I wrote this pretty rambling entry about partial-birth abortion in my blog...I conveniently don't say whether I'm for or against the right to have an abortion because I just don't know. (I'm young, I have an excuse. =P) If anyone wants to make some comments, especially negative ones that could help me tighten it up, feel free.
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You've got to commend pro-lifers' persistence; after a decade of trying, the partial-birth/late-term abortion bill will finally become law. One side proclaims that partial-birth abortion is an "abhorrent practice" that is "brutal, barbaric, morally offensive, and outside the mainstream practice of medicine" (Bill Frist); its passage, the president says, will "continue to build a culture of life in America," whatever the hell a culture of life is. The other side says late-term abortion is a rare, safe medical procedure that protects the lives of pregnant women; its passage, the Howard Dean says, "will endanger the lives of countless women." Abortion raises some heavy questions: Is it morally acceptable to abort the life of a fetus? Does the future of a living woman matter more than the future of her unborn child? Both sides have compelling arguments; the issues are complex, and I respect the opinions of both pro-lifers and pro-choicers.
The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, however, does not tackle those underlying issues.
Instead, we have senators self-righteously wrangling over what to call the procedure, voicing dire warnings about what will happen if the bill does or doesn't pass. As much fun as pols may have had bickering about it, this partial-birth abortion business is baloney. What, exactly, does the bill accomplish? A foreigner might consider its passage a hollow victory for the pro-life movement; third-trimester abortions are very rare, and butchering unborn babies is still legal in the first six months. Additionally, the bill probably won't survive a legal challenge; the Supreme Court ruled an almost identical bill in Nebraska unconstitutional only three years ago. Why, then, are people so ecstatic about its passage?
The right wing is celebrating because the bill's passage represents a giant victory in how the public perceives abortion. Most Americans (79 percent) think that the procedure should be legal all or most of the time; even so, 70 percent oppose partial-birth abortion. How did this happen? After all, there is no real difference between using the morning-after pill and having a third-trimester abortion. The latter may make a far greater emotional impact on us, but logically, there is no way to distinguish the two. In each case, because of the choice/on the whim of a pregnant woman, a future life is prematurely ended. It's that simple.
Indeed, what today's bill showed is that the right wing's scare tactics have worked. In an amazing coup, the pro-life movement hijacked the debate by giving late-term abortions a snazzy name -- partial-birth abortions -- that forces vivid, disgusting picture into our heads, that never lets us forget how close a seven-month-old fetus is to being a real baby. In the eyes of three out of four Americans, third-trimester abortions aren't just abortions -- they are murder. Late-term abortion is logically the same thing as the morning-after pill, but the skillful use of scare tactics and graphic imagery have managed to separate them in the eyes of many Americans. This is the direct result of the pro-life movement's constant, relentless PR blitz against abortion, a calculated series of attacks designed to chip away at the right to choose by manipulating public opinion.
The blame for this sorry state of affairs lies squarely on Roe v. Wade. The abortion debate is dominated by scare tactics because it can't be about the real issues. By ruling that the rights of a woman trump the rights of her fetus, Roe made the arguments against abortion moot in the legislative arena. That decision left abortion opponents unable to fight back in traditional ways, setting the stage for the guerrilla war we have now. The partial-birth abortion bill is only the first in a line of bills waiting in the wings: the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which would recognize the fetus as a person if it is injured or killed in a federal crime is first up; the Abortion Nondiscrimination Act, which protects health care providers who won't perform abortions, and the Child Custody Protection Act, which would prevent women from crossing state lines to get an abortion performed, could soon follow. It's easy to criticize the right's ridiculous, intellectually dishonest attacks on abortion from all angles except the front, but the framework created by Roe gives them no other option.
The people who come out worst in all of this are the moderates who, for whatever reason, shy away from deciding whether they actually support or oppose abortion. Our representatives and senators are not dumb people; they surely understand the intricacies of the issue. Those who bought into the argument that abortion is somehow different in the third trimester and voted for this bill are guilty of letting emotions cloud their judgments at best, intellectual dishonesty at worst. (Or perhaps they try to have it both ways because they just want to keep their jobs.) Either way, this bill is a ruse, the culmination of thirty years of stifled debate and backhanded tactics from the right wing. Has Roe made us worse off? Is this better than letting states go at it and decide for themselves? Who knows. I'm inclined to say no, but that doesn't make the present situation any less ridiculous. That's politics, I guess.