Life Is Always a Matter of Choice

“You've thrown the worst fear

That can ever be hurled

Fear to bring children

Into the world

For threatening my baby

Unborn and unnamed

You ain't worth the blood

That runs in your veins”

-Bob Dyaln, “Masters of War”

The anti-abortion display The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) presented the other day on the green in front of McMicken was pretty disturbing. The worst part wasn’t the blood and guts of dismembered fetuses. I recently read something about the current situation in Palestine with similarly grisly images. Sadly, I see images of violence way too often for that to be the worst part.

No, this time what really made my heart sink was how willing both sides of the abortion debate are to believe the worst about each other. As a churchgoer with left-wing political leanings, I’ve gotten to know plenty of Pro-Choice people. None of them are anti-life. I also know a lot of Pro-Life people. None of them are anti-choice.

Despite our vast resources, we live in a society in which large numbers of pregnant women feel so alone and uncared for that they feel abortion is the lesser of two evils. In my mind, that reveals a very deep and widespread injustice. And it isn’t like the people screaming at each other over photos of fetuses would have you believe. This is something the vast majority of Americans have a huge problem with. All of us, on both sides, are more than capable of compassion.

American politicians are playing some scandalous political games with the issue of abortion, and a lot of us are taking the bait. Sure, if you ask a random sampling of people “Are you ‘pro-life,’ ‘pro-choice’ or something in between,” you might (seemingly) get a pretty divided group. But what if you ask that same random sampling “Would you favor constructing a coherent social safety net that bolsters programs that help vulnerable pregnant women and have been proven to reduce abortion rates?"

This safety net would include helping young and/or poor pregnant women and mothers get good child care and good jobs, eliminating violence against pregnant women, reliably providing every vulnerable mother and child with health care, empowering every woman to make healthy sexual choices for themselves, and lessening the stigma of being a single mother. I think you’d get almost universal support for an effort like that. When you ask those that are in the trenches with pregnant women, from Planned Parenthood to pregnancy ministries, this is where the real work gets done.

I know there are private organizations all over the country, some faith-based and some secular, attempting to do things like this on a woman by woman basis. But these well-meaning groups simply don’t have the resources to deal with the millions of people these issues effect.

Interesting fact. The abortion rate has been falling for years. But the abortion rate actually fell more quickly under Clinton (the “pro-choice” president”) than it did under Bush (the “pro-life” president). Effectively reducing abortion is about creating an atmosphere in which women and children in vulnerable positions know that they are surrounded by people who will catch them when they fall. I’m not saying Clinton was good at doing that. But I have to concede that he didn’t try to limit health care for poor children the way Bush does. Apparently a few billion for SCHIP is too much for an administration that’s spent hundreds of billions on war.

The supposed tug of war over Roe v. Wade has made relatively little serious progress in either direction for decades. But it does provide the political theater Democrats and Republicans thrive on. Addressing real problems is scary for those that prefer empty posturing. You see, facing facts might require demanding something from the rich and making social security as much of a priority as national security.

If we really mobilized our resources to care for the weak and marginalized in our society (even if that means forcing the hand of the rich and powerful), the specific legalities of what doctors do in individual women’s wombs would seem like relatively minor details. This is particularly true when one considers the fact that making abortion illegal is a far cry from eliminating abortion (some have credibly argued it could even increase the number of abortions). These issues would be dwarfed by a whole social movement that fights against the sexual exploitation of women, tries to provide adequate health care for all, and strives to truly become a society where it’s safe to be a child.

Caring for the weak is a way for all of us to collectively choose life. Do we have the moral and spiritual strength to do it?

~Geoffrey Dobbins

Vice President, UCABJ