Are these the key questions in the abortion debate?
• When does life begin?
• Is a fetus a person?
• Is abortion murder?
Anti-abortion people insist that the morality and legality of abortion rest on when life begins and whether a fetus is a person or not. If so, abortion is murder, they say, and therefore immoral and illegal. On the pro-choice side, these questions tend to be ignored outright, although some activists answer them negatively, and a few urge us to consider the "moral value" of the fetus.
I want to explain why these are not the key questions in the abortion debate, nor do they need to be answered as such. Anti-abortionists (and a few pro-choicers) are committing the "fetus focus fallacy."
The practice of abortion is unrelated to the status of the fetus — it depends totally on the aspirations and needs of women. Women have abortions regardless of the law, regardless of the risk to their lives or health, regardless of the morality of abortion, and regardless of what the fetus may or may not be. For example, overall abortion rates do not differ much between countries where it's legal and countries where it's banned to "protect life." Of 46 million abortions a year in the world, 19 million are illegal. In the developing world, about 68,000 women die every year from unsafe, mostly illegal abortions, and five million more are injured.
Even in developed countries, focusing on the fetus has dire legal and social consequences for women. When we give rights to fetuses, we separate them from their mothers and create an adversarial relationship that hurts both. For example, pregnant drug abusers tend to forego prenatal care entirely, or have an abortion, rather than risk arrest and prosecution. And pregnant women, usually women of color and low-income women, have been punished and jailed under child protection and fetal rights laws, as documented by the group Advocates for Pregnant Women.
Focusing on the fetus also devalues women, because it usurps their moral decision-making, as well as their bodies and wombs. When we protect the interests of fetuses, there is a corresponding sacrifice of women's health and autonomy. It's simply not possible for two beings in the same body to exercise competing rights - one or the other must lose out. Also, laws restricting abortion are usually unrelated to the woman’s own needs. For example, when a law requires a waiting period between counseling at the clinic and the abortion itself, it delays the procedure unnecessarily, since most women have already made a firm decision to have an abortion by the time they call the clinic. Further, such delays make the procedure riskier, and even put it out of reach for some women, since many disadvantaged women are unable to travel to the clinic twice. Since only women get pregnant, any regulation of pregnancy places a special burden on women but not men. Therefore, all restrictions on abortion should be repealed as unconstitutional discrimination against women.
Shouldn't we care about fetuses at all? Yes, but their health and welfare is best assured indirectly, by helping pregnant women access support and resources to ensure a good outcome for their pregnancies. And a good ouctome may be an abortion. It’s well-documented that women, families, communities, and entire countries benefit in myriad ways when women have the power to decide if and when to have children, and how many they can adequately care for. These benefits can’t be fully realized without access to abortion, which makes abortion a moral positive that outweighs any supposed right-to-life of a fetus.
When women decide to have an abortion, it’s not because they think the fetus is a meaningless blob of tissue. They have abortions because they can’t take care of a child right now. In other words, women have abortions because they’re responsible – they want to be good mothers to their existing children or to their future children. Being a good mother also entails taking good care of oneself before having children — such as gaining confidence and independence, and obtaining an education and career.
There’s actually a wide divergence of opinion on whether a fetus is a person or a human being, and what its moral value should be. Biology, medicine, law, philosophy, and theology have no consensus, and neither does society as a whole. There will never be a consensus on such questions, because they are inherently subjective and unscientific.
Some people believe a fertilized egg is a full human being with an absolute right to life that supersedes any right of the woman. Others believe that a fetus attains moral value only after it becomes viable, or upon birth. But that's all these beliefs are — opinions. There's no way to decide between them, because they're based on emotion, and often, religious doctrines. That’s why we must give the benefit of the doubt to women and let them decide the value of their fetuses — because women are indisputable human beings and persons with rights. A fetus becomes a person when the woman carrying it decides it does.
A pregnant woman’s opinion about her fetus is the only valid opinion, no matter what it is. The woman who just wants to get rid of her fetus as an unwelcome parasite and so feels tremendous relief after an abortion, deserves the same degree of respect and trust as the happily pregnant woman who talks to her unborn baby and names it. Both of these reactions to a fetus, and all reactions in between, are perfectly valid and natural. Both may even occur in the same woman, years apart. Both of them are true and right because both spring from the same ethical source — the biological imperative to be a good mother, at the right time, in the best circumstances possible.
Nevertheless, women have the right to abortion even if society deems the fetus to be a person with legal rights. According to Eileen McDonagh in her book Breaking the Abortion Deadlock: From Choice To Consent (1997), we should be arguing for abortion rights based on self-defense — not choice — thereby ensuring that abortion rights override fetal "rights."
A fetus is not innocent, as anti-abortion people claim. Although an unwanted fetus has no ill intent, it is co-opting the woman's body and endangering her life and health against her will. Pregnancy has a profound effect on a woman's whole being, mentally and physically, with every pregnancy posing a hazard to health. The risk of death associated with childbirth is 11 to 12 times higher than that associated with abortion up to 20 weeks. Because any pregnancy carried to term presents a wide range of risks and potential complications for any woman, she has the right to defend her life and health with an abortion.
Further, women cannot be legally subordinated to fetuses. A woman with a born child is under no obligation to donate a kidney or blood to save her child's life, so how can a fetus have even more rights over the woman than her born child? It can’t. Even if a fetus has a right to life, a pregnant woman cannot be required to save it by loaning out her body for nine months against her will. Once a woman is pregnant, she must give her consent for the pregnancy to continue.
In response, anti-abortion people may say that because the woman chose to have sex, she must accept the risk of pregnancy. But sex is not a contract for pregnancy. People have a constitutional right to non-procreative sex because of legalized birth control, which implicitly provides the right to have sex without reproducing (U.S. Supreme Court cases Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965; and Eisenstadt v. Baird, 1972, found that the use of birth control fell under a constitutional right to privacy.) Consent to sex does not entail consent to pregnancy, any more than wearing tight clothes implies consent to be raped.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the need to prevent abortion. The Democrats have introduced a bill called Putting Prevention First, which promotes family planning and the emergency contraception pill, among other measures. Prevention of unintended pregnancies — the leading cause of abortion — is very important and necessary, but it sidesteps the truth: Abortion is a fundamental human right for women, and women will always need good access to safe, high-quality abortion care.
Women are the sole caretakers of fetuses by necessity, and the primary caretakers of children by tradition or choice. We can entrust women to that job. And by guaranteeing women’s human rights and equality, by protecting their health and lives, by being 100% pro-choice, we automatically promote the welfare of children and fetuses. Being 100% pro-choice means: Trusting women to abort for any reason they see fit, or no apparent reason at all. Having compassion for women's circumstances and tough life-and-death decisions. Understanding that women are far from perfect, and loving them anyway. Respecting women's right to have and enjoy sex when they want, with whom they want, as often as they want. Accepting that women should never be morally judged for getting accidentally pregnant, because it's intrinsic to their biology to get pregnant when they have sex. Appreciating the sheer challenge of trying to avoid pregnancy over most of a lifetime of sexual activity. Knowing that birth control doesn't always work, women can't always use it, or can’t afford it or even access it. Sympathizing with women if they forget to use birth control, use it wrong, or don’t even want to use it, since contraception has many negative side effects, including putting a damper on sexual pleasure. Since the burden for contraception falls largely on women, that’s all the more reason for us to be very forgiving when women accidentally get pregnant.
The real questions in the abortion debate do not center on the fetus, but on the woman, and on what’s best for society as a whole:
• Should we let women suffer and die from unsafe, illegal abortions?
• Should we force women to bear children against their will?
• Should we force unwanted children to be born?
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what the fetus is, how valuable we think it is, or whether it has any rights. True justice demands that women not be compelled to bear children they don't want. Laws that restrict abortion or recognize fetal rights are simply evidence of society’s distrust of women and their disregard for women's lives. If we genuinely believe that women should be accorded the same rights, dignity, and respect as men, it becomes intuitively obvious that we can trust women to make responsible pregnancy decisions on behalf of themselves, their families, and their fetuses.
(This diary is based on an earlier, more indepth article with the same title, which was reprinted on DailyKos in March 2005.)