideration the messages, sometimes complex, of our many traditions. The specific interpretation of one set of religious people should not become national law, binding on all.

A third claim is that “women deserve better than abortion.” That women need better support from society during their reproductive lives should be evident to everyone on all sides of the issue. The marchers in Washington two weekends ago called for increased access to contraception; an end to the abuse of women; access to doctors and hospitals even for women on Medicare; child care programs for working mothers; and more women in positions of leadership.

Our society will benefit when abortion becomes, in the words of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., “safe, legal and rare.” To do this, we need to join together to encourage men and women, old and young, to learn about their bodies, get informed about pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, fight sexual abuse and harassment and get the support they need to raise their children. The pro-choice fight is by no means a rally behind abortion—it is a rally to change our society to one in which abortion will be a last resort, but a last resort that can be accessed at low cost and low risk, and without stigma or apology.

In Washington two weekends ago, it was unfortunate that the counter-protesters seemed to so minimize and essentialize their opponents. This very dehumanization is contrary to the central message of both sides of this issue, and it is a detriment to productive discourse. I hope that, in a spirit of mutual understanding and respect, we will continue fighting the fight for policies of choice that best reflect the realities and inevitable uncertainties of living as women in this country.

Liora R. Halperin ’05 is a history and Near Eastern languages and civilizations concentrator in Kirkland House.