by Lynn Mandaville

I wish people would simply say what it is they really mean.  Or act in a manner that reflects the way they say they really feel.

Case in point:  The state of Alabama passing draconian legislation outlawing virtually all abortions, and its governor, Kaye Ivey, signing it into law.

This law is not, and never was, intended to be enforceable.  Neither was it intended to end all abortions in the state of Alabama.  The intent of this law was to present a legal penalty on doctors who perform abortions, and a severe health and civil rights penalty on women who seek them.  (This law has been cloned in the states of Georgia, Missouri, Ohio and maybe a couple more this week as well, in the same or slightly varying incarnations.)

The intent of this law was also to generate great hue and cry over the rights of women now protected by Supreme Court precedent in order that the ACLU or Planned Parenthood, or both, would sue over the law, thus thrusting it back in the hands of the US Supreme Court in hopes of a more conservative Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

It would be so nice if so-called adults in America would get together and discuss this issue in pragmatic terms, instead of arguing with their emotions, whatever may be the cause of those emotions.

From what I can glean from politicians, most of those who profess to be pro-lifers really want to end what they consider impulse abortions resulting from failed or lack of using contraception.  I deduce this from the fact that most who favor anti-abortion legislation leave open the door for abortions for danger to the mother’s health/life, and, often, also for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.  I have yet to hear anyone anti-abortion even broach the subjects of abortion of fetuses that are not viable, or that would result in a baby so ill or deformed or diseased that it could not live outside its mother without great suffering and ultimate early death any way you cut it.

From what I glean from pro-choicers is that they might have little or no objection to most abortions if society as a whole stepped up to the quality of life for the pre-born, for affordable and widely accessible women’s reproductive health care, free prenatal health care for those not covered by insurance or personal wealth, and financial support for those who cannot afford to clothe, feed or house an unwanted baby.  And if that society also stepped up to the failures of the foster care system, the sale of babies for profit (by unscrupulous attorneys fronting for unwed mothers, grifter surrogates, and the like), and the mental health shortcomings more and more rampant in the US that contribute to child abuse, sexual or otherwise.

So, basically, the problem is actually one of semantics.  Pro-choice and Pro-life are no longer terms with clear meanings.  Their definitions, in most cases, are horribly blurred.

Speaking as one who is termed, unfortunately, pro-choice, many of us believe that abortion is an alternative of the very last resort.  It is not birth control, and it shouldn’t be a substitute for our failure as a society, or as individuals, for not instructing our youth about human reproduction.  We believe that the decision to abort a baby is the hardest decision any woman might have to face in her lifetime, and that it is a heart and gut wrenching one that should be made only by that woman, with guidance from her partner, clergyperson, and physician if she desires.

Speaking as one who has many friends who are termed, unfortunately, pro-life, many of them believe there are extenuating circumstances under which a woman ought to be free to exercise control over her own body and terminate a pregnancy.  I’ve stated the most obvious reasons above, but there exist far too many other instances to list here in which some of these friends would consider abortion the acceptable choice for an individual woman to make without the interference of others.

There are “purists” out there who vocally espouse an absolute, legislative ban on abortions, just as there are those who just as vocally advocate for a complete, legislative hands-off stance on abortions.

In my opinion, either extreme ignores valid grey areas that need more than mere consideration.  The two extremes require, in the United States of America, an actual consensus on what is both realistic and compassionate, versus what is both religious dogma and legalistic punitiveness.

I know that there are those who believe that aborting any baby, whether zygote or full-term stillborn, is clearly prohibited by the word of God.  Yet lots of those same people also believe that capital punishment is an acceptable form of terminating life at the hands of other human beings.

I know that those who believe that capital punishment is an abomination and should be abolished nationwide also believe that in some cases it is acceptable to terminate the life, or potential life, of a developing human being at the hands of a medical professional.

I’m not sure how we get the two sides together to see that they both are grappling with the issues of life and death.  We seem to agree that some lives are more worthy of preserving than others.  It’s the prefix that provides the ambiguity of anti- versus pro- in our terminology.  There doesn’t really seem to be a dispute that both abortion and capital punishment mean intentional death to human form.  The dispute is the situation in which that death is acceptable.

So when you get right down to it, God really has nothing to do with it.  It is human free will that decides the question either way, and we are the humans with the free will to come to an agreement.

Because we do not live in a theocracy, it is up to us humans to reach a resolution, in a civil manner, how we deal pragmatically with the grey areas of life and death in a democracy.  To approach it in any other way would be careless, that is, without care – for each other and for the various twists and turns of God’s Will or fate or karma, or whatever you choose to call it.