More than a year and a half into the wake of Roe being thrown out, how does the U.S. electorate feel about abortion now?
While pro-life advocates are rejoicing, an unprecedented number of women are coming alive to the issue of abortion and saying “NO! You can’t control my body (or my partner’s, or my daughter’s)!” They’re becoming vocal, joining demonstrations and taking to the polls. And many men are also waking up to the fact that abortion, like contraception and like parenting, is an issue they need to care about.
On August 2nd, 2022, voters in the traditionally conservative state of Kansas said a resounding “NO” to a proposed amendment to that state’s constitution that would have made abortion illegal statewide. Kansas was the first U.S. state to vote on abortion rights since the Supreme Court ruling, and the vote was astonishing for 2 reasons: 1) nearly 60% of eligible voters went to the polls and voted NO, and 2) it was a record high voter turnout. AND it wasn’t just younger voters, but older women and men who don’t want their adult daughters or young friends and relatives to be criminalized for wanting an abortion.
The door has been thrown open for states to make abortion a criminal act. A number of mostly conservative U.S. state legislatures, believing they are the moral police, have rushed to pass laws forbidding and criminalizing abortions, placing physicians in a cruel predicament where, to save a woman’s life, they may end up losing their license and spending time in prison. These legislatures, mostly comprised of white men, do not reflect many or most of the voters in their state. Yet these men are now free to enact whatever draconian laws they wish, to place women back in the home in a housedress, raising their kids. Ironically, it may turn out that the unintended positive result of making it possible for states to criminalize pregnant women and doctors will be for more women – and men – to become pro-choice and hopefully get interested in other pressing issues as well.
Many who have called themselves “pro-life” are now questioning what that means. And many public official and representatives are now walking back their pro-life declarations, admitting there need to be allowances for rape, incest, the extreme youth of the girl, maternal health complications that might be life-threatening. They’re beginning to view the subject as having a grey area.
Yet there are some, like a woman I watched being interviewed the other day, who want all exceptions removed from laws criminalizing abortion. This particular woman was the child of a rape. One can understand someone like her; however, black and white thinking runs counter to nature and biology.
What are the roots of folks’ anti-abortion stance? I will focus on 5 beliefs (feelings, actually) that I think are unconsciously at play for many pro-life folks, beyond a love of babies and a heartfelt view that all life is sacred and therefore no life should be aborted.
1. The role of religion. Religious or spiritual values plays an important part in views on/feelings about abortion. The world’s major mainstream – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – have all weighed in on the subject, and that has shaped the views of their followers. Yet those very precepts are either unclear or have changed over time.
The Quran, Islam’s sacred book, declares that a fetus is not a life until the soul is breathed into the body, which does not occur at conception but some unspecified time later.
The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that “personhood” begins at conception is a recent position, and it is unclear how that got slipped into church dogma. A growing number of Catholics disagree with the Church’s official stand on a number of issues, including on contraception and abortion. The Roman Catholic Church continues to condemn abortion as a “moral evil” but not the prosecution of women who have abortions. I already mentioned that, immediately following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, philanthropist and practicing Catholic, Melinda Gates, published a statement that American was taking “a big step backward”. The National Catholic Reporter is considered a credible independent now-global voice in Catholic journalism, accountable to a lay board of directors. For many years they were the only Church publication reporting on clergy sexual abuse. They’ve been a voice for marginalized communities, including disabled, immigrant and LGBTQ.
On May 6, 2022, a particularly nuanced piece on abortion was published in the Opinion section of the NCR, which has received a volume of positive responses. The author, Madison Chastain, is avowedly pro-life and anti-abortion. Here are some excerpts of what she wrote:
“I am anti-abortion, but I do not think criminalizing abortions will stop them, because having access to abortions isn't what causes them…Things that cause abortions: lack of comprehensive sex education, inaccessible health care, violence against women, religious shame and exclusion, familial rejection or coercion, and workplace inequalities including but not limited to barriers for advancement, disparities in pay and lack of paid parental leave or child care.
Making abortion illegal before addressing these injustices is going to kill women, because women will continue to have abortions, secretively and unsafely.
The nuance I'm arguing for is not about the morality of abortion, it is about the effectiveness of this particular tactic of assuaging it: making abortion illegal. This particular tactic is not going to work…We can recognize that abortion being legal represents a certain form of public complicity in permitting a grievous sin to happen. But are we actually permitting it any less without changing the causes of abortion? To achieve the desired society in which abortion is no longer permitted, we have to create a reality where abortion is no longer caused. We are complicit in those systems, too.
We need mandatory and comprehensive sexual education and accessible health care. We need to address income inequality and mandate paid parental leave. We need to demolish the prison industrial complex and stop criminalizing the poor and marginalized. We need robust community-based postnatal care and to crack down on violence against women. We need to revolutionize the way churches approach sexuality, that we might embrace and support sexually active women in crisis, regardless of their marital status.
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*I am amazed at how quickly solidarity came with my pro-choice loved ones the moment I articulated my nuanced beliefs: I am pro-life and pro-choice, and I definitely do not want abortion to be illegal.
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According to Jewish law (a compilation from the Hebrew Bible – the Old Testament – and other sacred texts comprising the Talmud), life does not begin at conception under Jewish law. Sources in the Talmud note that the fetus is “mere water” before 40 days of gestation. Following this period, the fetus is considered a physical part of the pregnant individual’s body, not yet having life of its own or independent rights. The fetus is not viewed as separate from the parent’s body until birth begins and the first breath of oxygen into the lungs allows the soul to enter the body.
Modern rabbis are mostly unanimous in condemning abortion, feticide, or infanticide as an unconscionable attack on human life. Jewish law allows abortion if the pregnancy will cause severe psychological damage to the mother. The large and powerful National Council of Jewish Women advocates for abortion access as “an essential component of comprehensive, affordable, confidential, and equitable family planning, reproductive, sexual health, and maternal health services.”
As religions go, the Church of Latter Day Saints is less rigid than many. It continues to be against abortions, but allows for a number of exceptions, including rape or incest, or if the pregnant person's life or the fetus’s is endangered by the pregnancy. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe, Mormon leaders declared that members “may appropriately choose to participate in efforts to protect life and to preserve religious liberty.” This has a lot of latitude for interpretation.
As for Buddhism, there is no single Buddhist view on abortion, although life is considered to begin at conception and the Buddha made it clear that abortion is the taking of a life.
2. The belief that adoption is the fix that will make abortion unnecessary. In my research for the two books I authored on the relinquishment and adoption of babies (To Love and Let Go and Adoption: A Handful of Hope), I came across a number of men and women who were anti-abortion and saw adoption as the answer to unwanted pregnancy, because it doesn’t end a life. From adoptees, I heard anguished variations on the theme of: “If my mother could have had an abortion, I wouldn’t be here!”, with the implied assumption that, had they been aborted, they would have forever been deprived of life. To that I would only say, “Perhaps; perhaps not.” There’s a growing body of research to support re-incarnation.
3. The man is head of the family and makes decision on behalf of his mate and the family. A belief that drives a good number of anti-abortion folks is that the male is head of the household and his female partner needs to follow and serve him in order for him to do his best for the whole family. This notion lies at the core of all patriarchal and paternalistic institutions and systems, and all fundamentalist religions.
4. Women can’t be trusted to make wise decisions. This belief doesn’t often get discussed because it raise the ire of most women. However, many anti-abortion folks don’t trust women or girls to make wise decisions regarding sex and think that they become pregnant because they’re irresponsible. Many of these folks – women as well as men – believe a teenage girl or adult woman can prevent an unwanted pregnancy; or, she can take the “morning after” pill. This is a proven false assumption.
5. Unacknowledged anger at the mother, generalized to mistrust of – and anger at – all women. I’ve observed that many people – women and men – carry an unconscious, generalized anger at women that is connected to feeling they, as babies or children, were unprotected by their mother. This has a lot of truth to it*,* since especially around issues of how a baby is born, whether a boy baby is circumcised, whether the mother chose not to breastfeed, and whether crying babies are responded to with tenderness. In all of these important developmental issues, mothers all too often defer to what the male authority (husband, father, doctor, mohel) says is in the best interests of the child. That is a result of centuries of patriarchy and resulting marginalization and domination of women.
We mothers give over decisions regarding our body, our childbearing, and the welfare of our baby or child at great cost to ourselves and our children. It’s time to admit the truth of that, examine the why of it, and work to erase the causes.
To be Continued