Many aspects of my life fell by the wayside in the past year and half and this weekend I began picking up the pieces. I checked out a book about Thomas Jefferson and another about Greek mythology to read to my kids. I started using Money 04 again to get a handle on things financial. And I went through the stack of magazines sitting in a pile on my desk. I found several copies of Mother Jones. One article in the September 2004 issue that I read this weekend has struck me quite forcefully, especially in relation to all the "framing" discussions we've seen here.
I've never been a strong supporter of abortion (especially after my kids were born), but have always been able to generate mild support for choice. After reading this article(subscription only,sorry,but there 8 minutes of audio by the author at the site), I now truly believe that preserving access to abortion is our moral duty. And we need to frame it as such.
The article, by Eleanor Cooney, provided for me some long needed historical context. Before abortion was legalized, many, many women died from complications due to illegal abortions. Sterile conditions were non existant. Ms. Cooney describes one abortionist who was also a prostitute. She performed abortions on the same bed where she turned tricks. Infections were common, as were incomplete procedures, perforations of the uterine wall, and rapes perpetrated by the abortionist.
Ms. Cooney's experience was shaped by the "morals" of the time as well. Attitudes like "She deserves whatever she gets because she was screwing around" prevented women who had suffered at the hands of an illegal abortionist from reporting crimes committed against them or seeking professional medical help when their lives depended on it. Many women were compelled to seek illegal abortions when the fetus had reached a point of being very well developed because of the immense societal taboo placed on the act. They waited until their pregnancies could no longer be hidden. Waiting only increased the chance of complications and the level of desperation to which these people were driven.
Imagine, your sister, mother, girlfriend dying from infection or internal bleeding due to a botched, unsterile abortion. It's horrible. I've come to the conclusion that access to abortion must be preserved. It is a basic human rights issue. So we must frame it as such. This will be difficult, because the fundies cannot grasp the reality of the conditions that drive people to such a point. Somehow we must frame opposition to abortion as immoral because of the horrible repercussions of illegal abortion.
We should also frame access to abortion as a class issue. Ms. Cooney, in her story, cited instances where those with the means to do so would fly to foreign countries where abortion was legal. Women without the means had to take their chances with what was available in the underground economy in the US, exposing themselves to greater danger. Illegal abortion was more likely to kill poor women than women who were more well off.
Somehow, we need to build this new frame of access to abortion as moral. The act itself is distasteful, to be sure, but the societal ramifications of illegal abortions are much more damaging.