I think it is horrible that our country is on a path that might take us back to the dark days of back-alley abortions. We need to change our argument, however; those people that are against abortions will never agree with us that a woman has the right to control what happens to her body. Consider what Rush Limbaugh said about Sandra Fluke, the law student that argued that women should have access to birth control for health reasons. She was portrayed as a slut and a prostitute. People on the right believe in the rights of the unborn, and they think the unborns' right to life trumps a woman's sovereignty over her body.
Our position of strength is actually once babies are born. Republicans and Libertarians want to leave the mother, father, and baby on their own. They're supposed to take "personal responsibility" for everything—which is a neat trick for a newborn. Why are people that are so up in arms about preventing abortions (and, lately, even birth control) decimating the social safety nets for our nation's poorest people? People that are considering whether to choose between paying rent and buying food need reasonable options besides having an abortion or making the entire family go even hungrier. I know the pro-life folks would say that this is what adoption is for—but how many pro-lifers have adopted a child? And, of those, how many have adopted a child with disabilities or a child born addicted to drugs?
I was very sad to read about the woman that ordered an abortion pill on the internet and realized to her horror after taking it that the fetus had been much older than she had realized. She was a single mother of three living off of child support. Getting an abortion from a clinic would have cost $500 or so and required a few trips to a clinic hours away. I wish she had been able to go to a physician and get an exam and find out how far along she was. Perhaps she would have decided to keep the baby (or carry it to term and give it up for adoption) if she had been able to see a doctor. She did not have the healthcare access to do that.
People that call themselves pro-life have portrayed the pro-choice folks as people that are trying to maximize abortions. I believe that is a serious mischaracterization that gives them an enormous advantage. We need to stop arguing about a woman's right to choose (we're losing that argument because they misrepresent us as gleeful baby killers) and start emphasizing how we push for tangible help for those women that would otherwise turn to abortion out of desperation.
President Clinton said abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. Perhaps we should reorder it and emphasize that abortion should be rare, safe, and legal. To make abortions rarer, women need access to reproductive health services—and our nation's poorest need to have safety nets in place. These are the things Democrats fight for. We should take credit for them.
Let's decrease abortions by improving women's reproductive healthcare and strengthening social safety nets.
