‘Pro-choice’ supporters must consider stages of pregnancy
Last semester, I helped moderate a debate between the leaders of the College Democrats, Libertarians and Republicans on behalf of the Carolina Debate Union. About halfway through the Q-and-A section of the event, the crowd became fixated on the abortion issue, pelting the Republican representatives (the only outright “pro-life” group onstage) with thinly veiled attacks on their position.
Evidently fed up, one of the representatives said their piece outright: that, at a certain point in pregnancy, “It’s not her body anymore.”
You can well imagine the collective hiss of disgust that followed.
As much as I hate to agree with social conservatism on principle, that statement, as poorly phrased as it was, has a definite ring of truth to me.
I might as well get my concessions out of the way first. Of course, if safe sex education and practices were more widespread, abortion wouldn’t be nearly as big of an issue. Thankfully, recent trends show that this is slowly becoming the case. The U.S. abortion rate is now the lowest it has been in 41 years, primarily due to the accessibility of long-term birth control measures.
It is also true that the conservative position on this point is contradictory. You can’t expect to teach abstinence in public schools and slander those who turn to abortion when they don’t know how to use a condom correctly. It’s silly and needlessly vindictive.
Nevertheless, it remains the case that the relatively recent phrase “unborn child” is an accurate description of a reality. One of the wonders of modern science, the view provided by the ultrasound, testifies to this view. (There used to be feminists in the 1970’s that considered the thought that the pregnant state was a result of a growing tumor. Thankfully, you don’t see too many of those people around anymore.)
And now, the “time-table” question: at what point do a cluster of cells become a human being? While I’m not nearly expert enough to provide an answer, it seems spurious to believe that a collection of tissue no larger than the size of a period (.) could constitute a human being. People who condemn abortion at this stage usually cite religious regions instead of medical ones, which is telling in itself.
On the other hand, it makes me wretch to think about the number of states that allow unrestricted third-trimester abortions (there are nine). The procedure involves “injecting a drug into its heart, and then induc[ing] labor so the woman can deliver a stillborn child.”
I don’t know if it’s my dainty, old-world sensibilities, but the idea of intentionally stopping a beating heart disgusts me.
The only point I’m trying to make here is that those that support “choice” into the third trimester forget that, at a certain point, there are more people at stake than just the woman in question.
At some point, it’s not ONLY her body anymore.