Abortion has been a surprisingly hot topic on Dkos the last couple of days. There are those who seem to believe that we Democrats are at a crossroads--that we might have to adjust our stance on abortion in order to be competitive in national elections. I, of course, disagree. Our stance is fine. We just need to stop letting the `dittiots' of the world define our stance
for us in the public forum.
I did a lot of writing when I went on vacation covering a lot of topics, but one of the things I realized is how many of my opinions come back to "The Abortion Story." Since it's the story that changed me from being `Pro-Life' to being `Anti-Asshole,' I thought I should share it with you. It's been almost 12 years since I heard this story, and I may not have all of the details 100% correct. But this is the story to the best of my recollection with no embellishment.
I will never say who this woman was, so no one ask...ever. I'm going to call her Amy. Clearly this isn't her name. I knew Amy in college (or maybe I didn't). At the time I was pretty vocal about my Pro-Life stance. "You know...you can kill a baby in the womb, but you can't kill a baby eagle." I don't know what that even means. I borrowed that saying form my dad, who used to use it all the time. "You can kill a baby in the womb, but you can't do X," where `X' equals some absurd liberal viewpoint. It was sort of his version of the "You can put a man on the moon" saying. Anyway, she heard me use this phrase and we started talking about it. I told her I was Pro-Life, and that I was going to take part in a Tennessee Right to Life protest at a local abortion clinic. She asked me why I thought it was necessary to protest.
The answer for me at the time was simple. If we didn't protest, then those women going into the clinic would think that abortion is okay. It's important for there to be a stigma attached to abortion, otherwise everyone will have one. It was the classic conservative notion that well-to-do, white women are ripping fully formed fetuses out of their bodies so they can resume their lives of alcoholism and debauchery. The way I looked at it, the woman already made a choice to have sex out of wedlock. Now it's time for her to take personal responsibility for having sex before she got married. I am not kidding, those exact words came out of my mouth on a local radio talk show back in '92. Notice at no point during my argument did `the child' enter into it. Looking at it now I realize that for me being `Pro-Life' was really more about being `Anti-Premarital Sex.'
Amy asked that I first listen to her story, and if I still wanted to go protest after hearing it then fine. Being a fearless Republican of core principles, I agreed. So here's Amy's story.
Amy fell in love at the age of 15. Her boyfriend at the time was someone we would today call an `asshole.' Let's call him Rod. If I could put Rod's real name out and not compromise Amy, I would. Rod was 18, his parents were rich, and he was about to go to a good college. That's not what made him an asshole. What made him an asshole was that he knew it, and pretty much treated people like he knew it. Amy was no exception. Amy was extremely attractive, but like most 15 year-olds she had a hormone level that would cause a baleen whale to explode. So when I say she fell in love, I mean in the "I'll kill myself if we can't be together" kind of way.
Rod treated her like crap. We all know guys like this. We also all know girls like this. He treats her bad, she could do so much better, but for some reason she's attached to this asshole like she's been riveted to him. They have sex. Rod doesn't wear protection. Rod gets her pregnant. She's 15, pregnant, and scared to death of talking to her parents. When I confronted myself with the reality of her situation, I understood why. I was scared to death to come home with a `D' on my report card. I could only imagine how "Hey dad...got my girlfriend pregnant," would go over. To say nothing of "Hey dad...I'm pregnant."
So Amy starts by telling Rod, who goes ballistic. He does one of those great things where you admit that you did it, but at the same time try to say it couldn't have been you. "Well I'm not the father! And I'm not letting this screw up my life!" Amy tries to explain that there are two possibilities. Either Rod's the father, or Jesus is coming back in 8 months. Rod won't hear of it. He says she's been sleeping around and everyone knows it. He storms off, and even though Amy never really says this, I get the impression that before he left he got violent.
The next day at school Rod's running around telling everyone what a slut Amy is. He's not telling anyone that she's pregnant. That'd look a wee bit suspicious. He's just saying that she sleeps around. That way when she announces that she's pregnant, Rod's got an alibi. Rod's supremely popular, so naturally everyone believes him. Needless to say Amy's devastated. Suddenly she's a pariah, and if she tells anyone she's pregnant her 15-year-old life will be over. Dazed and confused, Amy tells her parents.
Her parents kick her out of the house, thus earning the prestigious `Parent of the Year Award' for 1989. They say she's been nothing but trouble lately, and they can't handle the stigma that having a pregnant 15-year-old would bring on them in church. I guess it's a southern thing. I always knew social circles in southern churches were important, but I never realized it could be used as a reason to ostracize your daughter. Maybe it was just an anger reaction. Hopefully it was one they later regretted. I'm not sure. Her parents later divorced, and it didn't seem appropriate to ask, "Hey, was it because you got pregnant?"
Amy's able to move in with a friend, but her friend says she's got to move out before she starts showing or her parents will freak. At this point Amy is at an understandable low point. Her parents have disowned her, the love of her life is spreading lies about her, and as soon as she starts to look pregnant she's going to become homeless. She's weak, she's vulnerable, and right on cue Rod the Asshole returns.
Apparently word has gotten back to Rod's parents that Amy's pregnant. And one of them put a bug in Rod's ear that he may be required to take a paternity test. That could destroy his happy life of privilege. So Rod goes to see Amy. He says he's sorry for what he did, he says he's sorry for how he's behaved, and he says he wants her back. But he's not ready to start a family right now. The timing's not good. Rod says that if Amy will have an abortion, he'll pay for it, and he'll even take her back. In a few years when he's out of college, then they can have kids...together.
So Amy looks at it and thinks she's about to get the best of all possible worlds! She could tell her parents that she wasn't really pregnant after all, but had just missed her period. They'd take her back! If people at school saw her with Rod, then the rumors of her being a slut would go away! Best of all, she'd really have Rod back, and in a few years when he finished college they'll still get to have kids `for real.'
Amy goes to the clinic. A bunch of us Right-to-Lifers are there to get in the last `killer, sinner, whore' references. Amy uses the money Rod gave her to have the abortion. It's done, and the next day...Rod dumps her.
For the Pro-Life crowd, blame ends with the woman. Her choices, her decision, her sin. But after hearing that story I realized that a lot of people share the responsibility. Rod, Amy's parents, and even the church for maintaining a cliquish atmosphere where it was easier for a family to disown a child than admit the truth.
This was very different from my understanding of abortion. This wasn't a story about a selfish hedonist intent on self-destructive behavior. This was the story of a little girl abandoned by everyone, and ultimately taken advantage of by someone she loved. It was as story of poor judgment, raging hormones, and a harsh and cruel reality.
I didn't go protest the abortion clinic that day. Instead I decided to just stay the Hell out of it. Amy's is just one story, but it was a story so powerful for me personally that I was no longer a member of the "Pro-Life" community. I've heard many stories about abortion since then, and you know what? I'm still looking for that first remorseless, selfish hedonist. I hate to burst the Pro-Life bubble, but I don't think that woman exists.
I still want to stop abortions. I'd rather no one had them. But you do that by treating the real cause of abortion, and not abortion itself. Republicans like to say they're the party of personal responsibility, but when it comes to abortion they're only wiling to hold the woman accountable. It takes two to tango. If a pregnant woman knew strong laws existed to force the dad to provide for the mother and child financially, maybe we'd have fewer abortions. But strangely that's not a plank in the Republican Party's platform.
If abortion had been illegal back in `89, I wouldn't have put it past Rod to violently force Amy into a miscarriage. Or worse. However bad you think abortion is, I think it's way better that that alternative. There's a great line in the movie Parenthood where Keanu Reeves says, "You've got to have a license to drive a car, or buy a gun...but any butt-reaming asshole can be a dad." Until we pass a law to the contrary, I say we need to keep abortion just as it is--safe, legal, and rare.