Amid all the harsh rhetoric of the abortion debate, I found a refreshingly human element. It’s in a recent Supreme Court ruling on the “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.” In it, Justice Kennedy writes -
“While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.”
Some might say Kennedy is here trying to engage in a little pseudo-psychology, relying on scant evidence provided by anti-abortionists. But I see it differently. I think this acknowledges something many try to hide – the painful after-effects of a decision to have an abortion. Does the woman who seeks an abortion really know what she’s doing or is she hastily pressured (by the father, her family, friends, etc…) to go through with it?
Doctors wanting to be sensitive to a woman’s needs may unwittingly withhold important information. As Kennedy writes -
“In a decision so fraught with emotional consequence some doctors may prefer not to disclose precise details of the means that will be used, confining themselves to the required statement of risks the procedure entails.”
This decision not to provide information about the procedure (in this case, partial-birth abortions) may be well meaning, but it conflicts with a more primary need to help a woman make an informed decision. As Kennedy puts it -
“It is, however, precisely this lack of information concerning the way in which the fetus will be killed that is of legitimate concern to the State. States are free to enact laws to provide a reasonable framework for a woman to make a decision that has such profound and lasting meaning. The State has an interest in ensuring so grave a choice is well informed.”
Kennedy then drives the point home -
“It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast developing brain of her unborn child, a child assuming the human form.”
If abortion is to be provided legally, we have an ethical obligation to see that women choosing abortion know exactly what it is they are choosing to do.
Heh.
I’m certain that some women regret having their abortions and wished they’d given the matter some more thought, had considered all their options, had had better support, etc.
I’m equally certain that some women regret their decisions to become mothers. They resent their child(ren), their husbands, the society that glorified motherhood as the pinnacle of femininity. They grow bitter, callous, withdrawn. They become bad mothers, wives, friends. They become empty.
The simple fact is that no choice we make can be made in 100% certainty forever. We can be certain now; we can’t be certain about tomorrow. We all carry our fair amount of regret about decisions made in certainty at some other point in our lives. That’s a basic fact of human life.
If women are to be encouraged to become mothers, perhaps we have an ethical obligation to show them the reality of what they are choosing. Not merely pink toes and diapers hanging on the line to dry, but middle of the night feedings. Not enough sleep. Sore nipples. Thrush. Depression. Loss of sex drive. Gross fatigue. Loss of privacy. Loss of self-centeredness. Sacrifice. Endless sacrifice.
For many of us mothers, all of that is worth it. All the misery of motherhood is worth it. For many of us.
Ethically, if we provide legal, safe abortion, we should provide women with the knowledge of what they are choosing to do. Continue their lives as planned. Salvage a starving marriage. Go back to school. End morning sickness. Dedicate more time to the children they already have. Dedicate more time to themselves.
For many of us mothers who have had abortions, these are truths we’ve already embraced. We already know how liberating the end of an unwanted pregnancy is. We look to our children and we may think about what might have been. We might have learned to love the child. We might have made it with them in tow.
But it’s okay, too, if we choose not to. It’s okay to take action to stave off an undesired future.
The only ethical obligation we have to pregnant women is to treat them as intelligent, thinking human beings who are completely capable of making their own difficult decisions without other people deciding for them what is important for them to know or not know, what is important for them to consider. All the information is readily available for any woman that wants it. Presuming to take it upon one’s self to educate the poor, pregnant woman seeking abortion about the reality of what she is doing is about the more pretentious, insulting thing I can imagine. Even in the throes of pregnancy, we are quite capable of thinking for ourselves.
But, I’m sure we all appreciate the concern.
The Pistol fires back: Thank you for responding. You are clearly very passionate and eloquent about the issue. No doubt pregnant women are the ones who inevitably make the choice to abort or give birth to their child. This is the case whether it is legal or not. I also agree we need to do a better job of preparing women (and men) for the realities of parenting. For those who do not find themselves ready to parent, more needs to be done to encourage adoption. Still, in the rhetoric of the abortion debate, I think we gloss over the child/fetus within the womb. Having done funerals for children who died in the womb (sometimes early in the pregnancy), I’ve seen first hand the depth of grief on the part of parents. If a wanted child in the womb is still a child, how can an unwanted child be anything less?
Well, I can’t speak for other pro-choicers, but as I responded to you on my blog, I’m not one to say “it’s not a child”.
It is. It’s a baby, even when it’s the size of the head of a pin. It’s a baby.
But I’m pragmatic, and I recognize all life as being in cooperation and competition. Most of the time, we think and hope and feel that a mother’s life is in cooperation with her child’s, born or not. But the reality is, sometimes those two lives are in competition, for various, innumerable reasons. In competition, then, the law has to decide which life takes precedence, and which to protect.
I think that it is correct to protect the life of the woman, her choices and values, etc., over the fetus’s life until the fetus is viable. Maybe even not that long; I’m undecided on that.
I’ll even agree that the cut-off point, the point at which we decide the fetus’s right to live supercedes the mother’s right to choose her destiny, is arbitrary. But that’s necessary: we make the arbitrary decision to call 18 the majority, 21 legal for drinking, 35 to be prsident, etc. These are arbitrary numbers, too. Arbitrary, but useful.
Truly, I don’t feel compelled to convince you that I’m right or to change your mind, etc. I’m writing largely because this hits so close to home right now, and because I feel very strongly about outlining the very grayness of the abortion dialogue (I’d rather not call it a debate). It’s a tricky job of delineating rights and social obligations, of picking through sticky strands to untangle an enormous web of troubles. There’s no easy answer or solution. And it’s important to keep the lines of communication open.
The Pistol fires back: You are clearly giving this a great deal of careful thought. I admire you for stating clearly that the life within the womb is more than a clump of cells – it is a child. This adds moral weight to the question of the child’s right to live vs. the mother’s right to choose. It’s a personal issue for me as well. My wife and I adopted two special needs children who quite easily could have been aborted if certain circumstances had not developed. I’m much more in favor of promoting adoption than prosecuting abortion.
Abortion is a sin against life itself, imposed by one on another, regardless of one’s religious beliefs. That being said, I really do think that the tactics for Christians in the pro-life crowd need to refocus on adoption, as Pistol notes here. Jesus didn’t tell us not to hate others. He told us love others as we love ourselves. His message is proactive in a positive direction. In the same way, lets spend more time emphasizing adoption as a viable and worthwhile alternative and less on trying to scare aborters out of their sin. If more people were encouraged and able to make their unwanted children available for adoption, the excuses related to the negative consequences of having kids would carry less weight.