On Being Pro-Life
The last couple of months have opened up a world of experiences involving pregnancies and births, including the birth of my own son, whom we adopted a month ago. It's been an experience of overwhelming love and compassion. And it has made me think that the pro-life, pro-choice rhetoric debate is an impoverished and shallow perspective on abortion and sentience.
The experience of abortion among people I know, love, and respect, has not been a monolith. Some think of it as a liberating experience that saved their lives from the trappings of poverty, abuse, bad relationships, toward opportunities. Others experienced it as a horrible trauma. Both of these experiences, and any shade in between, are valid and worthy, and neither receives the kind of supportive validation we would hope for across the political spectrum.
It is absolutely possible and valid to make a philosophical case for and against sentience before birth, and both sides make good, valid arguments. I have no problem whatsoever with people who can make an abstract argument for sentience.
However, I do have a problem with the claim that sentience automatically implies governmental regulations of what is an incredibly painful and complicated personal decision. And I have an even bigger problem with the astounding discrepancy between some people's pro-life stance and their lack of support for the welfare state.
If you support limitations on abortion but are not at the very front line of the social justice struggle to offer people a solid foundation to raise their kids, your pro-life stance is a sham.
In the last couple of months I have met terrific people who have considered abortions but did not undertake them, and then placed their children for adoption because they had no financial resources to parent their child. That is an incredibly difficult decision, fraught with shock and grief, and in a country where basic health care for all is the subject of a political debate, which in itself is obscene beyond words, a necessary one for many people who could be fantastic parents.
Anyone who does not have a problem with this reality, and yet clings to their views on pre-birth sentience as a tool to force limitations on women, is behaving in a fradulent, unethical way.
The experience of abortion among people I know, love, and respect, has not been a monolith. Some think of it as a liberating experience that saved their lives from the trappings of poverty, abuse, bad relationships, toward opportunities. Others experienced it as a horrible trauma. Both of these experiences, and any shade in between, are valid and worthy, and neither receives the kind of supportive validation we would hope for across the political spectrum.
It is absolutely possible and valid to make a philosophical case for and against sentience before birth, and both sides make good, valid arguments. I have no problem whatsoever with people who can make an abstract argument for sentience.
However, I do have a problem with the claim that sentience automatically implies governmental regulations of what is an incredibly painful and complicated personal decision. And I have an even bigger problem with the astounding discrepancy between some people's pro-life stance and their lack of support for the welfare state.
If you support limitations on abortion but are not at the very front line of the social justice struggle to offer people a solid foundation to raise their kids, your pro-life stance is a sham.
In the last couple of months I have met terrific people who have considered abortions but did not undertake them, and then placed their children for adoption because they had no financial resources to parent their child. That is an incredibly difficult decision, fraught with shock and grief, and in a country where basic health care for all is the subject of a political debate, which in itself is obscene beyond words, a necessary one for many people who could be fantastic parents.
Anyone who does not have a problem with this reality, and yet clings to their views on pre-birth sentience as a tool to force limitations on women, is behaving in a fradulent, unethical way.
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