Guest MINDSETTER™ Jane Zhang: The Three Parts to Pro-Choice
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Photo: Flikr/Fibonacci Blue. Guest Mindsetter Jane Zhang says no discussion on abortion can neglect to mention autonomy, safety and parenthood.
Let's talk autonomy. Autonomy is about rights. It’s about the female’s right to choose to abort or to choose to preserve the fetus. It’s about the female’s understanding and accepting the risks, challenges, and emotional/social effects of what she ultimately decides upon. If she aborts the child, she risks hemorrhaging to death or even perforating her womb such that she might experience difficulty conceiving in the future. Moreover, her community might shun her. Where will she go? Who will she turn to? How will she ever live with potential regret?
Sure, it’s easy to say: “Give the kid up for adoption”. But would you take that child in? If you’re someone so against giving women the right to choose and forcing them to birth unwanted children that they are not at all prepared to raise, would you welcome that child into your home, and raise him/her as your own? The great majority would not.
Let’s talk safety. Can abortions be safe? Yes. Can abortions be dangerous? Of course. But so can live births, whether that is vaginal or caesarean section.
According to the 2006 American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which examined data from 1991 through 1999, legal pregnancy terminations resulted in a 0.567 maternal mortalities per 100,000 terminations whereas live births resulted in a 7.06 maternal mortalities per 100,000 live births.
The stories of botched abortions that we hear in which both mother and fetus pass away often involve third trimester pregnancies. That’s past 26 weeks. The comfort level at which the vast majority of physicians are willing to provide safe abortions generally does not surpass 20 weeks.
Let's talk parenthood. There exist four types of parents: 1.) those that want kids and rear them well, 2.) those that don’t want kids but unknowingly raise them well, 3.) those that want kids but have no idea how to raise them well, and 4.) those that want absolutely nothing to do with them but somehow end up with them.
Though we all like to assume and perhaps even prefer the former two situations, sometimes we run into the latter two.
Rhode Island Hospital has a Child Protection Consult Service consisting of trained medical professionals. Why? Because sometimes physicians pick up on signs of child abuse such as bruises in unusual areas or a child’s odd nutritional status. The physician isn’t always right. But there are unfit parents rearing children. If all parents wanted their children and didn’t feel obligated to give birth to unwanted children, perhaps all children would be raised well, and we wouldn’t have a need for a Child Protection Consultation Service.
Wouldn’t you agree that innocent children should be raised in a loving environment in which they receive all the care and education they deserve? Wouldn’t you agree given those circumstances, that parents who are unfit and not able to find a better home for their child be given the opportunity to negate that?
People paint abortion to be this monster of an act. Yes, it is terrible to end a fetus or embryo’s well-being. But is it really terrible to help a set of parents who are simply not ready to raise a child?
A woman should have the right to choose whether she is ready to be a parent or whether she’s not. A woman should be allowed to understand the safety involved in potential abortions or pregnancies. A woman should be allowed to understand the demands of parenthood.
Outlawing or protesting against safe abortions isn’t the answer. Women unable to care for another child will find a way to abort that child. If safe abortions don’t exist as options, women will find a way to miscarry. That was the case prior to Roe vs. Wade. Is that what we want? Do we want women to miscarry illegally such that both she and the fetus are at risk of dying? Do we want a society in which women utterly unfit to be mothers, or who don’t want to be mothers, unsafely abort a birth?
Sure, abortions aren’t the prettiest procedures (a minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery carries more suavity), but compared to other obstetric operations, safely performed abortions result in less blood loss than hysterectomies. The Susan G. Komen foundation last year pulled funding from Planned Parenthood. There was so much backlash that the foundation reinstated their support of Planned Parenthood.
If safe abortions and birth control education weren’t provided in this nation and state, we might as well be shouting “Coerced Parenthood” instead of “Planned Parenthood”.
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Comments:
William Day
3:24am on Saturday, February 23, 2013
This is the most absurd “justification” for being pro-abortion I have ever read.
First of all, apparently you have a different definition of what it means to be personally-responsible for your behavior. Apparently, it is too much to use birth control (even though it is cheaper than the actual abortion), know your cycle, practice safe sex, or perhaps not have sex all of the time with anyone you see fit, and so abortion is the ONLY way you can control who comes into this world. Fascinating.
Of course, unless you are raped, you have complete control over when you do and do not get pregnant. Since you don’t frame the debate in terms of narrow exceptions I will address your use of abortion for basic birth control.
Secondly, when you are pregnant, you carry a unique human being that has been created. It is a HUMAN embryo, HUMAN fetus, HUMAN baby, HUMAN infant, HUMAN toddler, HUMAN teenager, etc… Just because it is a fetus and not a baby should not provide the justification to throw it in a trash can. And just because it is inside you does not get rid of the fact that it is its own unique life form. If you believe that the mystery of life is too complicated to figure out when it starts, realize we haven’t translated that language to when it ends. Imagine emergency room doctors ending CPR on a patient and then debating whether or not the person is actually dead, because we all have different opinions on when they die. If we know when life ends, we can logically know where life begins. Sorry if this is inconvenient for you.
Thirdly, your “justifications” for abortion as birth control on the grounds that you will harm yourself if we don’t let you do it is ridiculous. Heroin users overdose all the time, yet we don’t say we need government-sanctioned clinics so that they can do it safely. Imagine if your morally-relativist logic were applied to anything that is illegal; there would be no basis for criminal law, since what is right and what is wrong apparently is left up to everyone to decide for themselves.
The slippery slope that is created when you decide that this procedure should be sanctioned because people may be bad parents is frightening. So it apparently doesn’t matter if you are destroying a living human being; if you are a bad parent, or have the capacity to be a bad parent, you apparently need to destroy the child. You don’t have to suck at parenting, but then again you don’t have to have sex with everyone. Weird how that happens.
This is a selfish, logically-challenged column that fails to stand up to the most basic challenges to this procedure which you apparently consider to be “liberating” and not tragic. But I’m happy for you that your abortions result in less blood than other procedures. I hope that makes you feel good about yourself.
Fr. John A. Kiley
10:07am on Saturday, February 23, 2013
Good for William Day! Read his entry all over again. He says it well.
If persons are not prepared for parenthood then let them abstain from sex and then they won't have to terminate the fruit of their irresponsibility.
Petr Petrovich
11:27am on Saturday, February 23, 2013
Excellent William! This article reads like someone is trying to donate a used car. Absolutely ridiculous in content. I love the references to "unwanted children". I wonder if there is a study that identifies child fatalities for abortion. Oh, silly me, that's easy. This author makes it sound like this fetus unknowingly showed up and became a parasiteon the host. This poor unwitting, unknowing host is now stuck with this terrible disease that requires surgery and society needs to continue to make this procedure safe. Lobby for personal accountability, then abortion safety. This sounds like women are getting their adnoids out.
jon paycheck
12:49pm on Saturday, February 23, 2013
WOW.. really brainwashed...
Harry Jones
5:26pm on Sunday, February 24, 2013
This is a response to the silly William Day rant above. His comments are contained in quotes; mine follow outside of the quotes.
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"This is the most absurd “justification” for being pro-abortion I have ever read.
First of all, apparently you have a different definition of what it means to be personally-responsible for your behavior. Apparently, it is too much to use birth control (even though it is cheaper than the actual abortion), know your cycle, practice safe sex, or perhaps not have sex all of the time with anyone you see fit, and so abortion is the ONLY way you can control who comes into this world. Fascinating.
Of course, unless you are raped, you have complete control over when you do and do not get pregnant. Since you don’t frame the debate in terms of narrow exceptions I will address your use of abortion for basic birth control."
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This is an asinine strawman argument. The author never argues that abortion is the only way to prevent unwanted pregnancy. You neglect the fact that the author explicitly states her support for birth control and patient education in the article. Beyond your purposeful misreading of the author's words, your argument has many flaws in itself. Contraceptive use can fail with even the best planning and use practices. In other cases, women don't have access to contraceptives due to financial or social reasons. Should they be forced to rear a child they never wanted? Your narrow minded reading of the article omits these considerations.
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"Secondly, when you are pregnant, you carry a unique human being that has been created. It is a HUMAN embryo, HUMAN fetus, HUMAN baby, HUMAN infant, HUMAN toddler, HUMAN teenager, etc… Just because it is a fetus and not a baby should not provide the justification to throw it in a trash can. And just because it is inside you does not get rid of the fact that it is its own unique life form. If you believe that the mystery of life is too complicated to figure out when it starts, realize we haven’t translated that language to when it ends. Imagine emergency room doctors ending CPR on a patient and then debating whether or not the person is actually dead, because we all have different opinions on when they die. If we know when life ends, we can logically know where life begins. Sorry if this is inconvenient for you."
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Your adjunction of the word "human" before embryo, fetus, etc suggests that there is a point when a cluster of cells, however large, can be considered a human being. It may come as a shock to you to realize that not all people share your definition of a human being. There is an immense grey area in defining when human life begins which is inherently subjective -- ie: there is no scientific merit to say that a embryo is truly "human"; rather, it is a philosophical distinction that varies from person to person. The real question is what definition we should accept as a society, to impose on others. Our Supreme Court has already considered this on multiple levels and occasions and has continued to uphold Roe vs. Wade, suggesting that it is unconstitutional to restrict a woman's freedom to abortion when a fetus is younger than a certain age. You may disagree with this, and that's fine. No one is forcing you to get an abortion. But to say that all women must abide by your personal beliefs, you would need to have strong, objective reasoning as to why a embryo/fetus/non-sentient mass should be considered a human being. Until you supply that, you have no right to restrict the women's ability to get an abortion.
Your CPR scenario does not even fit into the discussion. End of life care is a different topic all together.
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"Thirdly, your “justifications” for abortion as birth control on the grounds that you will harm yourself if we don’t let you do it is ridiculous. Heroin users overdose all the time, yet we don’t say we need government-sanctioned clinics so that they can do it safely. Imagine if your morally-relativist logic were applied to anything that is illegal; there would be no basis for criminal law, since what is right and what is wrong apparently is left up to everyone to decide for themselves."
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Again, you've created a straw-man by stating the author is for abortion as a primary means of birth control (she is not). The article is mainly about women's autonomy and safety, and how banning abortion would eliminate those rights.
Your Heroin example again misses the point. Using Heroin is a conscious choice to use an illegal substance and is no way comparable to the situations in which the author advocates for the option of having an abortion. As you admitted earlier there are many cases of pregnancy where a woman does not have a choice in becoming pregnant -- ie: Rape. There are also cases when a woman does decide to have safe sex (a legal choice, unlike your Heroin scenario) and contraceptive methods fail. Should these women be stripped of their autonomy and safety in favor of someone else's biased personal beliefs? You'd be right to think that's selfish and unfounded, because it is.
It's well documented that women stripped of this autonomy will seek abortions via other, more dangerous means. Beyond that, pregnancy in itself is a well documented health risk. If that pregnancy is not her choice, which it is not in many cases, you are limiting her safety in favor of your subjective beliefs.
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"The slippery slope that is created when you decide that this procedure should be sanctioned because people may be bad parents is frightening. So it apparently doesn’t matter if you are destroying a living human being; if you are a bad parent, or have the capacity to be a bad parent, you apparently need to destroy the child. You don’t have to suck at parenting, but then again you don’t have to have sex with everyone. Weird how that happens."
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I don't necessarily agree with how the author phrased things in terms of parenting, but her argument does have merit. A child introduced into a family that is not ready for it, which often leads to bad parenting, will have numerous, well-documented, ill-effects on that child. Furthermore, it bares a large cost to us as a society in terms of additional social services that this family and child will need. In itself, I don't think this justifies taking a human life. But given that the definition of human life is subjective within reason, it's compelling to at least consider these burdens when discussing abortion.
Also, for the third time, stop assuming that pregnancy is always a choice. You are wrong in thinking that.
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"This is a selfish, logically-challenged column that fails to stand up to the most basic challenges to this procedure which you apparently consider to be “liberating” and not tragic. But I’m happy for you that your abortions result in less blood than other procedures. I hope that makes you feel good about yourself."
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It's clear you feel very strongly about not having an abortion, so my advice would be not to have one. No one is forcing you to. What would be wrong is forcing an autonomous person to undergo numerous ill effects and burdens of carrying out a pregnancy they do not want simply because of your own, non-substantiated beliefs.