Cross-posted at The Next Agenda For Canadian Progressive Politics
Donna Schaper is a Spirited Writer, Speaker, Mother and Gardener and Senior Minister Elect of the Judson Memorial Church, NYC. She writes in the July/August 2006 edition of Tikkun Magazine about her experience of abortion. I don't necessarily see things exactly the same way as she does but I found her account impressive.
Schaper describes that she became pregnant 19 years ago from having unprotected sex with her husband. She states that she foolishly thought that she would not need birth control while she was nursing her infant twins.
What I find really interesting about her viewpoint is that Schaper considers abortion to be a form of murder so the decision she had to make was really agonizing. She actually went so far as to name the fetus, indicating a very real sense of the potential of the fetus she was carrying and the impact that another child would have on herself, her family and her work.
Choosing abortion, for Schaper, was akin to what "men do all the time when they take us to war: They choose violence because, although they believe it is bad, it is still better than the alternatives. The "just war" theory assumes that human beings get caught in terrible choices all the time. This freedom is not just for men; it is for women also."
She frames the right to choose abortion as part of the responsibilities of a mature adult who takes responsibility for her life and her body. "(T)he drama of the abortion battle (is) not about unborn babies at all. Instead, it is about women and sex and about women and maturity. We are considered babies, sub-adults, in need of supervision over our sexuality. Otherwise we are dangerous."
Schaper views birth control and abortion as "positive moral forces in history" because it makes men and women equal in being able to have sex for both procreation and recreation. "Obviously, protected sex is the most moral thing of all. Unprotected sex is adolescent, immature, sometimes life-threatening and always stupid. Women are mature enough to handle that. ... Abortion that is legal, safe and rare is the best policy conceivable for men and women and for mature, moral sexuality."
I couldn't access the article at either the Tikkun website nor at the Hartford Courant where it was previously published. Ironically, the full text of Schaper's article is available here at a rabidly anti-abortion blog that was sickened by her point of view.
Among the appalled comments posted by the highly moral and Christian commenters was this gem: "This is extemely disturbing. What really troubles me is that she admits to murder and seems to just brush it under the carpet. Rationalizing sin is the most dangerous thing to us as Christians." We could take these words and apply them to so many sins of the Republicans, couldn't we?