Probably as a result of the health care debate, I've been thinking about abortion lately. And as I thought about it, I was surprised to discover that my feelings on the issue aren't as strong as I imagined.
Here's where I stand: I don't think abortion is murder. I don't think that it should be illegal. I am opposed to overturning Roe vs. Wade. On the other hand, I don't think it's a particularly good thing. For the very few women I know who've had abortions, it was a traumatic and heart-wrenching experience. And while I don't think that abortion equates to killing an innocent baby, it certainly equates with terminating something that can become a baby. Basically, I'd rather see people use (and be educated about) contraceptives, hopefully to reduce the number of women who have to experience abortions.
More importantly, perhaps, abortion as a political topic is something I'd probably be willing to compromise on. I think something like health care (reform), which I support, is important enough to make concessions to people to the left and the right of my views about abortion.
Yet, for a little while there, abortion was a major reform stumbling block, mostly, it seemed, because it became a fundamental moral issue over which people on either side of the aisle supposedly could not compromise. Why is that?
What has surprised me about this whole thing is that I think I've been pushed left by those on the right. When people start yelling "baby killer" or insisting that "abortion is murder," my natural tendency is to adopt an equally firm stance. It's as if when people start trying to shove something down my throat, my natural reaction is to say "Fine. Screw you, I'll shove it right back, if that's how it's going to be."
In other words, the vehemence of anti-abortion movement has galvanized my attitudes about the topic and made me less willing to compromise. Unless I stop to very carefully consider my attitudes (which realistically I can't constantly do), and am removed from any anti-abortionist, I'm adamantly pro-choice. It's only after time and serious contemplation that I'm willing give and take.
This is obviously problematic for the anti-abortion movement because they're currently fighting the status quo (legalized abortion), yet for many people, screaming about morality is exactly the thing that pushes people away.
However, more broadly, I think that this type of situation occurs all the time. Overly zealous people on either side of the political spectrum get worked into a fervor, and as a result their opponents become equally inflexible. It's an interesting phenomenon, which obviously has implications in many areas. And while this is surely no new realization, I was surprised in the case of abortion to find that I don't have as many passionate feelings as I thought I did.
Jim, do you know how abortions are performed? The question is not whether a woman should have the right over her own body (which is what the world thinks the question is) it is about whether a woman should be able to be allowed to brutally kill a unborn child.
ReplyDeleteAgain I ask do you know how an abortion is performed? The baby, while alive, heart beating, is cut into pieces and sucked out of with a vacuume. A fetus can feel pain from a very early development stage and they are killed by being dismembered. It's absolutely horrific and breaks my heart to think about.
If a woman wanted to have the right to have control over what happens to her body, then she should abstain from intercourse or use contraceptives. While I know that some pregnencies are a result of horrible circumstances, the decision to perform an abortion must be an informed one.
Please learn the facts: http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/ASMF/asmf3.html
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/ASMF/asmf4.html
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/ASMF/asmf5.html
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/images/asmf8a.html
Hailey,
ReplyDeleteyes, I am well aware of the way abortions are performed. However, the method you described above is only one, of many, different methods based on how far along the pregnancy is, etc. etc. (as the websites above, mentioned, though with a substatial bias.)
But Hailey, while I deeply respect your opinion (which is shared by many of my other friends and family), the website above is one of many of the things I was talking about in this post. It's so obviously biased. It even comes comes off in places as insulting. Of course I know how abortions are performed. I wouldn't have written this post without knowing that, as well as knowing people who have talked to me about their own abortions.
Yet after reading the website, I'm much less likely to compromise on abortion. Ultimately, this post wasn't about me trying to convince any one that I'm right about abortion. It was to point out that the vast majority of the anti-abortion works against itself, by alienating abortion moderates such as myself. The misconception that everyone who is pro-choice has chosen that position simply out of ignorance, or that a more detailed version of "abortion is murder" is going to change our minds, is troubling.
Again, I have the utmost respect for my anti-abortion friends views (including yours), but I believe my own views are as well-researched as any.
I can see where you're coming from. I was somewhat in the middle about abortion until I read "White Coat," an account of a medical student going through rotations.
ReplyDeleteThe focus of the book isn't abortion, it is on the medical school experience. However, there is a section where the student volunteers at an abortion center (we are not required rotations, which I feel is unfortunate). She goes into the experience pro-choice. Her opinion gradually changes as she works in the family planning center, and while still holding a moderate stance, she decides that she will not perform abortions as a physician.
Her description of the patients and physicians involved, along with her own feelings are very different from anything I've read about abortion before, and they were far more convincing.
I agree that a moderate argument is far more effective than radical, panicked arguing.