In the wake of the recent 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in Gonzales vs. Carhart that upheld the ban on a medical procedure known as Intact Dilation and Extraction (IDX), it got me thinking. The first thing I thought was that not one-in-a-thousand people had ever heard of IDX, yet, you could hardly find a registered voter that isn’t familiar with the issue of Partial Birth Abortion. That, of course, is the term that the conservative movement has coined and substituted for the actual and precise medical terminology, Intact Dilation and Extraction. I guess they felt that IDX wasn’t quite sexy enough to get people sufficiently hot, bothered and mobilized around an issue that won’t affect one American in a million this year. Partial Birth Abortion, on the other hand, seems to have really hit the spot. By actually incorporating the word birth, it moves directly to change the perception of the fetus and challenge the ubiquitous “unborn” label that, when used by the “choice” movement, is not only a description, but a justification as to why the fetus is not entitled to the same legal protections that we are. It’s a very clever choice.
These, of course, are the same folks that brought you “Death Tax,” “Cut and Run,” “Flip-Flopper” and “Augmentation.” If things don’t work out for these people in politics, there’s a fortune out there to be made in bumper stickers.
While the ruling in Gonzales vs. Carhart was clearly a victory for the pro-life movement, their advocates must be wary of winning battles that will eventually cost them the war.
The truth of the matter is that many, if not most, “pro-life” politicians like the issue of abortion a hell of a lot more than they dislike the ruling of Roe vs. Wade.
The reasons are obvious. It gives them a morally unambiguous position, allows them to display the most essential of evangelical bona fides and, most importantly, allows them to raise a shit-load of money attacking “baby-killers”.
Now if anybody were to really take the time to look at what would happen if Roe vs. Wade were to be overturned tomorrow, almost none of what they'd find looks particularly good for the Pro-life movement.
Unintended Consequence #1. Overturning Roe vs. Wade might not decrease the number of abortions and might actually increase them.
The inconvenient truth (sorry) that many Americans are not aware of is the fact that overturning Roe will not outlaw abortions. The main consequence of the Supreme Court finding in favor of Roe was to ban a state’s ability to place any restrictions on first term abortions and to limit, in a defined way, the state’s ability to regulate abortions in the second term. So overturning Roe will send the matter back to the states so each individual legislature can sort out the issue in a way that is appropriate for their respective constituencies. Now, while conservative state’s like South Dakota may decide to ban the procedure altogether, some more liberal states might reflexively decide to expand abortion rights, out of either empathy or as blowback to compensate for the lost rights of their fellow citizen’s. Or they might simply do it as a pre-emptive measure. Girding their loins, so to speak. Imagine. No restrictions on late-term abortions, no age restrictions, no parental notification, the right to legally abort until the fetus reaches the third grade. O.K., maybe that’s a stretch, but you get the point. Zeitgeist is an unpredictable thing. Let’s also not forget that some of our most conservative states are located on the border of our most liberal states. Look at the states that abut California, Oregon and Washington. If abortions were outlawed in Idaho and Nevada, I could not imagine that women’s health services wouldn’t become available all along that western divide. Given that North and South Dakota are neatly abutted by the home state of Humphrey, Mondale, Ventura and, gulp, Franken, can you imagine the consequences of Dakotans losing their rights to reproductive services? I can tell you, but, oooh Jeeez, I think you already know.
Now I’m not even going to pretend for one second the I can imagine what it must be like for a woman to be in the situation to have to make that decision, experience that procedure and live with the emotional and psychological aftermath. But I can imagine that many if not most women who are confronted with an unwanted pregnancy are either very young, underprivileged, unmarried, unstable, alone or some heartbreaking combination. And I can also imagine that for a young woman in this situation, it would be a terribly desperate time. Now if this desperation were to be compounded by the lack of accessible medical services, then the idea of driving a few hours to the nearest blue state-line would certainly not seem so daunting. And that’s not even getting into a discussion of the underground operations that would inevitably spring up to service this new market. Capitalism at its best.
In fact, after reading about the recent decision to legalize abortions in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic metropolis of Mexico City, I couldn’t help but wonder if savvy Mexican politicians were already starting to lay the groundwork for a cottage industry built to service a possible onslaught of American women seeking abortion services. This is to say nothing of the 2500-mile border to the north that we share with a country that has the least restrictive abortion laws in the world.
The Mexico thing is a stetch, but, my, what a weird coincidence.
I am not old enough to recall the troubling “Back Alley” component of this terribly complex issue, but I have no doubt that, if abortion were outlawed, it would return in a steroid-enhanced form, having been dangerously mutated by 30+ years of technology, pharmacological advances, information access and social inequities. These factors would then be coupled with the massive cultural indignation one would naturally expect to ensue when a right that a vast majority of Americans support (to, at least, a limited extent), is summarily usurped.
Unintended Consequence #2. Leaving aside the multitude of gut-wrenching micro-tragedies being either exacerbated or exploited, has anybody actually thought through the legislative consequences and it’s attendant fallout? I don’t blame you if you haven’t.
It’s hard to weigh in on an issue as enormous as this in a thoughtful and informed way when it’s difficult to think of a single person in this country responsible for public policy (or pundit, for that matter) who has uttered a single word on the issue. That being the issue of the criminal liability charged to women and physicians for performing abortions.
Hold on to your hat. Here we go-- If the reasoning behind outlawing abortions is that a fetus is a human life, then it seems that the appropriate charge for terminating that fetus is murder. Not manslaughter. Not murder in the 2nd. First-degree murder. The essential component attached to that charge is pre-meditation and I, myself, can hardly think of a more pre-meditated act.
Given that we are now talking about 1st degree murder, would it be a capital offense, given the delicate and defenseless nature of the victim? Would both the woman and her doctor be charged? And if so, of the same “crime?” (Can you even imagine the type of argument that a pro-life activist would have to put forth in favor of capital punishment for an abortion provider? It would appear to be a level of hypocrisy previously unimagined. We’d probably have to come up with a new word for it.)
If the father, another family member or anyone else, for that matter, were involved in the decision, the planning or the actual “crime” would he be charged with murder as well? Or, at the very least, as an accomplice? Given the fact that at least a modicum of planning and discussion regarding the logistics of the “crime” would have to take place, wouldn’t it make sense that these “criminals” would have to face a litany of conspiracy charges as well?
Now I can only imagine that shrewd legislators, in an attempt to make this extraordinary unpleasantness as palatable as possible, would possibly move to exculpate the woman and just charge her doctor. So then, what about the thousands of occasions when a woman loses her baby while under the care of a physician? Now in the wake of a terrible tragedy such as this, it would appear to put the doctor in a precarious position. Should his most pressing concern be the wellbeing of his patient? A costly malpractice suit? Or an imminent criminal indictment?
And what to do in a situation where the woman decides to harm, poison or medicate herself to such an extent as to cause the termination? Do we simply issue her a citation? What if she only succeeds in harming the fetus? Do we consider a battery charge? You see where this is going. Mind numbing, isn’t it? And I haven’t even started.
What would happen if a women left her own “Red State” where abortion where forbidden and traveled to a “Blue State” where they were still legal? Could she be charged with a crime when she returned to the Red State, as well as anybody who might have aided and abetted? What if the physician practiced in a Blue State but resided in a Red one? Could a zealous prosecutor try to invoke the “Full Faith and Credit Clause” of our constitution and attempt to extradite a Blue State physician to a Red state and charge him with murder? Would the “public policy exception” to the “Full Faith and Credit Clause” apply? And who would decide if it did? By the way, this goes on FOREVER. Who is planning on addressing the, literally, thousands of issues involved here and how long do you think it would take to resolve every one of them? A hundred years would be optimistic. Especially given the fact that I have heard nary a word on this particular topic by anyone in power in my lifetime. In my opinion, it is a legislative impossibility.
Unintended Consequence #3. The pro-life movement, in its entirety, would probably have to go out and get a second job. Their money would dry up so quickly that you'd think Andrew Fastow was handling it. And that would be in contrast to a “choice” movement that would find itself freshly awash in an outrage-inspired, Katrina-like deluge of money and new contributors. It’s called human nature. Complacency is something of a national pastime in this country and Americans have the habit of taking things for granted. Especially when it comes to a thing they’ve been granted for almost 35 years.
First of all, if the pro-life advocates were to achieve their objective, fund-raising for them becomes infinitely more difficult. The pleas of people fighting to achieve something are always more passionate and moving than those of people trying to maintain something. That’s why it’s a lot easier to find quotes and conjure up images of Martin Luther King than it is of George Wallace.
As far as the “choice” movement goes, this would be the textbook example of waking the sleeping giant. Even among people who are put off by the issue of abortion and among women who would never make that choice for themselves, there would be a tremendous amount of anxiety brought about by restrictions so extreme in an area so personal. I think it’s clear that the vast majority of Americans favor at least some latitude on the issue and if it were stripped away, everything would change. Overnight and drastically. I mean it’s not like you’d see a million people showing up on the White House lawn. You’d see five million.
There’s an old adage about "wanting" sometimes being greater than "having." Whether it be a material possession we covet, a romantic partner we desire, or a particular right we feel entitled to, it seems we are bio-chemically precluded from being able to maintain our appreciation of it once we have attained it. I’ll spare you the 100,000 examples. It’s just who we are. And it would immediately manifest itself in the bottom-lines of both movements.
And this certain financial disaster for the pro-life movement would invariably be accompanied by a non-stop litany of incredibly uncomfortable headlines reporting on the daily tragedies, both criminal and carnal, that would almost certainly ensue. Bad finances you can deal with, but bad P.R. and you’re done. The backlash would be enormous, the accomplishments would be reversed and the movement would be harmed immeasurably. The harsh reality is that the Pro-Life movement in this country might just be caught in a no-win situation.
Maybe the time has come for all of us to look at this issue in a whole new way. First things, first. Being pro-choice does not make someone pro-abortion. Nobody likes abortions. Anyone who is actually in favor of abortions, as opposed to merely supporting the right to choose, if that kind of person even exists, represent such an unbelievably miniscule demographic as to be irrelevant to the discussion. This kind of person is not an activist. This kind of person is a psychopath.
What both sides can agree on is the fact that all sane people would prefer fewer abortions. While zero would be the perfect number, it is simply not realistic, And while pro-life advocates might not be satisfied with, “Rare, Safe and Legal”, it is, not only, a position that most people would deem as reasonable, but it’s a hell of a lot better place than the one we’re at now. The most effective way we, as a society, can reduce the number of abortions, would be to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Duh. There are a myriad of simple, rational, common sense steps in service of this goal that we could begin to implement immediately. And no, these steps would not preclude the teaching of abstinence, personal responsibility and a reliance on one’s faith. Whatever works. But they would also not preclude early sex education, accessible birth control, and a serious dialogue on the precipitating factors of socio-economics and cultural mores. And while this all may seem an over simplified solution to a complicated problem, there is a reason that, after 700 years, William of Ockham is still in our history books and "Ockham's Razor" is still in common use today. Simple solutions.
I would suggest to the most ardent supporters of the Pro-Life movement that just because one can’t find a cure for a disease, doesn’t mean he should stop seeking a treatment for it. This doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. It can’t be. It just won’t work. My suggestion for those who desperately want to protect the lives of unborn babies?.... Baby steps.