A QUESTION OF BALANCE

by Ruth A. Sheets

I recently read a “balanced” article (the author’s claim) about abortion, you know that subject that was pretty much a done deal by the mid-1970s.  But, some conservative Christians and Roman Catholics needed a cause to bring them together for political power.  Abortion was the only issue they found they had in common.

Like so many “balanced” (but actually conservative) articles, it started with the premise that people on both sides are guilty of some kind of extremism. (Uh huh, false equivalency? 

The anti-choicers ultimately want to ban all abortions.  But until then, in the case of incest and rape, and maybe for the health of the mother it might be OK.  We can gradually shorten the window for abortion:  NOT AFTER 20 weeks, then 16 weeks, then 6 weeks! when electrical impulses that will at some point turn into a heart start firing (HEARTBEAT), then maybe to conception. 

The pro-choicers are supposed to be guilty of wanting unlimited abortions, abortion on demand.  You can abort that fetus the day before it is due, and if you can’t quite get that done, you can have the nurse wrap the baby up and decide whether or not to do away with it as Donald Trump suggests.    

Of course, presented this way, the anti-choicer position seems reasonable (allowing some abortions with a few small restrictions), while the pro-choicer position seems heartless and appalling, untrue, but truth has little to do with this.

Anti-choicers have worked hard at seeming “reasonable, but with a quick thought, one can see their restrictions are not.”  A 72-hour waiting period because she might change her mind (it is hard for women to travel the many miles to a clinic twice, taking off work could cause  her to lose her job).  Forbid 3^rd trimester procedures (even though these are extremely rare and nearly always health-related).  Close clinics unless they have hospital-like physical plants (totally unnecessary for a very SAFE simple out-patient procedure).  Require invasive ultrasounds to show the “mommy her baby (the fetus is tiny and a vaginal ultrasound is completely unnecessary before an abortion – slut shaming). 

The problem, each time anti-choicers get their measures approved by the courts, they just have to take a next step, 20-week limits, requiring doctors to have hospital privileges in hospitals that don’t offer them that courtesy.  OK, we got that now, what’s next, six-week/heartbeat bans, ban on “morning after” pills, ban on the simplest safest abortion procedures.  Criminalize abortion, the women who get one and the doctors who perform them (99 years in jail).  Ridiculous, but each has been passed and signed into law in states of this union, despite the fact that abortion is legal in this country.  Anti-choicers seem so desperate to keep women under control that they will just ignore the law and pass whatever they want to punish those horrible sluts who just can’t keep their legs closed.

What has happened here is that anti-choicers discovered political power.  They often see themselves as the victims of something:  anti-Christian bias, anti-Christmas rules, anti-gun legislation, loss of phantom jobs to immigrants, anti-white bias, and a bunch of other imagined troubles that have been either drummed up or exacerbated by ultra-conservatives as a way of creating and arousing their base.

Abortion is the perfect issue for the anti-choicers because both men and women in a variety of cultures and religious groups have been brought up to believe that women are inferior as is anyone who is poor not white.  Men can sleep around because “boys will be boys.”  If a girl/woman gets pregnant, she was asking for it and is a slut.  Her punishment, carry that baby the whole nine months.  You can give it up for adoption or get your family to take care of you, you sinner.  This position has a lot of emotional appeal.  It allows for a smugness, a sense of empowerment, a chance to point fingers that a lot of people just love.  

Unfortunately, the pro-choicers’ message is a simple straight-forward one.  A woman should have bodily autonomy.  She, with whatever support she wants/needs, should determine what is best for herself and all safe options should be on the table.  You know, CHOICE.  That kind of thinking does not place enough controls on women and does not slut shame, important criteria for anti-choicers. 

Pro-choicers say all women should have access to whatever form of birth control is best for them, if they choose to use any.  In addition, they should have the right (as Roe v.  Wade says they do, to a safe legal abortion if that is their choice.  They should also have full support if they choose to carry a pregnancy to term.  Anti-choicers don’t even want birth control to be legal and widely available, so again, women lose. 

I am particularly sad for the anti-choice women who have drunk the Kool-Ade that tells them it is God's will that they became pregnant so "you get what you get; it's all in God's hands.  You get no choice, too bad for you."  Alas, that is not a very kind rendering of God in our world.  I think there is a special place in hell for women who stand against their sisters' choices and their right to choose.  They must get a thrill out of forcing pregnancy on their sisters, more slut shaming.  What bullies!

A bunch of people, mostly men, want to control women's lives because they fear women will actually take their rightful place in society as equal to men in every setting. SCARY for them!

Interesting though that the evangelicals and Roman Catholics manage to get their abortions, but under another name (like induced labor at 5 months, DNC, etc.) if they have the money to “take care of things.”  That is just too much like hypocrisy to let it pass.  These “lucky” women grieve and mourn over their decision to “end their pregnancy” (abort), while women who choose abortion are not supposed to feel relief and gratitude.  They should suffer life-long emotional problems for ending the existence of something the size of a fingernail. 

There is no “balance” here as I see it.  One side wants all pregnant women to be forced to carry pregnancies to birth because pregnancy is God’s will, no matter the consequences to mother or child.  The other side wants a woman to be able to choose for herself.  One eliminates choice (for the sake of the fetus – NOT!).  The other allows for more than one healthy outcome.

It’s time we get over the lies and insanity and look at some truths. 

-Women do not have an abortion on a lark.  They always have what they BELIEVE IS a good reason.

-Planned parenthood and other abortion clinics do not force anyone to have an abortion.  It is an option.

-Evangelicals and Roman Catholics are hypocrites caring more for a finger long fetus than they do a fully developed child born into the world.

-Most, if not all anti-choice inspired regulations are unnecessary or actually harmful to the pregnant woman, the fetus, or both.

Abortions will continue to take place no matter what regulations are passed.  They always have and they always will.  That is how one can tell that this whole issue is actually about controlling women and not about saving lives.  If it were the latter, women would be making their own reproductive decisions, just as men do.  There would be no anti-choice movement, and safe abortions would be available everywhere in this country without protest.  More women die from birth complications and other problems of pregnancy by far than die from abortion (abortion deaths, nearly 0).    

As abortion becomes harder and harder to obtain for many women in this country with increased restrictions, women and supportive men are going to have to step up to learn how to perform abortions that are safe and effective even if they ARE NOT ACTUALLY NURSES OR DOCTORS.  Women’s communities will have to purchase the equipment and train women to use it.  Such groups will have to stock up on “morning after” pills AS WELL AS ANTI-ABORTIVES and learn how to use them properly and safely.  Returning to back-alley abortions is not an option.