What Should We Do About Abortion?
Many people can agree that abortion is a bad thing. Many people can agree that we should have fewer abortions in the world. But how can we reduce the number of abortions?
There are two main methods: social and legal.
How can we work socially to reduce abortions? I asked: why do women have abortions? The Guttmacher Institute offers some clues:
Fifty percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are younger than 25: Women aged 20-24 obtain 33% of all abortions, and teenagers obtain 17%.
Women who have never married obtain two-thirds of all abortions.
The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.
It's clear, then, that many women choose to have an abortion because they either feel unable to afford children or feel unable to give the children a good life. That offers us two main routes for improvement.
First, we need to do a better job of helping young, single women afford children. Children have a lot of start-up costs: a crib, crib sheets and pads, diapers, wet wipes, bottles, formula, warm winter clothing, cool summer clothing, etc. There are doctor visits, delivery costs, pre-natal vitamins, post-natal vitamins, vaccinations, and so on.
All of this can be tremendously overwhelming and scary for a young, single woman with no social support network. Planned Parenthood and the majority of the Democrat Party send the signal that there's nothing wrong with abortion. Is it any wonder then that many of these women choose abortion?
We need to make pregnancy and child-rearing less scary and less expensive. We middle-class Christians need to do a better job of helping poor women afford pregnancy and child-rearing. We need to do a better job of being their emotional support network: comforting them, accepting them, and supporting them. We need to provide enough structure that they don't feel like abortion is the only way out of an unexpected pregnancy. If we can't be bothered to help then I think we bear part of the blame for the abortions.
Secondly, we need to change the way our culture views life. It seems clear from the Guttmacher Institute's data that many women are afraid that they won't be able to give their child a good life. I understand their concern but I strongly disagree with it. A life is far better than no life at all. Don't believe me? Start asking everyone you meet if they wish that their parents had chosen to abort them. I doubt you'll find many takers.
We need to recreate a respect for life in our culture. Every single life is precious. Whether a Down's Syndrome baby, a baby born to a poor single mother, or a baby born to wealthy parents -- every single life is precious. Every single life is worthy of respect, honor, and love. Every life lost is a tragedy and every person that would take a life is a villain. If we inculcate those attitudes, I suspect that the abortion rate would drop precipitously.
That's the social angle. What about the legal angle? We could pass laws making all abortions illegal for any reason whatsoever. But that wouldn't end abortions. Women have given themselves abortions throughout all of human history. Women were buying illegal abortions for centuries before Roe v. Wade was decided.
Does that mean that we should give up on making abortion illegal? Is it true that we can't legislate morality and that it's misguided to work for political and legal change? Should we instead work for the social changes mentioned above?
No. It's not misguided and it's not useless to work for legal change. It's very silly to say that we should give up on outlawing abortion because outlawing abortions won't end all abortions. People are raped, murdered, and robbed every day of the year even though these crimes have been outlawed since the days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Jamestown. We call certain actions crimes not because doing so will eliminate them but because doing so allows us to punish those who engage in such evil behavior. When we criminalize behavior we want to demonstrate the high value that we place on the victim's rights.
Should we put abortionists in jail? Yes! Absolutely! If a doctor murders granny, at the request of her daughter should we put the doctor in jail? Yes! Will doing so bring granny back? No, but it demonstrates just how heinous the crime was. It also prevents that doctor from murdering any other "patients".
I also believe that we should punish women who seek out abortions just as we would punish a woman who hires a hitman to murder her husband. The Guttmacher Institute's data indicates that many women seek abortions for reasons of convenience: "three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents". Killing someone to stay in school or killing someone to keep a full time job is evil. So is seeking an abortion to stay in school or seeking an abortion to keep a full time job.
We should work very hard -- we should give very generously -- to provide alternatives to abortions. But we should also recognize that some women can afford children but don't want to go through the inconvenience of a pregnancy. We should recognize that evil for what it is and punish it accordingly. If Christians aren't willing to recognize and confront evil for what it is who will? And what good are we?
Obviously we can't change everything overnight. I'm perfectly willing to work for incremental improvements in the laws. We've already outlawed partial-birth abortions and protected infants born alive. Those are very good first steps. We should work to protect doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who don't want to perform abortions. No medical professional should ever be forced to take a life. After that, we can start working to put limits on third trimester abortions. If a baby can be delivered and live -- and most third trimesters babies could -- then it should be illegal to abort that baby. After we've achieved that goal, we can decide what comes next.
Arguing against murder, rape, or robbery laws is silly. Arguing against abortion laws is just as silly. To say otherwise is to say that you don't value the life of an infant as highly as the life of an adult, rapee, or personal property.