I have a confession.
I’m a liberal who isn’t comfortable
with abortion.
I have to concede that, at some point
in in-utero development, I think it crosses the line from “removing a
blastocyst” to ending the life of a being capable of feeling pain and fear. It
may not yet be a human life that’s being ended, but once there’s a functional nervous
system and brain then at the very least it’s something akin to cruelty to
animals.
And at some point – I don’t claim to
be able to say what point – but at some point, it is a human life that is being
ended. That may sometimes be a necessary thing to do, but it should make us
uncomfortable. We should at least acknowledge that even if we don’t believe
it’s murder, it’s still a very serious thing to do, an ethically questionable
thing to do, and that a moral society should try to address the root causes to
make sure it happens as seldom as possible.
That’s a position that will probably
upset some of my liberal friends. But it is my position nonetheless.
So when I see conservatives posting
outrage about liberals not wanting to change a law that allows a failed
abortion to be completed after birth (if that is indeed an accurate description
of what the law allows): I get it. I was at church the night they showed the
movie “The Silent Scream”, just like many people who were raised in
conservative Evangelical churches. I was 9 at the time, so my parents had me
stay outside the sanctuary to do my math homework… but the P.A. system was
really loud, so I heard everything. It’s pretty awful to contemplate chopping
up or chemically burning a living being, even if it’s not yet a being we
consider human. And if we DO consider it human, it’s even more awful to think
about how often it happens.
I get it, I even agree that we should be trying to
prevent it from happening (though I disagree with the idea that making it illegal
would achieve that. That strategy has already been tried and failed.)
Nevertheless, pro-life friends: You
haven’t thought through the ethical or practical ramifications of stopping
people from having abortions, even if you could.
You believe that parents who have an
abortion are murdering a baby. You feel that if the baby is born despite an
attempt at abortion, the doctors should save her. Granting all that:
Then what?
Give her BACK to the parents who tried
to kill her, given that you believe the parents are guilty of the attempted
murder of their child? You think that kid’s safe with those parents?
If not, then what?
Send him on to our broken foster
system instead? Is that an ethical thing to do, when the kids already in the
system are often living in hotels for years waiting for a placement?
If not, then what?
Set up orphanages for them? I can tell
you from long experience of working with institutionalized kids about the
irreparable damage that can do to a developing child, especially a baby. They
will never heal from what it does to their developing brains. There’s a high
probability that they will never be functional adults. There’s a high probability
that they will spend their childhood in locked-down group homes, and spend
their adulthood in and out of jails and hospitals.
So:
What would you like to see happen
AFTER the birth? I actually agree with you that abortion is a bad thing, but
what exactly is the ethical alternative in cases like this? We don’t get to
just demand that they be born and then pretend that all the problems are solved
after that point. All the things that were so wrong in the parents’ lives that
abortion seemed like the only possible solution, will still be wrong. The
parents still won’t want to be parents, still will lack the finances or the
skills or the stability or the desire or the support or SOMETHING that they
would need in order to take care of a child.
So what do we do for those kids after
they’ve been born? And are pro-life conservatives willing to pay the price of
taking care of them?
A large percentage of the couples who
would be willing to adopt the kid are gay – are conservative Evangelicals okay
with letting them?
Every child who is adopted or fostered
has trauma issues to deal with – are conservatives willing to pay for the
therapy necessary to help kids heal from that?
What if the single teenage mother
wanted an abortion because she knew she can’t afford to feed a child – will
conservatives pay for food stamps and healthcare for that kid? Will they pay
for college or vocational training for the mom so she can get a job that will
support a kid? Will they pay for childcare so the mom can go to school and then
go to work? Will they demand that employers pay entry-level employees enough for
a single mom with minimal education to raise a kid on?
What if the mom wanted an abortion
because she has disabilities and can’t take care of a kid – will conservatives
pay for that kid to get adopted or placed in foster care? Will they pay to fix
the foster care system so there will actually be a placement for the kid?
What if the kid has disabilities
because of the botched abortion, or was being aborted because they have a
genetic syndrome such as Down’s, or because the mom knew she’d been drinking
and drugging during pregnancy and expected Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or Fetal Drug
Effect?
Will conservatives pay for that kid’s
special education needs, and in-home behavior support needs, and respite for
the family?
If that isn’t enough, will
conservatives pay for that kid’s group home (paid for by Social Security and
Medicare and Medicaid and ACA and all the things conservatives hate paying
for)?
If that isn’t enough, will
conservatives pay for that kid’s psychiatric hospitalization?
If that isn’t enough and the kid is so
violent and impulsive due to trauma and bad brain wiring that he ends up
committing a terrible crime and going to jail: Will conservatives still believe
his life has value and look for ways to support him?
As that kid becomes an adult – if
she’s unable to function independently, and yet is impulsive and prone to
risk-taking due to her brain wiring, and is sexually active and becomes
pregnant with a child she can’t take care of… are conservatives willing to take
care of THAT baby in turn? And the next five babies she has after that? And the
babies that will be made by those babies when they become adults? For how many
generations?
These are not theoretical questions.
These are the real-world situations I see in my work with kids and adults who
have cognitive disabilities, mental health challenges, and addiction (and the
most violent and dangerous of them are usually the children of people who
likewise had cognitive disabilities, mental health challenges, and addiction.
The kind of people who shouldn’t have kids because of their impulsivity, but
are continually having kids because of their impulsivity.)
I know that conservatives are good
people with good intentions who want those kids to be okay after they’re born.
But I have yet to hear any conservative talk about their plan for HOW to ensure
those kids will be okay after they’re born. IS there a plan? In 20 years as a
Behavior Specialist, I’ve learned over and over that the secret to behavior
change is this: If you want to stop an undesired behavior, you have to be able
to offer people a better option. How would we offer a better option than
abortion to people who are desperate enough to seek one? *
And if you
don’t have a better option: Why keep pretending that changing the law will
magically make people who aren't prepared for parenthood stop having unprotected sex? Why keep pretending that changing the law will magically make all those millions of extra kids that nobody wanted suddenly
have the loving and supportive homes they would need in order to have a shot at
becoming functional adults someday? Why keep congratulating yourselves on working
so hard to “save all those innocent babies” if you haven’t ALSO worked to save
them from the unbearable lives that many of them would be born into?
BE pro-life, by all means. But if so, be prepared to pay the price.
* Before you say "Adoption needs to be more affordable": You're not wrong. But foster parents are PAID to be foster parents, and STILL the system can't get enough of them to take care of the kids already needing it. So even if adoption was free, you can't tell me that there will suddenly be over a million extra homes available every year that are willing and able to take on an extra child, especially one with attachment issues and the behavior challenges that come with that. It's a nice idea, but in practice it won't resolve the issue.
