I do not want the government to make the decision whether I carry my pregnancy to term or not. Period.
3
Politically, a key problem with the abortion issue is that in 1973 the Supreme Court both abruptly took the legal concerns out of the hands of society and also refused to address the factual matter of when an individual life begins. Both these deficiencies must be rectified one way or another.
1
I don’t honestly understand the thinking of those opposed to abortion. And I only hear the most superficial and dogmatic comments on this topic and I’m not getting any sense of the why.
Is it a religious belief that life starts at conception? Does the fertilization of an ovum mean that a soul is then present?
How do you know when a human soul enters the fetus?
And what is this belief based on? Is it possible that this understanding is based on some human interpretation of scripture? There are hundreds of sects and denominations of Christianity alone...which one is right...if any?
Isn’t this nation based on a separation of church and state? If not then which religion is the right one to be the authority and dictate how everyone lives?
If we accept that the morals of “Christians” must prevail, then why are we upset about the Taliban or other strict religious approaches to governance?
Is it the case that the more children born the better? I had heard that some people who are against abortion believe this. That every newborn glorifies God and is a blessing. Is this correct? If so, What is this belief based on?
If having a baby is such an important responsibility that even a child of rape must be cherished, then why is there so little emphasis on sex education and contraception? Or likewise healthcare and education for those who are born?
I would be happy to understand better the thinking because it doesn’t make sense to me.
4
Chris, what a delight to encounter someone who is interested in understanding the thinking of others!
I am a father of 6, a cardiologist and a pro-life Democrat. When I took a course in Embryology I was struck by the fact that all stages that we assign to life are academic constructs. From the perspective of biology life is a continuum from conception to death and we are always dependent on others for our wellbeing. Every person is precious and all are entitled to the rights enshrined in our constitution. I have had the privilege of studying science and theology, a gift most people don't have. And yet many people intuitively understand and endorse a pro-life position because God has written his truths in all our hearts. God blesses you and everyone seeking His truths. We rise and fall together.
3
Pro-choice doesn't mean you believe in abortion for you personally, it means you believe everyone has the right to make the best decision for them. Jennie Wallace French, you cannot be a democrat and think you know what is best for every woman who gets pregnant.
6
She can be a Democrat if she wants to be.
3
@Anonymous: Republicans always support the Democrats most likely to lose general elections in primaries.
1
The comments here prove the point of the article. There are plenty of people who are pro-life at 8 months, but pro-choice at 8 weeks. Or who personally oppose abortion but are unwilling to legislate that belief. But, to hear the extremists, this must mean that we all hate both women and babies.
5
@greg Then you must have read the comments pointing out that the problem with banning abortions at 8 months is that those abortions are only done for serious medical reasons. Also the comments pointing out that the "extremist" Democratic position is supporting Roe vs. Wade, which has been settled law for decades.
2
Sorry - (this is a comment from a white male in his 6th decade of life) but it's not complicated. Women have the right to make their own decisions about what happens with their bodies. That is the bottom line. Their decisions will probably not be any more "right" in the context of their whole lives than any other decision that is made by any other person. But we make the best decision we can make at any given time. But the decision is the woman's.
5
Jeannie Wallace French is not occupying any middle ground on abortion. She’s founded a number of anti-abortion organisations, and has been strictly anti-abortion for decades. When will the Times stop presenting individuals firmly on one side (usually the conservative one) of an issue as holding the middle ground.
8
I also think that the forced births approach women as people controlled by their emotions. Not only are all problematic pregnancies a fault of their uncontrolled lusts, they are supposed to melt and go all gooey at greatly enlarged ultrasounds and images of baby bird nests. In reality, women think, and need to think, about their life goals, their incomes, their careers, their marital status, and everything about their lives before they make the irrevocable decision to have a child. If you have an abortion, you can usually have another child at a better time. So I'm insulted by the suggestion that every time we see an enlarged ultrasound of an entity an inch to a few inches long--and we do realize it's enlarged, just like other medical images--we all go AAAAHHH GOO-GOO-GOO and immediately give up the rest of our life plans. I make my decisions with my mind, although I have to say, I think ultrasounds are ugly.
4
Agree completely. Totally infantilizing and ridiculous to expect ultrasounds have that effect. They’re not warm, they’re not fuzzy, they are not pictures of baby bunnies. They are medical data. Makes me wonder if the men making these laws have ever seen one.
3
@Sarah And it's not like women seeking abortions have never seen a real baby. Many of them have had real babies. It's not like they've never seen an ultrasound either, even if not their own. Ultrasounds are all over the net. So yes, what exactly is this supposed to accomplish except make a woman pay for, and wait for, an unnecessary medical test?
3
I suggest that anyone conflicted on abortion see a first trimester ultrasound of a fetus and listen to his/hers beating heart. You may then understand the anti abortion crowd, and the current heartbeat laws. Also, rent the movies "Gosnell" or "Unplanned." They totally changed my position on it.
1
@Granny KK You're assuming I've never seen an ultrasound. Also, why on earth should I watch forced-birth movies?
7
Abortion is being presented by forced birthers as a huge ethical dilemma. But why is the automatic assumption that follows, is that of course all women are incapable of making their own ethical decisions? Women are intelligent human beings. They can decide to go to college, vote, drive, choose a profession, run for and hold a public office, choose a spouse, buy real estate, join the armed forces, and even willingly have children and make numerous decisions as to raising those children. So why, exactly, are women supposed to be incapable of making their own ethical--as well as medical--decisions?
5
The whole point is that Jeannie Wallace French got to make that choice, as I did, when I had a life threatening pregnancy, but I would not dare make that choice for other women, nor would I mandate that poor women have no real choice.
6
German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel postulated that tragedies dramatize a collision of equally justified ethical principles. His ideal example was "Antigone," in which the conflict is between loyalty to the family & loyalty to the state.
Abortion is an issue that fits Hegel's theory. Every woman with an unwanted pregnancy faces an ethical dilemma. The 2 principles in conflict are women's self-determination vs. the life of the unborn. But how to choose when one believes in both principles? In Hegel, there is no lesser of 2 evils; both choices are equally evil or equally good.
But that is a theory of a genre. In real life perhaps there is a 3rd option or a compromise. With abortion, perhaps ban the procedure except for when the woman's life is in danger, or she has been raped; but keep the "morning-after pill" & such legal, & make birth control free & easily available, along with sex education. Also, make the father 50% responsible in every way unless the couple work out an alternative arrangement. And provide financial support to those who can't afford the child.
The problem with the political parties is that neither is consistent on valuing life: Republicans support capital punishment; Democrats support virtually unrestricted abortion. Thus I can't vote based on life issues: abortion, capital punishment, active euthanasia, assisted suicide, war mongering. I vote Democrat because their policies are closer to Jesus' teaching about helping the poor, the sick, the elderly.
3
@JediProf Roe vs. Wade IS the compromise. That is what the Democratic candidates are sticking to. There is no ethical dilemma in aborting an embryo or fetus before viability, or if medically necessary, after viability. You're just trying to control women's bodies and lives--those of complete strangers with their own good reasons for abortion. My body, my life, my choice.
6
@Frances Grimble You're assuming that an embryo or a fetus is merely part of a pregnant woman's body. Many who support the right to life of the unborn believe that once there is a unique set of DNA, that is the beginning of a unique individual with a partial destiny. Why should anyone be permitted to control THEIR right to life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness?
And yet I also believe in women's self-determination & absolute equal treatment under the law.
But there is more than just the approach of giving women the same power as men to abandon or kill a life they have created:
Hold the man who is co-creator of that life equally responsible under the law to the woman: Responsible financially, in caring for the child, etc.
Every act of intercourse between a man & a woman who aren't sterile IS an act of procreation, whether they intend it or not, whether they conceive or not. If they don't want a child, they should use birth control. And birth control should free & easy to get.
But, as I said, because Democrats support a woman's right to terminate the life of the unborn (& other life-negating policies), & Republicans support capital punishment (& other life-negating policies) neither party is consistent on valuing human life.
If there were a 3rd party that was consistent on valuing life, I'd vote for them. Since there's not, I vote Democrat, as I said, because they have a better track record for helping the poor, the sick, & the elderly (& other ways to help people).
1
@JediProf
"You're assuming that an embryo or a fetus is merely part of a pregnant woman's body. "
No, she isn't.
An embryo or fetus is inside and attached to a pregnant woman't uterus. Arguing that a woman cannot break that attachment because "a fetus is not part of your body" is nonsense. There is no other circumstance where a woman(or a man) cannot remove a foreign entity that has embedded itself in one's body.
1
To all the forced-birthers: The US Constitution dictates separation of church and state. It does not require US citizens to follow any religion. It does not require them to follow your religion. It does not require any aspect of your religion, or any other religion, to be enshrined in law. What part of that do you not understand?
7
I understand that. But the ethics of abortion is far beyond religion. Many Americans are “pro-life” without an evangelical or even religious basis. The ethical question we struggle with is “when is the unborn child a human being?” Many believe at conception. Many believe sometime between conception and viability. But when? If we are honest with ourselves, the answer is no one knows. And if we don’t know, how can we set a time period for abortion without possibly killing hundreds of thousands of human beings?
4
Nobody knows and there is not a consensus about what’s right and wrong. A lot of people feel strongly and many feel backed up by religion - but that’s not enough to get a democratic secular law in place. This issue would not have legs if it were not for the religious aspects; or this discussion would look much more like Europe with people acting in good faith to reduce the need in the first place.
3
I wish we could rename the two positions in accord with what they are really supporting. There always has been, and always will be, abortion. Abortion is a natural process; as many as 50% of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion. What we are talking about is induced abortion, and whether that procedure should be legal or illegal. 'Pro-life' is really 'pro-illegal abortion,' and 'pro-choice' is really 'pro-legal abortion." It's not about life or choice, it's about whether induced abortion should be legal and performed by doctors, or illegal and performed by criminals.
8
According to Guttmacher Institute (July 2018):
"When used correctly, modern contraceptives are very effective at preventing pregnancy. Among U.S. women at risk of unintended pregnancy, the 68% who use contraceptives consistently and correctly throughout the course of any given year account for only 5% of all unintended pregnancies; in contrast, the 18% who use contraceptives inconsistently account for 41% of unintended pregnancies, and the 14% who do not use contraceptives at all or have a gap in use of at least one month account for 54% of unintended pregnancies."
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Access is important but correct usage is critical. The need to help women use the birth control they have is significant. This is something pro-lifers and pro-choicers should be able to agree on.
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https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states
2
No, life does not "start" at conception. Life doesn't start. Life is a cycle. Spontaneous generation was rejected in the 19th century. The anti-abortion movement takes advantage of the general public's ignorance of basic biology and development to push their pseudo-science propaganda. No, science does not provide absolute certainty to the anti-abortion crusade.
https://oyc.yale.edu/molecular-cellular-and-developmental-biology/mcdb-150/lecture-23
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/When_does_life_begin%3F
https://blogs.plos.org/dnascience/2013/10/03/when-does-a-human-life-begins-17-timepoints/comment-page-1/
Carl Sagan article: http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/bg/Bo/LogicalFallacies/rPbFd4zR/If-You-Could-Only-Save-One--Would-You-Save-a-Child-or-a-Thousand-Embryos
6
@Mike Holloway Don't forget the false claims that medicine has hugely and routinely extended viability outside the womb since Roe vs. Wade.
8
So how do you know when life starts? The ethical question is “when is the unborn child a human being?” Many believe at conception. Many believe sometime between conception and viability. But when? If we are honest with ourselves, the answer is no one knows. And if we don’t know, how can we set a time period for abortion without possibly killing hundreds of thousands of human beings?
4
@KJ The medical question is when is a fetus viable. That is well known. I'm an atheist. I don't believe that anyone, born or not, has a soul. I refuse to let your religious beliefs control my body and my life.
9
The ban on abortions will be followed by bans on birth control, extending the ways women's bodies will be controlled. Given that the world population is roughly 7.7 billion and rapidly increasing, I think the Earth is already beyond its ability to feed everyone. Birth control and abortion should be encouraged, not limited, to help reduce population growth. Wars over resources like food and water are already occurring in less developed countries. Even sadder, human population growth is destroying our environment, driving species to extinction, destroying the natural habitats needed by animals and birds.
11
Home of the brave and land of the free, unless you're a woman that wants an abortion. Women, in this evermore conflicted nation, being more and more overrun by Bible beating morality police, are considered nothing more than chattel, the property of the almighty male and the hypocrites holding a book of myths and hocus-pocus fairytales.
It's for the woman to decide. End of story. Leave it alone.
9
Fleeting lustful encounter shouldn't destroy consenual partners. Pro choice must include male parent opt out option including onerous state sanctioned child support. Offering/refusing monetary support a morality/optional free choice.
4
@Sean
Look on the bright side. If SCOTUS decides that Roe isn’t constitutional (meaning citizens have no right to privacy or bodily autonomy since that’s the foundation ) then the court can demand you give a needed organ to that result of a “fleeting lustful encounter” instead of a just few bucks. What a blessing!
5
@Sean Or you know, you could just abstain from adultery!
3
@Frances Grimble
Or you know. Keep baby or abort. Pro choice:,here here.
But men abandoning fatherhood society expected responsibility (morality)should not face state sanctions over Durkheim(Ian) mores/folkways. Community based ostracism, no problem.
2
I am Pro-Life & Pro-Choice. I don't like abortion but I don't think I should impose my views on prospective mothers. I was once strongly Pro-Life & against choice but I began to see that so-called Pro-Life people opposed measures that would help mothers & children after birth. This hypocrisy turned me away from the Pro-Life movement. My views were confirmed by discovery of the racist origins of the Pro-Life movement.
8
There's nothing worse and more obnoxious than a religious, bible beating zealot trying to force their beliefs on others. Until the day, arrives when all you hypocrites are absolutely letter perfect, just back off and mind your own business and leave the abortion decisions to women. Shut up about it already. Enough is enough.
9
I still cannot see the difference in the definition of an chickens egg and a human egg. I eat chickens eggs for breakfast and still cannot visualize it as a baby chick.
5
I say this as a former exclusively women's-rights supporter: the left has gone completely and totally off the deep end on abortion in the past year. What I read in these comments sections on a regular basis now is that:
- I am not entitled to an opinion because I can't give birth (absolute garbage)
- all males should have a vasectomy at the age of 2, only reversible with the consent of their female partner as an adult (beyond insane), and
- women should be free to have an abortion up until the moment of birth.
The reaction to my comment is going to be the following: "all of the above are correct!" Or "Nobody has ever said that!"
I have read the above over and over and over in these comments sections, and its absolutely and totally disgusting. I would consider it a major victory if we could get the wild and crazy left to at least admit that we are talking about human life.
Lastly, all of us reading this are extremely fortunate that our parents valued us more than the far left does. Because if they had their way, we'd all only be alive at the whim of someone else.
And I am a lifelong Democrat. I have never voted for a Republican in my life. I fully support universal sex ed, and extremely easy access to birth control for anyone who wants it. But when it doesn't work, we should take responsibility for our actions and not just discard life as though it doesn't matter.
And there's a 1% chance this even gets posted. The NYT doesn't like opinions like mine.
48
@Mike
From your comment, you do not understand the complexity of female reproductive health care and consequential decisions about abortions. You are reducing this to a matter of your personal belief system. That's fine, but you shouldn't project this into laws and government.
Only a tiny number of abortions occur in the last trimester - something like 1% - and they are normally due to serious medical issues. https://www.npr.org/2019/04/30/718546468/opponents-fight-efforts-to-protect-late-term-abortion-rights
Unless you have walked in the shoes of a woman facing terrible choices, then no, as a man, you should not legally limit the options of any woman or girl. No man understands the life cycle of a woman from her periods, menstrual issues, fertility decisions, rape/assault, and other reproductive health matters. Absolutely no man can ever understand these (unless he is a trained physician).
I am glad that you support sex ed., contraception, and the other matters, but this is not a matter of personal responsibility: it is a matter that is far, far more complex that being judgmental about others.
56
@Mike What "just doesn't work"? Roe vs. Wade has worked for decades and that is what Democrats are supporting. Also, my parents and many other peoples' parents had only two children. The parents used birth control. I am sure my dozen or so *potential* siblings, since they never existed, don't regret not having been born, any more than an aborted clump of cells cannot regret it. Also, it is by no means unreasonable to insist that men take some responsibility for birth control, and that they assist in financially supporting their children once born.
54
@Mike
You may believe that an embryo is a human life with rights that supersede those of the woman in whom it is contained, but many people disagree with you. Many of those people are women, who, unlike you, have the ability to become pregnant and give birth. Many of us have and many of us have chosen not too. We have a life experience that no man will ever have, and we do not like men telling us we have carry pregnancies and give birth against our will. You can have whatever opinion you want, but you can't force women to have babies because you think they should.
As for being her on a whim of our parents, we all are. Someone other than us decided to have a baby and here we are. I only gave birth to one child and have another child through adoption, but in over 40 years of fertility I could have had many more. I didn't because pregnancy was hard for me, and because my husband and I only wanted two children. Call that a whim is you like. I don't mourn the children I didn't have, although I assume they would have been glad to be here. I had no obligation to give as many eggs as I could a chance a fertilization and birth, and woman are under no obligation to carry a pregnancy to term against their will.
45
I'm seeing so many people saying the Democrats do not have a detailed position on abortion, or that they do not have a nuanced position. And that therefore, the whole issue must be renegotiated from scratch with the hard right. In fact the Democrats do have a detailed position that also has been law for decades. Roe vs. Wade.
5
Coat hanger abortions were quite rare by the time Roe was imposed on the masses by 7 men. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL, said they exaggerated the numbers.
2
@Michael S I had an abortion that legally skirted the rules. Because I already knew someone with the right medical connections who was actively willing to help me. Others might not have it so easy.
4
It used to be complicated in Canada too. But after legislation criminalizing doctors failed to pass in our Parliament, they finally gave up. No law, no how. And guess what? Abortions were monitored by doctors, who pretty well set 24 weeks as a normal limit, clinics opened, and are paid for through Medicare, and the rate of abortions continues to go down.
The only thing complicated is trying to legislate rules for women in need.
11
I often hold up Canada as an example of how society doesn’t fall apart when abortion isn’t regulated.
But sadly I do wonder for the US rather than design to criminalize doctors the hateful people in charge here go straight for the women - who they’re so intent on vilifying anyway.
3
It's not complicated. Just keep your religion off and out of women's bodies.
9
If we want any kind of social consensus, we must start with a common moral baseline. To start by saying "there must be something wrong with it [abortion]" is indeed part of that baseline. Dealing with "it" isn't completely about women's rights, as it isn't completely about the life and viability of the fetus. Saying that abortions should be "rare" is a communal value we should never shrink from.
That moral baseline must obviously also include who makes abortion decisions. I can say that I'm "pro-choice" and "anti-abortion" because I see thru the moral corruption of the pro-life movement, that, on the one hand, wants government out of most matters because of its corrupting influences but refuses to see those influences in matters of abortion. This liberal/moderate believes government can impose some late-term decision limits and yet be as restrained as Roe v Wade meant it to be.
"Safe, legal, and rare" seems the only basis for consensus, one that I wish my party--the Dems--would return to.
5
@Tom: The applicable consensus at the time the original states ratified the amended Constitution was, and remains, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Religion is a strictly private matter, and its practice cannot be coerced.
5
@Tom The Democrats do have a consensus: Roe vs. Wade.
4
@Frances Grimble You mean a consensus for Democrats. I mean one for all Americans.
Thank you for this much-needed report. For decades, like so many Americans, I have struggled with the morality and politics of abortion. The political parties, in their extremism, have chosen to present abortion as a binary choice, the least useful way to resolve our difficulty with abortion. The Supreme Court's struggles over the years to balance the compelling interests at issue. I witness the revilement the two parties' extremes heap on the people who question their absolutist opinions. Please continue to report this critical and complex issue and to reflect the sense of the American people.
2
My passion for this is simple, let a person, man or woman, decide on what happens to her/his own body. Those who believe otherwise, I would not attempt to change your mind as a fellow human being I would respect your belief no matter which way you are thinking.
All politicians and governments should stay out of this. Stay out of our lives and these kind of beliefs.
By all means be passionate about your own belief but do not force it upon others. I am in my 70s. Have 2 adult children who themselves have male and female children, the subject never comes up and unlikely it ever will.
5
I'm not sure how people don't see this issue as whether or not a woman should be allowed to choose her faith, her belief system, basically, her religion. Where "life begins" is not set in stone. So, when you don't allow a woman to choose whether or not to have an abortion, you're actually saying "I don't care what you believe in... I don't care that you think that "life" does not begin at conception..." "I'm going to force you to live your life according to my belief system." If a woman believes that life begins at conception, she should have the right to choose to not have an abortion, no matter what her age or ability to raise that child. The opposite of "pro-life" (anti-abortion) is not Pro-Choice. The opposite of "pro-life" would be "pro-abortion." It would be forced abortions for women who the state felt were not capable of raising children. Pro-Choice is the middle ground. Pro-Choice acknowledges that women should have the right to choose what they believe in.
6
As a provider of genetic terminations (often in the 2nd trimester) I have lost count of the number of men & women who have said, “I never thought I’d be in this position.”
It’s amazing how a change of perspective will alter a person’s beliefs. An important poll would be to ask women who have had genetic terminations if their beliefs have been modified by their experiences. Abortion always needs to be safe, legal, and available.
8
This is kind of baffling.
What exactly is it these 'pro-choice pro-life'-type people want? What is the story of the woman who gave birth to a baby w/ spina bifida who died supposed to be telling us that we haven't considered before? She was free to give birth, she decided to & did.
The position on abortion which is currently usually known as 'pro-life' is that women should *not* have the freedom to decide whether to abort or not. That in most cases other than serious danger to life or health, or sometimes rape or incest, a pregnant woman should be legally forced to carry the fetus to term.
The position on abortion which is currently known as 'pro-choice' is that 1) a woman should be allowed to abort her fetus under certain conditions -- but also & equally:
2) if a pregnant woman wants to give birth, she should be freely allowed to -- under any conditions whatever, as long as it's her personal choice.
That's why they call it 'pro-choice.' The stories in this article simply don't represent any clear dilemma.
Pro-choicers agree that you should be legally allowed to have your baby if you want to, regardless.
But everyone knows heart-wrenching stories of hopeful mothers who have abortions out of what they see as tragic necessity. And most people who describe themselves as 'pro-life' do not allow equal consideration to them -- to those who are desperate *not* to give birth.
7
As long as pro-choice people conflate abortion with women’s “empowerment” and opposition to abortion as significantly misogynistic, and ignore the actual moral issues involved with the termination of a human life, this argument will remain meaningless.
8
I think this article is disingenuous in concept, reporting, and editing/headlining (especially in the print edition). Jeannie Wallace French can be against abortion. She can choose never to have an abortion under any circumstances. She can write articles and books, give interviews and speeches arguing her personal, moral, and ethical objections to abortion, and run, even win election, as a Democrat. But if she wants to bring to bear the awesome power of government (federal, state or local) to restrict any other woman's right to reproductive choice, then, no, she shouldn't expect this Democrat's vote. So please spare us these false narratives of the actual issue at hand, which is not abortion but abortion rights.
7
Proof positive our government should retract itself to be in strict compliance with the 10th Amendment!
If you are truly anti-abortion, work for universal free birth control and sane sex education, for reasonable adoption standards and economic equality.
Drop these hideous statutes about jailing someone who had a miscarriage. I had two. They're devastating. Giving visitation rights to rapists. These proposals are pathological. Leave people alone when they are going through these years.
I would never feel comfortable making this choice for any other person—one person delivers a near-stillborn twin and donates organs—another person might not be emotionally or mentally strong enough to do so. Completely up to each individual and their health care provider.
Universal, free, worldwide birth control.
8
@Naples Regarding birth control, What about this article from "The Hill" posted on Twitter via the "post-partisan" group Brand New Congress? NYT: I trust Senator Cruz about as far as I can throw him, but THIS is something worth reporting/analyzing. "Cruz Pitches Ocasio-Cortez on Bill to Make Birth Control Available Over the Counter" https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/448182-cruz-pitches-ocasio-cortez-on-bill-to-make-birth-control-available-over-the
1
There is nothing at all complicated about abortion. It is a woman's human and civil right to rule her own body. PERIOD. To allow any debate or abrogation of this "inalienable" right is to break one of the fundamental cornerstones of democracy, i.e.the separation of church and state. What's next, a man's right to a vasectomy?
As a male who reveres and respects women I would die to protect and preserve their rights. Beware The Handmaids Tale!
5
What I don't understand--given the huge variety of views and experiences concerning abortion, including differing opinions of what constitutes "morality"--is why those who believe legal abortion should be banned a. think that those who don't want to be pregnant wouldn't find another way to get the job done if they couldn't get a legal US abortion and b. if no one is telling you that YOU have to have an abortion, why should you care if someone you've never seen and will never meet has one? I mean, many who are opposed to abortion are not opposed to guns that kill school children, so preventing "murder" is really not these hypocrites' primary concerns. I agree with Mayor Pete: Trust women to grapple with their own decision and their own morality.
6
It’s interesting that the majority of commenters who begin with “Its not complicated” are pro-abortion.
8
@Cold Eye
The pro-choice position is based on extreme denial.
4
Ms. French, who opposes abortion, comments that she is sad because she does not want to be a Republican. Well, there is a simple alternative: Do not become a Republican.
If abortion, that affects a minority of people in any country, is the only thing driving her vote, perhaps we should consider bringing back some kind of a civic test before voting is allowed for certain people. Democracy will fail if an issue of no relevance to most people begins to dominate national politics, allowing criminals to stay in office and pedophiles to run for office.
These people often call themselves Christians. That they are not. Many of them belong to heretical sects unique to America. True Christians would be more concerned about babies that are born in poverty that their votes maintain. They would not support a financially and morally corrupt private health insurance system that leaves many to die of preventable illnesses.
When will the day come when American political debate ceases to be controlled by idiots and people start talking about things that are actually important?
3
@The Hawk
It's Party above Reason.
3
To me it simply comes down to whether medical treatments are to be considered ‘public business’ or ‘private affairs’. The moral consequences, if any, are possible repercussions to the patient and not to the public.
3
@Lewis Sternberg abortion is not a medical treatment because pregnancy is not an illness or aberrancy.
2
I don't like abortion, and (only if asked) would try to help a woman avoid having one. But I wouldn't presume to tell her that she shouldn't have one. Still less would I use the power of the State to prevent her from having one.
If you don't like abortions, advocate for measures that will reduce the odds that a woman will face the choice. They're obvious, and have been listed by other posters. No need to repeat them.
4
Why are abortion rates declining? According to Guttmacher:
"While the study did not directly investigate reasons behind the declining abortion rate, the authors suggest potential factors, both positive and negative, that are likely contributing to this trend."
One factor that is never mentioned in the analysis of declining abortion rates is the fact that most young women now know all about the life of a fetus at several weeks, thanks to ultrasound technology, and the details of the abortion process itself, thanks to the pro-life movement. It is reasonable to believe that this knowledge might also have an impact on young women's behavior.
*************
https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2017/us-abortion-rate-continues-decline-hits-historic-low
4
@AACNY Never thought I'd see the "older women don't understand tech" accusation here. Um. We do.
7
@AACNY
"One factor that is never mentioned...." The reason it's never mentioned is because it's nonsensical.
Here, try engaging with some facts, and logic:
"Researchers who focus on studying America’s abortion rate tend to think the biggest driver of the decline is increased access to better contraception. Simply put, fewer women are getting pregnant when they don’t want to. Between 2008 and 2011 — just three short years — one study finds that the proportion of pregnancies that were unintended fell from 51 to 45 percent.
A lot of that has to do with more women using better contraceptives. In 2012, the Affordable Care Act began mandating that insurers cover a wide array of birth control with no co-payments or cost-sharing for patients. This meant that IUDs and implants — the most effective, reversible contraceptives — became a lot more affordable for American women."
6
@AACNY
Accessible, affordable contraception equals
Fewer pregnancies equals
Fewer abortions
8
I agree woman should be able to do with their bodies what they wish. The problem with that stance in regard to abortion is that two bodies are involved. How does bodily autonomy begin? Is it simply a human right? Or is it a civil right granted by the state? What about the autonomy of the body of the child?
5
@Cold Eye
Bodily autonomy begins with being autonomous. A pre-viability fetus is not capable of existing independently.
7
@Cold Eye: Humans don't learn anything at all about our capabilities and autonomy until after we are born.
3
But the fetus is autonomous. It is dependent on the mother for at least 24 weeks but that dependency is not the same thing as being part of the woman. The fetus has its own individual life with all of the genetic material and information. Beginning with conception. The fetus has a different and separate body from the mother. Once born, the infant will continue to be dependent on the mother for survival for a matter of years. Would this continuing absolute dependency justify the termination of life after birth?
1
The starting point in judging the constitutionality of laws is the government's authority to enact them. There is no record of any delegation of the natural power of people to manage their own bodies as they see fit to any US government. Then there are specific prohibitions, such as the directive to Congress not to make a law for everyone out of any faith-based belief.
2
@Steve Bolger
Now do "taking a life".
1
@AACNY: Amoebas have life. Murder is killing a soul. In humans, soul-development begins at birth.
5
@Steve Bolger
Try again.
1
If men could get pregnant, there would be a clinic on every corner in America. Outlawing abortion will only put poor women's lives at risk (as history has shown, rich women will always have safe, legal abortions). I can wager that these (mostly) male lawmakers whose goal it is to outlaw abortion would not hesitate to fly their mistresses out of state or country to have one performed.
9
This article encapsulates everything I hate about modern journalism. A "balance" and "moderate view" is asserted between two sides in a culture war, but no data or particulars are given outside of "it's complicated" (example?) and "Every decision...[isn't] an ethically good decision." (example?). All we're given is an assertion that the middle ground is being disrespected. A newspaper needs to explicitly present facts, not imply that there are facts but they're too complicated to present here. Are we talking about poll numbers? How about debate over the Hyde amendment? What we're left with is a false equivalency and an implication that the pro-choice side is being unreasonable.
The current crisis has been brought by the 12% of the population that believes abortion is murder in all cases and is being fought by people trying to maintain the status quo. The status quo IS abortion with restrictions. We ARE NOT fighting for abortion without restrictions. We ARE NOT fighting to write our own conclusions about development into law. You've heard it's called "choice"?
When the pro-choice movement starts proposing bills mandating abortion against a woman's will - THEN you can start writing articles about how the pro-choice movement has become extreme.
5
Religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism all elevate a human to unreasonable heights of importance. Plus they cling to Medieval notions of a woman's role. The sooner this hangover from the past goes away the better. It's a woman's body. She decides. Everyone else is an outlier to the decision.
7
Is it possible that an atheist can be pro-life?
1
@Cold Eye
Yes! Think of the late Nat Hentoff.
2
Hard-left voters on any divisive issue – be it abortion, “Medicare for all”, or others – need to ask themselves a simple question: will your adherence to ‘purity’ on the issue(s) help re-elect Donald Trump? Put another way: will you cut off all our noses to spite our faces?
3
@Michael N. Alexander: Religion has already stepped over the Constitutional line. It needs to be pushed back.
6
@Michael N. Alexander Put it another way: Are there really voters so single issue that abortion alone will turn them away from the Democratic party? If so, they were not Democrats anyway.
6
I think the answer is simple. Just like that article in the Times earlier this week about cultural appropriation in fashion design in Caroline Herrera's resort collection which I thought went out with floppy discs that we should all just run around naked, we should just stop having sex. Problem solved! It is to the point in this country that civil discussions are not possible. And also think everyone should re-read or read John Irving's "The Cider House Rules" for all the gory details of those back-alley abortions. Money speaks and those who have it don't give a flying you-know-what about this issue and will most likely vote Republican in 2020.
2
Doctors are licensed to heal humans, not to triage who should live and who should die and most certainly not to perform euthanasia/genocide of the elderly or the unborn.
The issue here is euthanasia, although it is named "slow medicine". Doctor Jack Kevorkian called it "assisted suicide." In the State of Oregon, under the "Death with Dignity Act", doctors can murder humans. Murder by definition is 'kill' and is synonymous with slay, murder, assassinate, and execute. During WWII Adolph Hitler sanctioned the "T- 4 Nazi Euthanasia Program".
Abortions among little 12 year old girls, teenage girls, and young girls in their 20's and 30's is alarming. No, it is not for medical reasons or rape. It is because these young girls went out and boogied on a weekend, got pregnant and then wanted to have the bothersome fetus removed so they can go out and boogie some more. Even if these little girls had been taking birth control pills, they still could have contracted syphilis, AIDS, as well as other sexual communicable diseases. The young males are just as irresponsible.
Most Americans believe that they can do whatever they wish because the constitution gives them permission....no matter if what they do is moral or immoral, decent or indecent, or right or wrong. With this kind of total freedom the future will have no need of prisons, law enforcement agencies, nor law books. Why? Because if the law allows you to do what you want, then there is no wrong you can do.
4
@manoflamancha: Doctors may provide the drugs to patients who typically administer the drugs to themselves. Our bodies eventually fail our souls.
3
@manoflamancha Doctors are licensed to help the patient. The *woman* is the patient.
3
I hope the states that ban abortion are already doing serious financial planning. They will need to build orphanages for these unwanted babies who are dropped into garbage cans, left in public bathrooms or on church steps. They must be ready to spend massive amounts of money to care for those babies who will never be normal, physically or mentally. So far, I don't see anti-abortion people lining up to adopt the kids who are currently in foster care. If you want to save infant lives, stop cheering when we send troops foreign countries.
3
This argument, that those who oppose abortion should justify their position by offering to pay for the expenses of raising the child is specious. It implies that pro-life people are in some way hypocritical. It’s the same as saying capital punishment should be allowed because it’s cheaper than maintaining the criminal’s life. Or if I save someone from a suicide attempt, I’m financially responsible for them for life.You are placing a monetary value on human life. Would you argue that the decision to abort be made on the basis of income? That’s close to saying that if you don’t have the material resources to raise a child, you MUST abort. Like in China.
2
@Cold Eye
It is an argument that could have been made about "slaves". Ridiculous.
1
@Cold Eye Placing a monetary value on a human life is exactly what insurance companies do. So do courts when they decide civil cases.
2
When it comes to whether to choose to have an abortion or not, Ms. French’s decision was just that...hers. No law, religion, nor pressure should be involved except the ones that SHE chooses to consider. I am so weary of the abortion-queasy stance she and others take for granted for themselves but do not extend equally to others. Every woman has an equal right to the privacy to decide what is best for herself.
6
Yes. For herself. Not for the human being she created temporarily living inside her.
3
@Cold Eye She didn't create it. Besides, at least 1/3rd of all fertilised eggs fail to implant. (Implantation takes about a week.) Who's responsible for the destruction of those human beings?
But you do allude to a relevant point: That human being isn't temporarily "living inside her". She's nourishing it, at some risk to herself. Pregnancy is somewhere between two and three times as risky as medical termination.
4
@Cold Eye - In Roe v. Wade, the state of Texas argued that "the fetus is a 'person' within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." To which Justice Harry Blackmun responded, "If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment." However, Justice Blackmun then came to the conclusion "that the word 'person,' as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn."
4
Until women have complete agency over what happens in and to our bodies, we will be second class citizens. It's that simple. Every woman faces different circumstances and challenges. We need to trust women to make the best choices for themselves and their families instead of perpetuating laws that force them to bear children against their will.
That said, I hope that we can keep our eyes on the prize and do everything possible to defeat Trump. That will mean Democratic candidates will need to finesse the question of their stance on abortion. Let's not make perfection the enemy of the possible.
I hope organized religions that have encouraged the Republican party to use abortion to distort our political discourse will realize that they are very effectively making more and more people shun religion. The number of people who answer "none" when asked about religious affiliation is steadily growing. That bodes well for a return of rational political discourse in our country.
2
So being legally prohibited from selling a kidney makes you a second class citizen? How? If the law applies equally to all, how does it effect second class status?
2
@Cold Eye, last time I checked, laws restricting abortion only affect women, not men. If men became pregnant and had to deal with everything that entails, abortion would long ago have been made a sacrament.
5
“There are still some opponents of abortion barely hanging on as Democrats. “I’m really sad because I don’t want to be a Republican,” said Jeannie Wallace French of Pittsburgh, who has worked with groups like Feminists for Life, which oppose abortion but are less partisan than many mainstream groups. She was pregnant with twins when she said the doctors discovered one had a form of spina bifida and advised her to abort. She declined and the baby, a girl, died shortly after birth. But doctors were able to use her heart valves to save two other infants”
Sorry for the long quote but this perfectly illustrates the case for the autonomy Ms. French had to make a choice. Ms. French apparently did not view the child with spina bifida as a means to an end of saving two other infants. She was apparently well advised of the alternatives and possible consequences of those outcomes. In the final analysis, Ms.French was the person who made the decision, and dealt with the results. This is the entire point of women’s rights and autonomy to make these hard choices.
Finally, the idea of trusting women is not an empty slogan—it is the crux of the move to get the “unrestricted” nature of these kinds of situations available to the people who are most affected by them. I thank Ms. French for sharing her story, but I remind everyone else that it was HER story.
The politics of abortion are complicated, as Americans want to second-guess the morality of those making the decisions, and in some cases want to punish them. When Democrats are asked by bad-faith conservatives if they want no restrictions, the consistency of letting doctors and women decide is disturbing to many. This is because Americans are told that women can't decide or don't have the money or it's inconvenient all the way up past the 6th month of pregnancy. Americans seem to worry that these women will find doctors to abort their fetus after six months, when it could survive outside the womb.
We must stay out of the religious realm and in the realm of the rational. There are women whose lives are in danger even past the 6th month from a developing condition. They shouldn't have to go to a judge for permission. They shouldn't have to worry about prosecution.
We should not be second guessing abortion decisions and trying to punish anyone. It is exactly the complexity which requires that each person and doctor decide for themselves.
In fact, we could easily regulate only the method of abortion. We could say only the pills are allowable, unless it's a serious health issue. I think this is a point where most Americans would agree.
Must it be said that being pro-choice is not the same as being pro-abortion? No one is “pro-abortion.” No one thinks it’d be great to have an abortion.
4
The government has no business interfering with or regulating anyone's individual free choices of what they do to their OWN bodies. That goes for all competent adult men and women and their choices about abortion, child birth, sterilization, use of birth control, surgery, diet, exercise, sexual relations, drug or alcohol use, suicide, and physically risky activities like scuba diving, bungee jumping, cage boxing etc. Nothing in our Constitution empowers the government to regulate my body and what I want to do with or to it. Further, the First Amendment protects me from an overreaching government that requires me to adopt and agree with the religious principles of others (i.e. A fertilized ovum is a human being with a "right to life.")
2
The scientific fact is that human life begins at conception. So the fetus is a “clump of cells” in the same way that all humans, at all stages of development are “clumps of cells”. Perhaps you should do a little more research.
3
@Cold Eye Sorry, no, that is not the scientific fact. Science has never proven the existence of a soul in anyone.
5
@Cold Eye It may be your religious belief that a human being is created at conception. But science does not care about your religious beliefs, it cares only about proven fact. It is a scientific fact that a fertilized ovum may result in a POTENTIAL human life, if certain further events occur or do not occur.
2
s a Man I will Never know what a Woman goes through before and after an Abortion. I'm sure it is not something they take lightly. Funny how many legislators who are against abortion will be quick to cut programs that aid Woman and Children.
2
Heart beat law? Abortion until birth? The only thing that is 'complicated' are the multiple ways that our politicians and the extreme right and left minority try to narrate their extreme views in an effort to divide the majority.
Most agree that abortion should be legal. And most agree that there should be some limits. Why is it the politicians and law makers pander to the extremes?
4
This article enrages me. It equates the position of those of us who support Roe with the constant picking apart at abortion for the last twenty years--until we are faced with this existential threat for women. This issue is control over women's bodies, their livelihood and their families. On this Father's Day, we have to acknowledge the millions of women who are both mother and father--often with little to no financial support.
Most pro-choice supporters basically want to have abortion available in first trimester without the constant intrusion of largely male GOP officials. If we have become more radicalized, its in response to this unrelenting intrusion into reproduction decisions--and the associated unwillingness to provide any support for the born child through affordable child care, paid family leave, and affordable health care for the mother. If it's a moral issue, the morality is about more than just forcing a woman to give birth.
3
Pro-life people do not believe that God gave people free will and that people do not have freedom of conscience. They have a clear channel to God through their religion’s teachings and that is the only truths about life that they need.
Our secular government holds to freedom of conscience, which is that foundation of freedom of religion, as well as the separation of church and state. This is what pro-life people consider the real justification for legal abortion and they want to free the country from this misguided rejection of God.
There is no way to convince these people that people have any rights which contradict with their beliefs. Spiritually they are pretty naive but in so far as loyalty to their religious communities is concerned, they are stalwarts.
1
It seems people are confusing two separate issues: the legal right to an abortion, and the morality of an abortion. Without the right, women and their doctors would be overruled by government to do something that they don't want to do, that in fact could leave the woman to die. What good would this do? The issue isn't complicated: give women and their doctors the choice.
3
Forever thankful long ago high school girlfriend choosing abortion. Growing up in dreary fading blue collar “All the Right Moves” backwater I had no intention of staying but fleeing. Impending fatherhood including shot gun marriage, dead end blue collar job, maybe a few stigmatized community “college” courses, would have destroyed my future prospects. Instead soon after abortion we parted. I ended up graduating from an elite University. Marrying a beautiful upper middle class lady I met at college mixer. No longer living in a desolate ‘’’’hole I’m forever grateful my ex terminating a mutually unwanted pregnancy.
4
Well, at least one of you made it out. Was your ex as successful as you, with your elite school and acceptable wife?
Having said that, good for your ex and her decision. Sounds like she saw the writing on the wall.
Glad she didn't stand in the way of your upward mobility and road to success.
1
Democrats who oppose abortion are not Democrats. Sorry. Democrats believe in women as intelligent beings who can make their own choices about their own bodies. A Democrat who opposes abortion needs to rethink their party affiliation.
8
By that logic, you’d lose many allies on other Democrat-approved policies. The reality is that Democrats who oppose abortion or favor limits on abortion make compromises on their positions on this issue to support candidates who they agree with on a range of other issues, and who likely toe the line on Democratic policies across the board anyway. Why would you want to push such voters out of the party?
2
@Darlene Moak
I think people are becoming confused about the difference between "opposing abortion" and imposing that opposition on everyone else under penalty of law. It is, of course, more than possible to have a Democrat that personally opposes abortion but realizes that they can't impose this belief on others with the power of the state. The confusion is being weaponized.
2
@Darlene Moak
Keep it up. This rigid and offensive mentality is creating many more "independents."
4
The Democratic view IS gradated (whatever that means). The Democratic view is pro-choice. That means women have control of their bodies. In case the Times doesn’t understand, that’s what it means, for EVERY woman.
7
No one is forcing pro-life people to have abortions! If they don't agree with abortions, by all means, they shouldn't have them. Let the rest of the population decide when they are prepared to be parents. Women spend approximately 35 years PREVENTING pregnancies except for the few times in life they are wanting a child. Shouldn't we be able to choose when the time is appropriate? For ourselves and for our children. The added benefit is that society as a whole is better off when women are ready to be parents. We already DO have restrictions on abortion--Planned Parenthood does not perform abortions after viability, and neither do other abortion providers. The RARE exception of late-term abortion is due to the health problems of the mother or the fetus, and they are only performed by doctors who are experts in late-term problems and are certainly not making thoughtless decisions. The vast majority of abortions (over 99%) occur before viability of the fetus, and they should be no one's business but the person whose body produced the egg in the first place.
9
It really is not that complicated. Medical science has improved vastly since the 70s - allowing premature births to be viable that were not then. Regardless, the medical community ought to be able to come to consensus on a timeframe when an unborn is viable. I believe it's in the 18-20 week period, but I'm not a doctor.
Anytime before the unborn is viable, I believe a woman ought to be able to obtain an abortion - and always if the pregnancy is the result of incest, rape, or there is a diagnosed medical condition of harm to the woman.
After the viability period, abortion should not be tolerated, as there are ample adoption services that could assist an unwanted newborn. As an aside, I was adopted at birth.
1
Commenters like A Lollier expose the truth behind the stance of so many forced pregnancy people: the woman is guilty; the woman is out of control; the woman is incapable of controlling her own voracious sexual urges; the woman was irresponsible because she obviously had unprotected sex, etc. Absent from this assumption-laden position is any thought to male responsibility, failure of birth control (shock! It really does happen), the intricacies of romantic relationships, the despair of many poor, unvalued women desperate for anything even resembling love, the fact that many male partners, husbands included, do want a pregnancy (for reasons as varied and complicated as women), and that most abortions are not simply “birth control”, undertaken cavalierly.
One other issue absent from their consideration is the police state required to enforce outlawed abortion. The implications for women’s lives are well known and beyond chilling to think about- see The Handmaids Tale. Meanwhile, men could continue their mostly uninterrupted trajectories toward their dreams of career and other goals secure in the knowledge that the “guilty” women would pay the price for their irresponsible actions and do the child tending. Put your body on the line because you dared to think that you, like other free, full-fledged members of a free society, i.e. men, were able to engage in an (as of yet) legal activity known as sex.
Who’s the cavalier one?
7
Too many of these well thought out, well written comments - I could recommend 100 of them - give too much respect to Peters and the people he mentions in his antiabortion hit piece. The abortion debate does not feature “nuance” because there is no nuance. A woman has an absolute right to choose what to do with her own body. Period. Black and white. There are many questions, some of which may be classified “moral” and “ethical,” for the woman who makes the choice, but none for anyone else. We don’t worry about her decision making ability, her morals or ethics, or whether she is making a mistake. We don’t do these things - things that Peters says are sadly lacking in today’s “polarized climate” - because doing them always and inevitably makes free choice not free.
6
@rosenbar
So the article is an antiabortion hit piece? Peters has covered both Democrats and Republicans who disagree with their own parties on abortion.
Tell us, rosenbar, what would the article be like if it weren't a hit piece?
The pro-choice movement seriously needs a better message. Its positions are last century relics. Coat hangers in the fact of abortifacients. Denial of "life" in the face of modern ultrasound technology.
It's simply no longer possible to yell, "It's private!" and slam the door. Modern young women know all about abortion -- the act itself, not the hypothetical one that gets discussed in obfuscatory terms.
I credit the pro-life movement with reducing the abortion rate. They have allowed real choice by exposing young women to the truth about abortion. It's a grizzly process and one they should have full awareness of when making sexual decisions.
4
@AACNY And you would be incorrect. Abortion rates have fallen for years due to better access to birth control as well as improved birth control methods. This fact is written all over the place in medical journals and papers.
5
It's grizzly to take a combination of pills in order to expel a clump of cells? Really? You do know the vast majority of abortions take place during the first trimester?
5
@Jennifer
And yet fewer millennials are having sex. Perchance they understand all the implications?
3
Whenever this issue is raised I feel my hair on fire. What right does our government have to tell women how to handle their lives.? Whether it’s state or federal stop meddling. No one is forced to have an abortion they don’t want. The same holy than thou people who are pro life want to limit contraception aids and offer little or no support services for these unwanted children that are born. Why not pass a law that demands sterilization for the fathers? That should give these people another issue to fight.
6
@Judith K Weinhaus
We see a lot of "rage" expressed here towards anyone who even acknowledges that there are two thoughtful sides to this issue. Rage closes the mind and slams doors on reasonable dialogue.
4
@AACNY
Only two thoughtful sides? How so?
It's not complicated. It's the opposite of complicated. Life begins, legally, at birth. It always has. Throughout our history, in every society organized since the Babylonians that recorded its history, one's birth is the first temporal recognition of the individual's existence. As long as you live, you will never be asked for your DOC(date of conception). You don't have a Conception Certificate filed away, do you? It is your place of birth not the place where you were conceived that determines your nationality. Otherwise 90% of us would be citizens of Bernuda, the Bahamas and Sandals Resorts, Inc.
Until the baby draws breath outside of the body of its mother, there are, or should be, no civil rights granted to it. When we do we grant legal status to a collection of cells and ignore the rights of its host, an adult citizen of the United States. A ridiculous and illogical concept, to say the least.
5
No Modern science has established that human life begins at conception.
2
It is simple. Once life is conceived it should be protected. A fetus is not just a simple part of a human body. It has it's own unique DNA. Once conceived there is a continuous development from conception to birth to adult life to death. There is no natural point after conception at which science can say - oh now it is alive.
We (government) do tell people what they can do with their bodies. We say you may not take a whole variety of drugs to effect your body both because of the deleterious effect on yourself and the collateral damage to society. We say in many states that you may not sell your body for sex, again for deleterious effect on yourself and the collateral damage to society. We are not allowed to sell parts of our body for medical purposes.
Life in whatever state of development has a right to life. As Mother Teresa has said "I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself."
Please raise your hand if you wish your mother has aborted you.
4
@RJ: She resolved to take on the responsibilities of parenthood because she had that option. Had she taken it, I would not have known the difference.
3
@RJ: You could not have written your own posting without the infusion of culture you experienced after birth. Your "soul" is the software that operates your body. You were not born with it culturally or linguistically, you gained it by living.
2
Are you saying that it’s the culture that bestows life?
0846 hrs 9, 11, 2001, Till that time our world was a quite better place to live. all the nations, countries, businesses and economies were booming.The transport companies were profiting from everywhere. Then finally the moment was their which has looted the whole world peace, safety and prosperity, The moment that killed over 3000 and leaving over 6000 injured. The WTC was attacked by planes and downed to ground within few hours.
Read the complete article here;
US/Iran Tension: One major attack in gulf or US can ignite war in middle east
@The Newseum Are you sure you're replying to the article to which you thought you were replying?
3
You can oppose abortion all you want - feel free not to have one - but you have no right to impose your beliefs on everyone else.
10
It's not complicated. Leave women alone. No one regulates mens' bodies or functions. Don't want an abortion? Don't have one. I'm sick of this double-standard. Leave women alone.
7
A Ms. Kissling tells us, “I think that if you do not express any moral doubt about any aspect of abortion nobody trusts you...” If a woman did not express moral doubt about any aspect *her own* abortion, then Kissling may be right. Otherwise, you would be an idle nuisance butting in, unless invited by a friend in need of counsel.
3
Pro-lifer's heads are stuck in a punitive, 'make it illegal!" loop, even when they know rationally that prohibition worked no better with abortion than drugs. My own grandmother ran an underground railroad for women seeking abortions, back in the 1930's. And I've seen with my own eyes police photos of a woman lying bloody and dead after an illegal 1950s abortion gone wrong. There is a simple, safe way to cut the Gordian knot of abortion. Most first term abortions are for economic reasons, sought by low-income women and families for whom a (extra) child would be an impossible burden. Offer these women birth subsidies, two years paid parental leave, free health care, and raise the minimum wage to twenty five dollars an hour. Mandate free child care at all jobs and colleges. Subsidize adoptions and make college debt-free. Subsidize affordable housing for young families. And put a hundred million in research funds into new and better forms of birth control. Voila!! Abortion rate plummets, and no fourteen year old rape victim dies in a back alley. All while keeping abortion legal, safe, free, and easily accessible. Will there still be abortions? Yes, but far, far fewer than if we make them illegal. Would all this cost a lot? Yes, but that's why we should tax billionaires and corporations much more. And if you think this is all 'giving too much free stuff' to lazy poor women, then I guess you're not all that pro-life, are you?
4
@Cyntha: They are obsessed with the notion that these laws somehow affect their own judgment after death at the imagery "Pearly Gates" where God is said to condemn the unfaithful to eternal combustion.
3
I had an abortion. I had two failed pregnancies. I had two children, now grown. Nobody but myself makes any decisions that concern me or my body. Nobody ever.
14
We can only find solutions that are acceptable to all if we all accept the facts. As long as there are still crack babies born under bridges and as long as there are still women who are pregnant because of rape, anyone who thinks the state should ban all abortions cannot be taken seriously unless they also explain how it is pro-life to have a crack baby born under a bridge and how we can be the land of the free if we force raped women to deliver the child of their rapist.
If all you bring to the table is dogmas and slogans, you lose your seat at the table.
5
@Marc
And as long as millions of women use abortion as "birth control", you shall have an uphill battle with those arguments.
3
State your sources on the millions of women who use abortion as birth control "fact".
4
@Martha Grattan
Read the Guttmacher Institute's research on "unplanned pregnancies", which account for a significant number of abortions.
1
As long as women become pregnant accidentally or against their will, there will be abortions. Let's please stop debating this.
9
Many women get pregnant “accidentally on purpose”. Single parenthood has been accepted as a social good. Good for everybody except the children who can’t speak for themselves. But why should that bother anyone?
1
This is a good fathers day for those living in Alabama, Georgia and the other states who are making obsessive abortion laws. They impregnant a woman than they can walk away with no consequences, especially if it's rape or incest.
5
What Republicans want to regulate:
Guns-no
Wall Street banks-no
Air pollution-no
Drinking water-no
Women's uterus-YES
9
It's time to put the onus on preventing abortion where it belongs: with men. Men cause 100% of all pregnancies. With a simple office visit that is covered by health insurance (yes, gentlemen, in addition to your Viagra pills), men can get an easily reversible vasectomy. To protect against reversibility issues, sperm can be frozen at the time of the vasectony. It's time for men to take responsibility for the fact that MEN, and ONLY MEN can get women pregnant. A woman can have sex with 100 men a year and only get pregnant once. A man can have sex with 100 women a year and get 100 women pregnant. Let's stop wasting our time and women's lives. Mandatory vasectomies are the answer.
6
@Carolyn
If you want to make the argument that women should have control over their bodies, it makes no sense to hand responsibility for their bodies to men. Women are responsible for their bodies, not men.
I don't understand why pro-choicers are not focused like a laser on better forms of birth control. So many pregnancies are unplanned. Guttmacher provides that many of these unplanned pregnancies are caused by a woman's "poor relationship" with birth control. In other words, they have birth control but don't use it or use it correctly.
Access is not the problem. The problem is that birth control still requires too much work for women. They need an easy and effect method that doesn't require constant intervention. That's what pro-choicers should be rallying over. Where are their demands for easier-to-use birth control?
1
@Carolyn: There is no "easily reversible vasectomy".
The answer is to keep the government out of it and let men and women do what they want.
3
@AACNY. If birth control were as easily available as condoms -- i.e.. available in any and every corner store and in direct view of children -- you might have a point. But they aren't. And you don't.
1
How is it R's keep claiming trump's Russian problems are over and it's time to move on? But this abortion debate goes on and on with no end in sight.
2
@RNS: It is all in defiance of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", the Constitutional bar to theocracy in the US.
3
@Steve Bolger: An "establishment of religion" is not an edifice or an organization. It is an unprovable belief such as "Jesus was/is the son of God", or a person's soul forms at the instant of fertilization.
3
Or an unprovable belief that it doesn’t.
2
I believe I should be able to beat my children with electric cords to teach them the world is flat and that women are subservient to men.
How I chose to raise my kids is a personal moral choice. You raise your kids any way you want and stay out of my personal moral choice.
If the Pro Life position is that abortion is murder, then choice is irrelevant. You don’t have a choice to murder. I don’t know why people pretend to not understand this.
5
I was seeing a girl who years later told me she had an abortions just after we stopped seeing each other. She said her father wouldn't have wanted her to have a "wog" (ethnic) child. "Oh and it was a boy" she added. Isn't it great that women can do whatever they want with "their" bodies.
2
Maybe you should have had some better conversations with her before you had sex with her. It sounds like neither one of you had much respect for the other.
4
Yes, please let's do away with abortions so that we can have an even bigger population to destroy the planet. And let's please ignore all the homelessness and poverty and poor education and lack of healthcare that exists in our amazing life-loving country. And especially let's make sure people (mainly women) end up raising kids they aren't ready or able to take care of. Oh wait, you say those kids can be adopted or fostered out into our wonderful and well maintained foster programs? Don't those kids get taken care of so well? Every child deserves to be wanted and loved. After abortion, the Republicans will go after birth-control.
5
It’s actually not that complicated: you stick to your beliefs, I’ll stick to mine. Let the woman decide about the developing cells in her body. Stop forced pregnancy!!!
7
Humankind are sexual beings, both male and female. Although since the beginning of time, the male was always more powerful, warrior-like. Humans had much shorter lifespans. So our sexuality too, we mature about 12 years of age for both men and women.
Women were always chattel, first owned by their Father and then sold (dowries) to her husband’s family. Possibly even part of a king’s harem. Women who were raped or impregnated were destroyed in all ways possible, shunned, stoned or burned by their family and/or village. It is important to note, that none of the shunning, stoning or burning evolve the very innocent men. Obviously the male sperm is never acknowledged in the fertilization.
Why after much progress and understanding are we returning to denying the respect for women to make their own very personal decisions? In our return to racism, and nationalism we are gleefully returning to punishing the woman and after birth her child as well. No food, no shelter, no healthcare, no education. What exactly do we achieve for the woman, her child, and society as a whole?
The planet is sufficiently overpopulated, women have the right to birth control, with birth control there are fewer painful, personal decisions for the woman to address. Women need the right also to decide if, when and with whom to bear a child.
6
Why is America seemingly the only country to struggle with this?
3
@Matt O'Neill
Most countries accept restrictions on abortion. They don't champion abortion as some kind of heroic act that should be heralded. If anything, it's the US pro-choice movement that is out of sync with rational countries.
1
Because the US doesn’t provide good access to contraceptives. People lose insurance, lose doctors, can’t get access to prescription birth control. The US also has poor public health education and messaging around contraception. And finally, it really isn’t about abortion. It’s about controlling and punishing female sexuality.
5
@Carroll Eastman Actually, abortion rates are at all time lows. Same as teen pregnancies. This is due to easier access to contraceptives and improved contraceptive methods. True, that it's not a perfect system and many still lack the services you mentioned. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The extremely rigid, holier than thou crowd intends on outlawing abortion, taking access to birth control away, and eliminating sex education in schools. As I said in another comment, abortion has been done for thousands of years. Rich women will continue to have access to safe, legal abortions as they will hop on a plane and get it done. It is the poor women who will ONCE again, out of sheer desperation, take it upon themselves to do it illegally, in any way they can, putting their lives at grave risk in the process. Our HISTORY has shown that is the case.
5
Not in any way complicated—my body, my choice. Don’t believe in abortion? Don’t get one.
7
Imagine all the hypocrisy on two sides; The Gun lovers want to stop Abortion, and the pro-choice people want to stop guns.
As we saw in the 2016 elections, many of my fellow Catholics stick their fingers in their ears and say “la la la I can’t hear you because abortion” when any social justice issue is raised.
Either they think nothing else matters, which is mistaken; or they find it very, very convenient as an excuse to ignore the poor, the sick, the immigrant, all those people the Old Testament told us deserved justice and Jesus told us to take care of, which is appalling.
5
The term 'Pro-Life' is a misnomer. It is anti-abortion. After a fetus eventually emerges as a baby, the support for life is over. Instead, support for killing in the use of the military, unrestricted gun use and killing off food stamps and other support for the life of the newborn is on the table.
5
@Bruce Maier
It's really repugnant that pro-choicers claim that a fetus is not worthy of life unless someone is ready to take financial responsibility for it. This is how slaves were treated -- that is, as having no valued themselves but only to "masters".
3
Your point is a FOX News false equivalency. As another person pointed out your life starts when you are born. Or at most when you are viable outside of the womb. Comparing a mass of cells w/o consciousness to the experience of kidnapping and lifetime of servitude in brutal conditions is an insult to the victims of human trafficking past and present. I recommend you use your own mind to think and develop your own opinions.
4
Martha, it is scientific fact that human life begins at conception. You can have your own opinions, but not your own facts.
2
The decision of whether or not to have an abortion is and should be complex, morally, emotionally, and within (or without) the context of support from father, family, extended family and friends, and society.
But it is precisely the complexities and their highly personal nature that make it impossible to craft a one-size-fits-all law determining the answer.
Family, school, religious organizations, medical and mental health organizations, society at large, all should have serious conversations and education about abortion for people at or nearing child-bearing age. "Casual" abortion carries the risk of deadening individuals and societies, emotionally and morally, and that should be addressed.
But ultimately, the woman must decide for herself. Once the decision is made, and the choice is to have an abortion, it is clear that the procedure should be legal, safe, and equitably available regardless of finances or zip codes. That is what the laws of the nation must accomplish.
3
Abortion should be allowed in cases of rape, incest and medical danger to the mother, otherwise let the baby be born and be adopted. Where is the responsibility otherwise. That would seem to be the best solution for everyone, women have the right to choose not to look after their child, a family without children can potentially give the child a home.
1
@Harry Half a million children sit in the foster care system as we speak. Most will not be adopted. The foster care system in the U.S. is a pretty bad one. Those kids will grow up and out of the system at 18, never knowing a parent's love or what it is like to live in a family. It is not that simple. How about our society offer more support to these mostly poor women? Have better social services for them if they are going to force them to deliver babies? (Rich women will always have the ability to have safe abortions and they will, as was done.)
6
Why are WE discussing abortion.
This shouldn't be a national issue, it is between a doctor and patient.
If you're the husband, talk with your wife.
If you're the patient, talk with your lover, husband and doctor.
5
What about the boys/men who get these girls pregnant? Where is the discussion around their responsibilities? You can’t get pregnant by yourself. That these new laws are being passed mostly by white men who think they stand in judgment of girls/women is repugnant to me.
I’ve given birth twice, never had an abortion. My children happened in my marriage and were wanted. One thing about pregnancy is there are so many details you never forget.
So yes, if a woman gets an abortion she is ending something that lives. But if she has an abortion early enough, it’s not a baby or even a fetus. That is medically true. It has the potential to be those things but it’s not early on. I belief some are allowing their religious belief to crowd into medical reality.
I don’t like abortion; no one does. But I am not going to presume to tell a girl or woman what to do with her body. I can’t know all the circumstances of her life.
If we made a concerted effort to have better sex education in schools and had readily available low-cost birth control, this discussion would not be as loud.
5
You need to do a little more research into what current science has to say about when human life begins.
1
Right and wrong has always been complicated for some.
1
It’s going to become a lot less complicated when women lose the right to choose an abortion. The anti-abortion forces are going to discover they should have let a sleeping dog lie, because when she wakes up she is going to be in a rotten mood, especially after she’s discovered she woke up in a cramped cage after living her life as a dog running free.
1
If thinking Americans, thinking politicians put more effort into preventing unwanted pregnancies we would have fewer and fewer abortions!
Various unbiased studies showed that when ACA/Obamacare became law abortion numbers were at their lowest. And preventing unintended pregnancies SAVE the taxpayer money!!
Win win.
3
@Beth Grant DeRoos
Obamacare wasn't considered the cause of the drop in abortions but posited as a potential reason. Another is the heightened awareness the pro-life movement has caused surrounding the life of a fetus and the horrors of the abortion process.
1
There is nothing complicated about Religious Freedom. The whole early to late abortion debate is a disingenuous strategy to take away reproductive rights from women.
Treating a fetus as baby because of the so called "heartbeat" is grotesque to those who believe in:
Genesis 1:26-27 "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness" The 8-week fetus has a heartbeat but also has a tail. The tail does not wither away until 12 weeks. Insisting that the fetus is a baby is deeply disturbing to those who believe God does NOT have a tail. The devil has a tail. Are the people pushing to outlaw abortion after heartbeat devil-worshipers?
In this land of freedom, devil-worshiping is protected as long as it does not translate into action hurting people. Anti-abortion devil-worshipers (as they are perceived according to my beliefs) are free to practice their beliefs but are not allowed to take action.
The sanctity of the human life and the fact that the fetus if NOT human life is further spelled out in
Genesis 9:6 “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed" However punishment for causing an unwanted abortion is a fine to the husband, suggesting that the fetus is property, not a person (Exodus 21:22-25).
Elsewhere even God mandates abortion as punishment is case of adultery, indicating that the fetus does not possess a right to life (Numbers 5:11-31).
Nobody's religion is better than any other's is the meaning of Religious Freedom.
5
It takes both a woman AND a man to create a baby. No one is talking about the responsibility of the impregnator. Or about his wishes. I wonder why?? Now that it is possible to identify an impregnator through his DNA, shouldn’t he also be held morally and financially responsible for a child he had equal part in creating? If a woman is denied the right to abort and must raise the child, why is the father not LEGALLY bound to help support it? Something fishy and very lopsided going on here!
4
If a man impregnates a woman, he is already legally responsible for the child. We aren’t discussing men because we are talking about abortion. Men don’t have abortions.
If a man and a woman have sex and she “accidentally” becomes pregnant, and she wants to have the baby but the father doesn’t and she unilaterally decides to have the baby, then the father must be responsible, financially, for her decision. She has the right to decide to become a parent or not. He doesn’t. That’s the inequality.
1
I am 73 years old. When I came to this country at age 17 I knew little about birth control and how to prevent pregnancy. Most people have no idea what a young girl goes through when faced with an abortion that is illegal. I knew nothing about this country at that time. At 20 I got pregnant with a young man I was dating. He was not ready for another child as he had a 2 year old from a previous marriage. It was very difficult and humiliating for me. This man stood by me and we eventually found a Dr. in Manhattan. Cost then $600. I had an abortion at 6 weeks. It was a difficult decision to make. I broke up with that man, never wanted to see him again. I then met lots of girls who came from Europe, got pregnant, and had illegal abortions. If men would become pregnant there would not even be a discussion about it. There would be a clinic on every corner. It is time to drop this and let the decision lie between the woman, who has the burden and her Doctor. I since have had two beautiful daughters and four grandchildren. And if one of my Granddaughter would become pregnant? It would be her decision, hers alone with her Dr. Period. Stop this ridiculous discussion. Most people who want to get rid of Roe vs Wade are the same people who don't want to support the mother and child with public funding. For the most part. The real reason is religion and politic. We have over 7 billion people on this Planet. Most are starving poor children. The Wealthy have had always access to abortions
7
Pregnant people can grant life OR give death -- a power that threatens the stability of a patriarchal, racist, classist social order. Concern for the fetus is charged with so much existential dread. And we're not just talking about the anxiety of the rich white men at the top of the pyramid. Even if they exist in a position subordinate to their male counterparts, middle class white women stand to lose a great deal if the dominant social hierarchy collapses.
2
Neither side shows any willingness any longer to compromise on this issue. The result is we shriek at each other about it at ever increasing decibels.
I suppose one way to settle the debate is by allowing local communities to decide the issue. The one-size-fits-all federal approach has been an abject failure. We’re still at each other’s throats about it almost 50 years after Roe v. Wade.
1
@Kinsale
Roe v. Wade is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Please read the opinion.
3
@Ann it was a nationally imposed court order that circumvented the legislative process. That is what enrages the opposition.
1
This may not convince anybody, but ...
Human stem cells develop a specific identity very slowly. It takes at least 2 or 3 months.
Fetal cells are stem cells. Do the math. Until 2 or 3 months out, they're undifferentiated. There's no there, there. They may migrate to some area, resemble a shape, but have no function.
There's no difference between a bunch of undifferentiated human stem cells and any other species. Only when DNA kicks in and starts making changes does human identity begin to happen. At 2 or 3 months, it's a tiny bunch of cells.
When people get sonograms those pictures are greatly enlarged. People aren't told that, and many walk away thinking the fetus they saw really is that big. When it was probably the size of a bean.
This bizarre, narcissistic effort to inflate fetal tissue is driven by male prerogative. Most animals, humans included, have a system of mate selection governed by female choice. We went on a 10,000 year excursion into agriculture, which subordinated women and children. Only been a few generations since. It's time women took back control of who fathers offspring. Women bear the child, and will more certainly care for it. Abortion is an insurance policy to prevent the wrong man from fathering. That's why patriarchy hates it.
7
It’s not a question of trusting women. It is simply distrusting men controlling women.
4
It's really quite simple: If you're opposed to abortion, don't get one. Period.
4
@M.
When it comes to taking a life, no advanced society uses simplistic reasoning like this.
4
It really, really needs to be anti-choice and pro-choice. Pro-life is an absurd title. They don’t want women to have a choice, period.
3
I don’t think anyone can “choose” to end the life of another.
1
how completely we're become a single issue country. no room for dialogue. no room for different beliefs within a political party. and when the members of the elected congress become single issue like described in this article...
well goodbye democracy.
when will we start to see widespread genocide based on political beliefs
1
It’s funny to see NYT readers trying to wrap their heads around the pro-life position. It seems that their brains have worked only one way for so long that they just can’t compute the logic of it. It does not bode well for our democracy.
2
@Thomas
There are many women who have "legacy" issues with men. They still see themselves as victims as male chauvinism. They are still dealing with image of the male brute at work who embarrassed or belittled them. They are fighting their own private demons, in other words, and project their victimhood onto pro-lifers.
Young women today don't see themselves as victims of male supremacy. They are perfectly capable of making rational -- and independent -- decisions about sex and birth control. Perhaps why abortion rates are declining.
3
@Thomas
What is the logic of it that NYTs readers do not understand? The pro-life position is easy to understand. Life begins at conception and so abortion should be illegal because it's murder. Did I miss anything?
3
@Ann It is clear to me. Somehow many - most? - commenters think people who oppose abortion do so for reasons other than those you so succinctly outlined.
1
It's horrifying to see zealots using the law to prohibit a decision that is private, intimate and should remain a strictly between the patient and his provider.
I am referring, of course, to the outlawing of gay conversion therapy.
2
I think the problem with a rational discussion around abortion is that the right has muddied the issue and conflated different things.
First, let’s agree that a fist trimester abortion is very different than a late one. I’ve had multiple first trimester miscarriages and no ones ever offered to throw me a funeral, not even my Trump supporting friends. On some level, society does get this...
By contrast, no one gets an abortion in the sixth month as a means of birth control. Let’s agree on that too. Usually there are gut wrenching considerations, literally, that are matters best ledt between a woman and her medical team.
So why are bloody almost term fetuses the nom the guerr of the so called pro-life movement? I’ll answer my own question: because it’s inflammatory and it sells. But it’s inaccurate. A more accurate representation of most abortions would look much more like a heavy period. Disclaimer: I don’t want to look at that either.
What’s also frightening about the conflation of the two is what is not being said. The religious right is it not just going to use bloody fetuses to come after late stage medical abortions and first term ones....they’re going after the morning pill and IVF embryos, too. Once you get agreement that a fertilized egg is the same as a six month fetus, then banning rape, incest indeed all abortions won’t be enough. They’ll go after the morning after pill and IVF using the same warped logic.
5
Did you read about the bill recently passed by the N.Y. legislature removing any restrictions on abortion at any time during the pregnancy?
I take issue with the word complicated. What is really complicated is the weird polarizing dialogue that pits pro-choice against pro-life and dominates the news. The fact is the two “groups” have many things in common. The majority in both groups wants to prevent the number of abortions through comprehensive healthcare, access to birth control methods for all and early sex education. This majority does not see abortion as the only solution to unwanted pregnancies, but knows that you cannot completely do away with access to abortions because the alternative--illegal abortions without the supervision of a doctor--is dangerous. The majority on both "sides" understands the moral dilemma the termination of a pregnancy creates, but acknowledges you cannot enact laws that control a person’s body. You can advise, you cannot legislate. We need to rise above this “either/ or” extremist talk that drowns out real solutions and work together to create a better plan.
4
@stp What about Roe vs. Wade, already in place?
2
There is so much that could be done to reduce unwanted pregnancy that the anti-abortion states pay no attention to, like increased healthcare and access to the most effective (and most expensive) forms of birth control. They seem intent only on the most punitive approaches, all of which portend radical police methods. "Legal, safe and rare" still works for me. And
"rare" does not imply shaming, as the article implies, because the procedure is something every woman would like to avoid.
3
“Safe, legal and rare” is one of those Clintonian equivocations like “Don’t ask, Don’t tell”.
What's so complicated about abortion?
1. Leave the decision up to a woman and her physician.
2. If the woman is opposed to abortion on moral grounds, then don't have one.
Get religious beliefs out of legislation. It's called Separation of Church and State.
5
Abortion is an issue that isn't settled and will never be settled. Ever since Roe, the pro life people have been constant in demonstrating that a large part of America doesn't accept it. Contrast abortion to an issue like segregation, which generated great controversy in its time but now is "settled" - almost everyone agrees it was wrong.
The sides are becoming more intense. Most pro choice people used to accept the Hyde Amendment, now they don't. Most pro life people used to accept exceptions for rape and incest, now they don't.
The most we can hope for is the return to a lower level of intensity. The debate itself will never be over, and consensus will never be reached.
@Scott
We are definitely at a standoff. It doesn't help that the extremists are on the march in both camps -- ex., outlawing abortions on one side and removing restrictions on 3rd trimester abortions on the other.
My own feeling is that someday we will look back on the barbarism of abortion in horror but until women stop getting pregnant because they cannot master birth control, it will remain the birth control of last resort. (Note there is a huge divide how wealthy women use abortion and the majority of low income use it.)
1
Let the individual woman decide. Keep government out of it.
3
Times reporter Jeremy Peters couldn't be more wrong when he claims that, "...the impulse to take a hard line has weakened (abortion rights activists') efforts politically and legally, and left them vulnerable to conservatives who eagerly portray them as out of step with the sentiments of most Americans."
The right of women to make the decisions in their reproductive lives, including whether to have a child or not, is by no means "taking a hard line." Either women have the right to control their own bodies or they don't.
And far from being "out of step with the sentiments of most Americans," A NBC/WSJ poll last year found that 71% of American voters believe Roe should not be overturned, compared with just 23% who say it should.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/nbc-wsj-poll-support-roe-v-wade-hits-new-high-n893806
The American people overwhelmingly support Roe. This is a matter of women's rights, not political expediency. And the American people, and Democratic presidential candidates, get it.
5
If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
Abortion restrictions are a canonical example of governmental overreach. Those who don't want an abortion are free to not have one. I'm perfectly happy with legislation that says that no woman should be compelled to have an abortion against her will. That's the total extent of suitable government restrictions on abortion.
All this vocabulary about "should", "rare", "last choice" vs "first choice" and so on is completely inappropriate for discussion about legislation and government policy.
The "Who's paying for these" argument against government-funded abortion is particularly offensive. There is long list of far worse things that government routinely pays for. I want those Catholics who yell loudest about this to explain the morality of "their" tax dollars being spent on lethal chemicals used to execute criminals or cluster bombs being used to kill civilians.
The fact that we are still arguing about abortion in 2019 is an absolutely disgrace and demonstrates the rampant misogyny that still dominates our political discourse, our government, and our society.
3
I am so tired of the handwringing about abortion. If we provide easy access to all forms of birth control for all males and females, along with access to information about using contraception properly, abortion can be reduced to the rare situations where almost all (informed, unhysterical) people would agree that a woman should have access to a safe, legal, private abortion.
But instead of making contraceptives free and available, we fight about abortion. Why? What is this really about?
2
@H Carroll Eastman
It's not "access" but "usage". If you really want to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, you need to understand the cause of them. "Access" can be blamed on others. "Usage" is not so easily acknowledged because it put the onus on women.
Why not "fight" for better birth control?
1
Early, thorough sex education for all children; easy, over-the-counter access to all forms of birth control; easy, over-the-counter access to Plan B and there would be less need for abortions overall.
That said, abortion is a medical procedure, a decision between doctor and patient, where the public and the government shouldn't have a say. Period.
10
As a Catholic in good standing, I am also quick to admit that I fall into the "it's complicated" category. Like most complex ethical issues, this one has no simple "one-size-fits-all" solutions. Real-life issues like pregnancies arising from rape and incest complicate the issue even further than matters of personal choices by prospective parents who may disagree about the fate of the unborn baby. Further complicating the issue is the question of who is representing the interests of the unborn baby?
4
All this hoo-hah about the nasty debate...it isn't a debate.
Its an attack.
Well financed, minutely scripted, aggressively prosecuted.
One side wants what it wants.
Some significant number can't say why they want it, they just do.
The other side is in defensive mode. If the attack should cease, you'd never hear from them.
Anti-abortioners insist they be put in unchallenged charge. No questions, no relief. Make them the boss and shut up.
Pro-choice people say, essentially, no. If there was not the threat, they'd have nothing to say.
Forced birthers insist on raising the stakes, ramping things up to insane levels of arrogance and abuse.
This is not a debate. Its a hysterical clutch of bigots claiming they know the only way to live, and demanding the right to enforce their cramped vision.
Poor Ms. French has it wrong.
Worse, the loudest mouths represent groups that have been absolutely fine with abortion.
The Catholic Church wavers and continues to waver on abortion. The Church officially acknowledges it has no idea when life begins. Abortion is not among conditions that meet standards of inerrancy or infallibility. The church pays for abortions for nuns, to cover for priests.
MId-last-century Evangelicals realized they were losing members, power, and cash. They focus-grouped abortion, saw their numbers rise, and Bam! abortion is issue one. Except for pastors, of course.
6
The reason this is increasingly a tough issue for Democrats is because abortion is so intuitively wrong. This is why religion has been largely opposed to it with even traditional Buddhism proscribing abortion. The pretzel ethical twists necessary to deny a baby personhood before it leaves the womb are warping to a person's conscience.
Would you rather live in a society that values the sanctity of life to the point of inconvenience or one, like ancient Sparta, that approves the death of infants on the basis of perceived weakness? Or being the wrong sex? Or merely coming along at the wrong time?
5
What I can’t understand is that when a pregnant woman is murdered, the crime is charged as a double murder, yet with supporters of all abortions, the fetus does not count as a person until outside the womb, ergo the killing of this fetus should not qualify as a murder. Is there a difference between a wanted and unwanted fetus that allows, indeed supports, the killing of one but not the other.
If 1st trimester abortions are allowed, most of the unwanted pregnancies as described in many of these responses, could have been terminated. Beyond that, it becomes a real moral dilemma as to when murder begins.
2
I agree the law makes no sense on that particular issue. I have a conundrum of my own. Why is it that a small screechy minority gets to decide that "their" tax dollars can not be used to pay for legal abortions? I don't like my tax dollars being used to bomb villages in Iraq or to cage children at the border. In fact, I oppose a whole host government actions based on my moral beliefs. Why are the pro-lifers so special? I say every taxpayer should be treated equally. Repeal the Hyde amendment and say no to special rights for loud mouths!
4
I would bet if sex education was mandatory, comprehensive and ongoing throughout K-12 schools and colleges, and birth control was free and widely, readily available to all, the abortion debate would likely become much less of an issue. Allowing young women access, and maybe more importantly, the proper comprehensive education about birth control, unwanted pregnancies would plummet. It seems unrealistic to discuss abortion rights without bringing up sex education and access to birth control.
6
Thank you! The best way to stop abortions is to end unplanned pregnancies, and comprehensive sex education and easy access to contraceptives is the best way to do that. And to all of you thinking, “But sex should be reserved for marriage!,” well, I agree with you, but as you can’t legislate morality (nor expect others to accept your morality as law), let’s support the one proven method to reduce abortions.
5
@Samantha: The people who want to ban abortion want to discourage sex altogether. They oppose contraception because it is sexually liberating.
7
@Samantha
Sorry, kindergartners don't need sex education. As for education, sex ed classes should include videos about the abortion process. Abortion rates are dropping because young women are, in fact, educated.
1
To expand on my prior comment, abortion should be the last choice and not the first choice and not used simply for "birth control". This is a difficult decision for any woman, indeed for any person involved in the decision, and should be decided by the woman and her physician, not a governmental agency.
2
Yes, an abortion or a miscarriage stays with you forever, however, an anti-abortion stance doesn't facilitate the amelioration of ones' moral dilemma or lessen the pain of that lifelong reality. One must always conclude that when a woman elects to have an abortion it is because that is the right thing do given her life circumstances.
Wringing ones' hands & screaming morality, speaks only to your morality never the morality of another. If you are so morally outraged, perhaps the woman who is forced to deliver an unwanted infant should leave the child at your doorstep.
In my opinion, the law is not always designed to address morality, but rather it is created & exists to protect the majority of people. Imagine if the Christian Scientists & individuals of similar beliefs, [anti- blood transfusions & medical treatment], rose up and raised the same stink that the anti-choice folks are raising. People would demur & laws against such treatments would never be created or considered.
The anti-choice folks need to mind their own business. Nobody ever said that the anti-choice people were compelled to have an abortion. Abortion needs to remain a legal right until the 20th week & there after per the opinion of the physicians. BTW, there is no such thing as a healthy delivered baby being the victim of a so-called 3rd trimester abortion. Its sad, that people fall for lies told by Republican politicians who have a hidden agenda contrary to the needs of majority of regular people.
10
Gee, no, it is not complicated. Roe struck a compromise that is a workable guideline based on trimesters and a graded response.
All the weakening and tweaking of that simple system has made things worse, significantly worse for healthcare patients and far more dangerous for healthcare workers. The reporters and commentators should try being a clinic escort. See patients being terrorized by "sidewalk counselors" ... even if only getting a pap smear or bringing in a child for an examination. Really ponder the medical deserts for women ... and the increasing maternal death rates for low income and minority women who lack the means to access anything other than a clinic and are being denied pregnancy and post-delivery care for both themselves and the fetus / child. And, no, those "clinics" being run by church folks fraudulently wearing a lab coat and stethoscope are only increasing poor medical outcomes for pregnancy; they are making the problem worse by bleeding funds from real affordable medical treatment.
We need to apply Roe. Stop applying religious ideation to those who don't follow that religion. Simple as that.
19
It is not complicated. Abortion is a women only prerogative. No need for a 'new' dialogue or more patriarchal patronizing. Period!
5
Hmmmm? Complicated?? Apparently not for the women who decide the issue for themselves. Both sides of the issue are repeatedly discussed and easily accessible and a women has the opportunity to consider both sides. The only reasonable limit for others to decide is what they are willing to pay toward an abortion. Roe vs Wade stands to protect a woman's right to decide for herself. Whose morality is more important than her own.
4
Why don't women - and men- who are pro choice and insist upon women's rights to "control their bodies", honestly admit that abortions are the consequence of their inability (unwillingness?) to control the sexual craving of their bodies, since, after all, humans are viewed as more intelligent than their presumed ancestors, the apes? Aside from outright rapes and "forced" intercourse - for which the respective male predators should be severely punished - why is it that those women who insist on abortion rights have failed to admit that their right to conceive during unprotected sex is not absolute (i.e. dictated by the urge for sex) but subject to SELF-CONTROL by their intelligence? How do we explain the sad fact that one-third of abortions on demand in the United States (20 million of the 60 million since 1965) involved highly educated females, many of whom in leading positions? So, the emphasis should be PREVENTION of unwanted pregnancies, not their tragic consequence, abortion on demand. Also, according women their full, constitutional, right, to abortion on demand raises the question of whether the United States right to its own sovereignty in the long run is not superior to its women's rights - and of their predatory male partners - to use their bodies for unprotected sex? After all, aren't American women obliged to give birth to that number of babies that are required to ensure the long-run sovereignty of the United States of America (same thing with Canada)?
3
@Adalbert Lallier
In fact, abortions are often the result of a woman's failure to control her body. Control would involve using birth control effectively and routinely.
The reality is that birth control is simply too difficult for many women. It should be made more simple.
1
Absolutely it's complicated. Every story is different. And that's why abortions should be legal, period; the woman, her doctor, and the father of the baby (if around and involved) should be the ones to decide. The government should stay out of it.
And yes, we need to fund abortions for poor women; otherwise we're saying only women with money can get safe abortions; poor women will have to either have the child or go to a "back alley" abortionist.
3
This article, and nearly all others I read, and nearly all other coverage I see or hear, have one common shortcoming: they treat abortion as though it is an event (with a political viewpoint) that happens in a vacuum. But it isn't; when a woman becomes pregnant, there are lives involved and not simply the life of an unborn fetus.
There is a reason we have two words, fetus and child, for the result of pregnancy. Which word we say we support ought to guide our stance for public policy.
If you say you are "pro life" and want to ensure the birth of a "child," then you also need to ensure that child will have upon birth the necessities that make life supportable and meaningful: food, housing, early medical care, child care to help the parents, education, etc.
Our society is saying "we want the freedom to choose" but our politicians have created a political environment in which there is no government assurance of support for those the pro-choice movement want to force to be born. The message is "you have to be born" and then "you're on your own, kid."
We treat abortion, like so many things, as representing a moral choice - but deciding to make obtaining government assistance harder is a moral choice too, and allowing hundreds of thousands of gun-related injuries and deaths to occur every year is a moral choice as well, as is the choice to befriend murderous dictators around the globe.
Americans' feelings around abortion aren't "complicated" as much as they are hypocritical.
4
My friends and I are pro-abortion up to a point.
There should be no tri-semester abortions period.
2
My experience doesn’t match the claim that “nuance has disappeared from the conversation”. Maybe on the stage of politics but not between people. I’ve had tremendously substantive and nuanced conversations and have been able to refine my own views on this complex and emotionally charged issue. Abortion will be controversial til the end of humanity but we always must leave the question up to the mother not the state. Anywhere women are denied this right they are second class citizens and their health and safety are at risk. You are welcome to have your beliefs inform your own choices or the advice you give friends and family but it is still a choice. Fetuses get personhood at viability at which point they are given constitutional rights and those supersede the earlier rights of the mother. If you truly adopt the stance that life legally begins at conception then all fetuses are people and abortion at any stage must be outlawed without exception. Even if the mother is 11, or 50, or a victim of rape, or at risk, or even if the embryo is a week old. That is obviously not a world we want to live in especially since one in four women will get an abortion in the USA. So if we agree we can’t define personhood at conception then we realize that the only completely objective, not negotiable, and biologically defensible stage we can is viability. All women must have access to reproductive care and retain the right to terminate pregnancies for whatever reason before the fetus is viable.
2
Since the government does not have the power to prevent abortions, the argument is really about preventing legal abortions and should be stated as such.
3
Nuance is not appropriate on this issue. The prolife ideology is about punishing women for having sex. The cover is the claim that life begins at conception. It doesn't. Life begins when a fetus is born and takes its first breath. Any other position is a flat out lie. As such, abortion should be covered like any other medical condition. Any waffling on this issue must be condemned.
6
There are plenty of scientific studies that proclaim that life begins at conception, so the basis of your argument doesn’t stand. (A quick Google search found a study from Princeton, FYI.)
5
There is nothing complicated about it. Let the woman decide that shouldn't be that hard.
3
@William
Sorry, in no civilized country does one identity get to proclaim whether another has a right to live. The idea that it is strictly a decision of women is irrational.
5
@AACNYb So you want to make the decision? That is irrational.
If pro-lifers and pro- abortioners could have a civil discussion, they could realize a win -win result. Those for abortion aren’t concentrated on killing people, the want women to be able to control their bodies. The pro-lifers want us to love life as a creation of their god. If we all worked on healthy relationships instead where men and women understood their responsibility to one another and to the children they could potentially produce along with the use of control mechanisms, we could get to a point of zero abortions. This, however would require a substantial amount of relationship/sex education at all levels of education as well as continuing social supports for adults. This bipartisan bickering will only create piles of unproductive anxieties.
1
This article does a good job of pointing out how complex a decision regarding "pro-life" vs "pro-choice" is in the US. How does one balance the right of a woman to control her body with a moral/spiritual concern on abortion? Both political parties have done a very poor job of recognizing this conflict and allowing an open and respectful discussion of this issue. Why should a position where we as a society want abortions to be "rare" be considered demeaning to women? I am pro-choice and say "yes, abortions should be legal and available when needed, and yes we as a society should do what we can to minimize unwanted pregnancies". This includes sex education & gov't programs supporting mothers & families and stronger enforcement of child support laws. The focus on "late-term" abortions which represent less than 1% of abortions and are performed when the mother's life is in danger or the fetus is non-viable is misplaced and touted only to inflame and not to advance the discussion. I do not believe that Americans who support abortion choice want to recreate the situation prevalent in the old Soviet Union wherein abortion was commonly used as a form of "birth control". We as a society should be able to craft a position on abortion that allows access while also respecting those who object on moral grounds. This requires encouragement of open discussion which requires respect for differing positions.
2
It's really not complicated. The pregnant woman is the only voice that matters. Not the man. Not a church. Not the state. Not you or me.
5
This issue is between a woman and her doctor. Until people stop meddling in other people’s affairs this issue won’t go away.
4
In Paris we are building new public transportation. Several big projects that will open in 2022, 2024.
In the U.S. you are debating gun control and abortion, borrowing a trillion Dollars a year, while your infrastructure crumbles.
6
@David Martin: profoundly sad that a good portion of our country doesn't see this big picture, and that the wealthy are stealing from them while keeping them distracted with guns, abortion and immigration.
3
@David Martin
You have plenty of your own problems in France, starting with your youth unemployment rate, which is something like 20%, right? Spare us the lecturing.
2
No, it really is not very complicated. No one likes abortion. Not doctors, not women. Not Democrats, not Republicans. Not atheists, not evangelicals. -But: more than any other society in the industrialized world, America is a death trap for poor women and their children, and any society that is not prepared to take care of children once they are born has forfeited any moral and ethical right to dictate what women may do before, or instead of, giving birth.
5
It is not complicated. In fact it is simple. Get religion out of politic's as our founder's intended which was one of the main reason's for leaving England and come to the new land America, where you could live and let live. Where equality under the law was our guide, not a religious ideology. It is horrible how religion can divide. Good luck, gal's. This man is with you.
3
Holier then thou. Over a nice big steak that's killing the planet (I love them too), using plastic to cover individual paper cup and plastic cups in motel rooms, driving an SUV blocks to the grocery, guns guns guns, how many ways can the individual destroy themselves.
Leave the very personal and difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy to the individual woman or family. Let the government do the more important job of insuring the health and safety of the fetuses that come to term and are born to the world. Care for them!
4
I personally am opposed to abortion but don't think the government should be involved, at least in the first 2 trimesters. We already have too much government involvement in our lives and certainly don't need any more. “that government is best which governs least” Henry David Thoreau
2
What puzzles people outside the US is the hypocrisy. Those that advocate stringent sanctity of life by their stance on antiabortion are usually the same people that are the biggest supporters of execution. It just doesn't add up.
5
@Bob
This is not necessarily true. Catholics, for example, do not monolithically support the death penalty. They are very consistently pro-life and always advocate for the weakest among us.
2
I recently came across the term "ensoulment" in regards to abortion, eg., when a body becomes in possession of a soul. Intrigued, I researched the term, and found that world religions believe in ensoulment anywhere from conception, to 42 days, to "quickening" ( the mother feels movement of the fetus), to brain activity (which, in itself varies by definition), to a wholly formed body, to birth, to when a child first says "amen." So, anyway, beliefs about ensoulment, and therefore ar what point abortion constitutes murder, vary widely. But one thing remains clear, even clarified - it is based upon BELIEF, not any scientific measure. Legislating one group's belief over another's is problematic in our country due to our Constituion. I don't have any answer, or recommendation, I'm merely pointing out some background that others may wish to look into.
2
@Brent I don't believe there is any such thing as a soul. Some of us are secular.
It is complicated. And I just don't understand why there can't be compromise. There is a difference between aborting a zygote and a fetus who can live outside the womb, that most people recognize. And if you have religious issues with abortion, don't have one.
3
@knewman
Please read Roe v. Wade. The decision is a compromise that recognizes the dilemma you mention.
3
I've thought about the pros and cons of legalized abortion for many years. My belief is that the Supreme Court, when they made Rowe vs Wade the law of the land, considered the question in depth and made the best choice possible. I believe in the sanctity of life and would hope that individuals would take whatever steps within their power to avoid an abortion. Yet, who am I to force my beliefs on other individuals. They may decide to abort due to a number of reasons that may not have crossed my mind. I'm OK with abortion as an individual choice. I've also come to the conclusion that the citizens who are anti abortion, who claim that their position is a matter of conscience are basing their stand on a their religious beliefs. If there's one thing I'm certain of is that our forefathers went to great lengths to make certain our Constitution wasn't based on religious dogma.
5
I am a very progressive democrat but find the option for 3rd trimester abortion uncomfortable. In particular I don't fully understand the need for one in the 3rd trimester especially in instances to save the mothers life. Today with medical technology babies can survive outside of the womb from before the end of the 2nd trimester. Most babies in 3rd trimester are actually wanted. So I don't understand why the baby couldn't be delivered or removed via cesarean early and kept alive to save the mother. Why is abortion even considered in those cases? Or is it rarely or almost not the case but one cannot even discuss these nuances in today's debate? For other situations where the baby has a fatal disease I get it but not sure what I would do myself and not comfortable legislating it either.
2
@Jennifer
Please spend some time speaking to mothers and doctors who have gone through this. You say you don't understand, then do research to try and understand. The reason 3rd trimester abortions are rare is because it is only as a result of rare medical conditions that they are needed.
3
You need to understand what late-term abortion means in Rowe v Wade. After viability, meaning the infant can live outside the womb, it’s called BIRTH.
“Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, said that abortion should be allowed until the time a fetus could survive outside the womb, a point (known as viability) that medical science generally considers to be at about 24 weeks of pregnancy. The Court has also specified that abortion should be legal after viability in certain cases — if continuing the pregnancy would seriously threaten the woman’s life or health.”
As explained in the New York Times in February:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/health/late-term-abortion-trump.amp.html
2
@Jennifer
People like to believe that 3rd trimester abortions only happen when the baby has no chance of survival. Unfortunately, this isn't the truth. And now with restrictions lifted, what you don't restrict legally is, in fact, legal. A 3rd trimester abortion is now permitted in some states based on whether the birth would impair the mother's emotional wellbeing.
1
I don't have a problem with abortion. I don't even have a problem with the government paying for it.
My only hesitation is that the government does not pay for any other type of health care. If universal health care or Medicare for all were to be passed the, by all means, Abortion should be included in it. Until it is though... well, I thought that Feminism was all about being equal to men and not having special privileges due to their gender.
Well, when men can have babies, they can then offer their opinion. And, FYI, you really should read up on feminism.
4
I am 100% pro choice
And I have a hypothetical question
You are speaking to an audience of 10,000 people in Wisconsin.
These folks ( hypothetically) will determine if trump is around another 4 years and they are leaning pro life
You are given a choice to read one of two speeches to them
One speech takes an absolutist pro choice stance and guarantees 4 more years of trump
The other takes a more nuanced approach including allowing some states to maintain minimally more strict abortion laws that you passionately disagree wit but guarantees a democratic president.
Which speech do you read?
1
@don salmon
Roe v. Wade actually provides for the exact nuance that you just articulated. Pro-choice women are "absolutist" about Roe. Please read Roe v. Wade.
3
@Ann
I realize hypotheticals are lost in online postings, but you didn't address the point.
Let's see if I can make it clearer. First here is why your point is irrelevant:
I am 100%, 1000% absolutist on Roe V Wade, pro choice as pro choice could be.
That's entirely irrelevant to the question.
If you (IF! hypothetical???!?) had in your own hands the power to determine whether or not Trump was re-elected
(i'll take time for that to settle in - that's the condition for the hypothetical; i imagine you may write back and say you're not interested, it's silly, etc - that's fine, but if you DO decide to answer, please address the actual hypothetical)
So, now that it's settled in. It's November 1, 2020.
Trump and Warren/Buttigiege are nearly tied. You have been given absolute power to determine the election (and possibly the fate of the world).
If you present your "absolutist" view - it is (in this hypothetical) absolutely guaranteed that Trump will win.
What do you do?
1
@don salmon
I know, the nuances of Ann's point may seem to have been lost. I didn't explicitly address her point that there are nuances in Roe. I get it. The problem is, your audience in Wisconsin won't. They don't read as carefully as you and they think "Roe = murder;" however, they're open to someone who does NOT simply say to them, "read roe."
Let me make it simpler.
If you hold the world's fate in your hands, and by saying "Read Roe" you guarantee another 4 years of Trump, would you say that?
1
I understand the nuances of both sides of the argument, but fundamentally it isn’t complicated at all. Neither religions nor governments have the right to tell me what I may do with my body.
4
First, I’d like to stipulate the world already has 7+ billion people and is growing by ~80 million more PER YEAR. The earth is already beyond its carrying capacity, and human induced climate change only makes things worse. Religions dogma saying we should be fruitful and multiply is out of date. Family planning and female education should be universally available. Fewer unplanned pregnancies means fewer abortions.
Next, individual women, in consultation with healthcare experts, are most entitled to decide issues around their own pregnancies. We should also be able to agree that rape, incest, and the life of the mother are legitimate grounds for abortion, even if some would choose otherwise.
I do think we need appropriate legal boundaries as a fetus approaches and then passes into viability. And having a heartbeat is nearly meaningless from an ethical standpoint. 26-28 weeks remains a reasonable threshold for a healthy mother to expect a reasonable outcome for a preterm birth. Allowing a 4 week margin of error would lower the limit for abortion to roughly 22 weeks.
Unfortunately, medical issues can complicate pregnancy. Sometimes these make pregnancy and childbirth life threatening. Likewise, a fetus sometimes has fatal or serious anomalies. Ending such pregnancies, even late term, can save a life or prevent unneeded suffering.
People are entitled to their religious views. They’re not entitled to impose those views on others. It's called separation of church and state.
4
It still comes down to this: the decision to bear a child must rest with the woman. Nobody can tell her that she must carry an unwanted foetus and then child for nine months in her body, perhaps at great risk to herself, and then support a child for 18-odd years.
Those who oppose abortion can choose not to have one. You have that right. You do not have the right to force your beliefs on other women.
And further, if men could be pregnant, this would not even be an issue today.
3
Is it really that complicated? If you are morally against abortion, don't have one. If you are not morally against abortion, it is your choice though it can be a very difficult one to make. With regard to the Hyde Amendment, most people see their tax dollars go towards things that they object to. Abortion may be one of those things for you, while selling arms to Saudi Arabia may be one of those things for me.
4
@Quinn
ok, please listen - I am 100, no, 1000% pro-choice. I think the label "pro choice" is wrong; the people in favor of giving women the right to choose should be called "pro-life." Use it against the barbaric authoritarian Right.
Having said that (please listen)
In trying to understand those people I believe are fully sincere, who believe that, say, abortions after the first trimester are murder (wait wait, listen, don't jump to conclusions, remember I'm 1000% pro-choice, and if it helps, I consider Bernie quite far to the Right of me, ok, now....)
in trying to understand those people, can you see the problem with the way you put it, how they might hear it?
"If you are morally against rape, don't rape anybody. If you are not morally against rape, it's your choice."
I'm afraid, this being the internet where all conversations are garbled as they go from one human being to another, I have to say, I'm ONLY making this rather unpleasant extreme comparison for the sake of promoting empathy.
Unless you believe virtually every person with qualms about legalized abortion is a Trump-supporting deplorable, if you can imagine even one person who calls themself (wrongly, I repeat) pro-life may have at least a scintilla of sincerity, then the way you phrased the issue may actually sound to them at least somewhat like my rather over-the-top example.
Capice?
www.remember-to-breathe.org
2
Please think carefully about the consequences of taking away a woman's right to have a say over what goes on in her uterus.
Taking away choice fundamentally defines pregnant women as property of the state. This means that doctors will have to register women when they learn of a pregnancy, there will be a registry, and the government will start watching over pregnant women. Women will receive official notice they are being watched and require them to carry papers and report in. Women will have to prove the outcome.
The government is going to regulate women. No comparable regulation would ever be put into law regulating men.
Yes it's complicated. Roe Vs. Wade was an extraordinary decision in that it was a compromise. No months or up to 26 months -- a time when a fetus might survive outside the womb. It was litigated, it's reasonable. provides sensible protection to the woman, and nothing has changed.
What is the most preposterous thing in these debates are all the righteous men who vote to restrict a woman's rights and shut down clinics when in fact they really have no standing because they are men.
5
Freedom with restraint is not such a difficult concept to grasp. People with a my way or highway bipolar thinking are the problem. One has to apply both heart and rationality to the subject, not zealotry and self-centered ethics.
For example, the would parents should be more a say about the situation if both are of sound mind. And women should carry a heavier weight, pun intended!
It may be complicated, from a case by case basis, but the general principle is not that difficult. To put the zealots in their place, what if they were subject to tyranny against the causes even if their practices affected no one but themselves?
2
there have been many Dems such as Mario Cuomo and Ted Kennedy who, based on their religious views, believed abortion was wrong but also believed that it was not right to impose these beliefs on others by law.
I'm still trying to figure out how the same people who are always yelling about our country being taken over by Shariah law have no problem with it being ruled by tenants of another religion.
Apparently it's not religious law that's a problem as long as it's the "right" religion.
And let's remember that it was the Republicans who decided that after Roe v. Wade abortion was an issue they could use to run on. Before it was decided when Ronald Reagan was governor of California he signed one of the most liberal abortion laws in the country. And those now hard line anti- choice Republicans Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani were pro-choice when it suited them and then turned on a dime when that was politically beneficial.
4
I’m a life-long Democrat. I support legalized abortion, but with limits. It’s a morally complicated matter and I find that the reasoning put forth by the abortion rights left that it is only a matter of choice and one of trusting women ignores the fundamental reality. At some point a fetus is a person. And those “cells” are not the same as a wart.
Using choice and agency to justify abortion on demand makes these rationales legitimate not only for abortion, but for a raft of issues with moral consequences that can lead to the diminishment of life together. Libertarian arguments regarding Guns and AR 15 access, limiting environmental regulations come immediately to mind. Now (finally) the Times seems to acknowledge that abortion is complicated morally. The country desperately needs to improve our ability to engage together around morally complex issues and to do so with a touch of humility to offset shrill and shocking extremists on both sides.
2
@Horsepower
Please read Roe v. Wade. It acknowledges that as a pregnancy advances a fetus becomes more like a person and allows for regulation of abortion at that time. Pro-choice women support Roe. We already have a law that works as a compromise and need to support it.
3
On abortion as on so many issues, the loudest voices, the most extreme views are the ones which drive the political debate.
I personally view abortion as a tragedy. I would prefer to live in a world where it was reserved for cases of rape and incest or to save the life and or health of the mother. In such a world women would have free access to birth control, sex education would begin well before puberty. Women and girls would never be forced into sex against their will. Young girls would never, every make mistakes. Above all, every woman facing an unplanned pregnancy could rest assured that she would have the financial resources to raise a child and eager and loving parents to adopt it if she didn't. Oh and no child would ever be born with crippling and painful birth defects.
We don't live in that world. Not even close and if the loudest voices on the pro-life side get their way we will be looking at a world that is far worse than the imperfect one we live in now.
The question is not whether abortion is moral, the question is whether or not it should be legal and if it is legal at what point do the rights of the fetus to live begin. In an imperfect world, I think that the Supreme Court got it about as close to right as possible.
4
Who is paying for these abortions is asked in these comments. Does it really matter when the cost of a child whose mother cannot care for them is far far greater? i understand that this issue is far more then an economic one. But the people who quibble over whose paying for an abortion don’t seem to understand all the costs ..economically and emotionally. IF and thats a big if - your question is economic,please do your full research on the economics associated with the issue. if you are really just standing in judgement, please look in the mirror and consider the full scope and history of what those deciding on abortion might be facing.
2
Human rights are, by law, inviolable.
Equally, a women's body is inviolable.
No state-driven denial of a woman's rights are, by law, acceptable.
How are those truths "complicated"?
2
To those who object to using taxpayers' money for abortions, I say: sooner or later taxpayers will be paying for many of those children's school lunches and other services. Either up front or down the line, taxpayers will pick up the tab.
As a taxpayer, I object for taxpayers' money being used on senseless, cruel and overextended wars where many viable people die or are maimed forever.
There are no easy answers. Are there?
2
It's not complicated. Abortion is a medical decision made by the woman with the advice, as needed, from her health care provider. See how simple that is?
All opposition to abortion is religion based, and "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion, or preventing the free excercose thereof." Also simple.
3
Abortion is a necessary evil and at the outset of the abortion debate decades ago should have been presented as such. Yes, a woman should have the right to make the choice to abort a fetus but it should always be recognized that it's because in certain cases this, rather than allowing the pregnancy to go forward, is the lesser of two evils. The decriminalization of abortion is what should have been emphasized. Somehow what became emphasized was the 'woman's right' aspect. Abortion became an element of the culture wars of the 1970's and there it remains.
I have little respect for pro-life advocates if they are not also talking about sex education in schools and making contraception widely available, as well as supporting women and the babies they chose not to abort with good health care, nutrition, child care, and housing.
1
@Wonderdog
Have you any idea how difficult it is to get a movie about abortion to market? They get immediately blacklisted. Either information is good or it's not. Why are videos about abortions censored?
Abortion is about freedom. Freedom in a Democracy for a woman to make her own personal decision about her own future. Someone else's religion has no business in that decision. That is America.
3
A thoughtful article that reminds us that life isn't that simple.
My feelings:
1. Each of us has a right to our opinions and but have no right to impose them on others.
2. The lessons of prohibition seem to be lost on people. We couldn't stop people from drinking or using drugs. We won't stop women from having abortions if their lives require it.
3. A little empathy for pregnant women would go a long way.
4. The circumstances of pregnancy are multiple - more than most of us can imagine.
5. Having respect for each others positions on subjects like this would seem sensible - just as we respect various religious beliefs.
This is a womans issue. A womans choice. No one is forcing a woman to have an abortion.
Men should have nothing to say about this issue in the political arena. They impregnate and walk away. They impregnate and leave women to raise the child - often in abject poverty and worse. They force themselves on women to satisfy their animal instincts and often take no responsibility for the results. Men get 20 minutes of pleasure and the woman gets 20 years of hard labor.
Watch a season or two of "Call the Midwife". Then tell me men should make laws for women.
1
Democrats have to do intensive polling and outreach in the battleground states concerning how people feel about abortion and tread carefully.
We HAVE to win this election.
4
@Practical Thoughts
Attitudes about abortion are fairy well known. A majority of Americans support abortion but with restrictions. Most Americans do not support either side's extremism. According to Pew*:
"Though abortion is a divisive issue, more than half of U.S. adults take a non-absolutist position, saying that in most – but not all – cases, abortion should be legal (34%) or illegal (22%). Fewer take the position that in all cases abortion should be either legal (25%) or illegal (15%)."
*****************
* https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/
There is no nuance to women's choice.
An embryo is not a person.
A fetus is not a person.
A woman is a person with the right to decide if or when she wants to be pregnant.
Every other consideration falls to the side when put up against a woman's right to self-determination.
I'm sick of these "heart wrenching" stories. Not one of them has any bearing on women's rights. Besides, every person involved in these stories would have been relieved to learn that after first thinking they were pregnant they learned it was a false alarm.
3
No doubt there are endless testimonials. The fights in this country go back at least three centuries. Are we even capable of resolution and tolerance? The present divide suggests maybe not.
1
I'm a 72-year-old retiree who is grateful I was never forced to make what I consider a personal decision regarding abortion. Because many consider it a religious decision, I opt for keeping the state out of it. No form of government is perfect, but separation of church and state has served us well. Let my God deal with me and yours, you.
Any form of government that could be manipulated to force a woman NOT to have an abortion could also be manipulated to force a women TO have an abortion.
We should tread lightly here.
1
Solving the abortion issue is not unlike solving the gun control issue.
Each has its best outcome in a cultural shift, not legislation.
We have to make our choices individually, but if we want a better society with fewer abortions and fewer gun deaths, then we have to be honest about our infatuations with sex and guns and teach everyone to understand, respect, and be responsible for their powers to bring life and death.
This starts at home but can't stop there.
Our communities need to be open. Let neighborhoods be neighborhoods again.
It takes a village.
And that starts with each of us.
@D.A.Oh I agree with you 100%. If abortion was unthinkable it wouldn’t much matter whether or not it was legal. Sex can be procreative and I think if you’re not willing to accept the natural consequences of the act don’t indulge. Pro-choice folks like to say that if you’re opposed to abortion don’t have one. The counterpoint to that is if you are opposed to giving birth, don’t have sex. With regard to gun control I think the right to bear arms ends where my right not to get shot by an AR-15 begins. Guns in the hands of the wrong people have wrought untold violence on our communities while abortion is an act of violence that takes place in what ought to be the safest place in the world- a mother’s womb. We can do better
@JR Why is no one objecting to *men* having sex? Why is it always the "wanton woman"?
1
Ambiguity stems form the fact that too many Americans confuse emotions and ethics. The two are very different. Emotional reactions are unpredictable and individual. Ethics involves reasoning from agreed-upon first principles. I can (sort of ) understand why an individual woman might be ambivalent about having an abortion. But I am not. Her emotions are irrelevant to me. Ethically speaking, there is only one set of first principles that would lead to seeing abortion as murder. This is the theology of the Catholic Church that regards the soul as created in the moment of conception. Not only is this theology highly idiosyncratic and not shared by any other religion but its application to me, a Jew, constitutes a violation of my religious liberty. My ancestors chose suicide rather than forced conversion to Catholicism. I will not be cowed by religious fanaticism, ignorance, and misogyny.
3
The moral issue of when a fetus becomes a human maybe complex. The moral issue of female autonomy is not. No woman actually wants to have a third trimester abortion by choice and this is a rare occurrence besides that is used to rile up people. It should really be between the woman and her doctor and should stay outside the purview of the state as much as possible. In the first 3-4 months it should be an absolute right and I think a super-majority agrees. So there's a lot less disagreement than you think for the vast majority of cases and I believe focusing on late stage abortions is a tactic being used to rile up people by extremists. Supporting better access to universal birth control should be supported by everyone who wants to be taken seriously on this issue. If you don't get behind it you should expect to be ignored as a hateful extremist.
1
It's not complicated.
No one should try to impose his or her religious beliefs on anyone else. Period.
2
Abortion is a complicated, deeply personal decision that the government should stay out of. If you want to have fewer abortions. support free contraception care for all women.
1
Abortion isn't complicated at all: either a woman's body is her own, or it isn't. No one has a right to be inside her body and use her entire physiological resources in any way or for any amount of time that she does not genuinely wish.
And since women almost never become pregnant, but are made pregnant by men who do not use contraception, the entire responsibility for both contraception and abortion falls upon men. Who themselves often impregnate women to control and destroy them. Women bear unlimited liability for pregnancy--unto frequent mutilation and not rarely, a terrible death--no matter how the man impregnates us and how the pregnancy is resolved.
Abortion is a moral good for women--and a male responsibility.
2
Way too much hand wringing here. There is no room for "opinions" when the issue is a fundamental human right like a woman's right to decide whether to have an abortion. Do we have soft, mushy discussions about whether slavery might be okay in some situations?
1
If you are against abortion, don't have one. If you prefer that others do not have abortions then work day and night to prevent unplanned pregnancies. Why is that so difficult?
1
If you don't believe in abortion, then don't have one. However, it is clear that this entire issue is not driven by life or babies, but by control and punishment. Of others controlling women's bodies, and of punishing women who have sex. If we were a country that supported pregnant mothers with health care, infants and young children with high quality day care, all children with medical care, and eradicated poverty so no child grew up with unmet needs then perhaps we can have a discussion on abortion. Until that point, any discussion seems, well, pointless.
2
The question isn't whether or not abortion is a complex issue. The question is actually much simpler is it permissible for the state to stop a woman from ending her pregnancy. Yes or no. Whatever you thick of that decision does she have the RIGHT to make it herself? That is in fact a very simple question.
1
I honestly don’t get why saying that abortions should be “rare” says that something is wrong with it. Nobody wants to have an abortion. It’s painful, heart wrenching, and difficult. We should endeavor to make abortions rare by: full healthcare for all, with every woman being able to see her obgyn regularly;contraception fully covered by healthcare; expanded medical care for all pregnant women (I won’t even say how often I was able to go to the doctor here in Germany being pregnant, it puts the US to shame) and early sex eduction for all. That being done, abortions will go down. Women should be able to choose to have an abortion regardless for any reason before the 12 or 16 week mark, and after that for deformities, health of mother (including mental), rape or incest. This being all between a woman and her doctor. As an example, in Germany, it’s allowed before 12 weeks and after that you have to have a good reason and sign off from doctors. But a good reason includes that a doctor believes the stress of having a baby would be too much on the mother. Should women who just didn’t get around to it be allowed to abort a 7 month old healthy baby? No, but this doesn’t actually happen in real life even if Trump would like us to believe it. Late term abortions are usually a painful choice a woman must make — often between letting a baby with a medical problem suffer in pain all the way until birth or relieving that pain earlier by choosing to do so. Never done lightly
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@An American In Germany My thoughts exactly. This is just another way of our Republican party, the federalists and religious fanatics to use as a political tool. I lived here for over 50 years. I knew wealthy people in the 60s who would fly to another country to have an abortion. Here, if you are poor, live in Alabama or any of these fanatic killing laws in other states, the poor either have to face prison, some even have the Doctors face 99 years prison sentence? How obnoxious is that? I guess the private prisons just need to make more profits and the poor in prison won't be able to vote. its all about politics. Even trump was for abortion before he was against. He realized the needs the fanatic votes.
13
@An American In Germany - Abortion is birth control. No doctor should get to decide if a woman has a good reason to choose this procedure. The doctor's involvement ends when they decide whether it is medically safe.
There is uncalled for judgement in your comment. Words like heart wrenching. Time limits based on your thinking some women "just didn't get around to it". If the decision is heart wrenching, might a woman be conflicted until the allowable time limit is nearly upon her? You can't have it both ways.
10
@Paul Langer
Abortion is 'birth control'?
Oh, how wrong you are.
Abortion is a gut and heart-wrenching decision to make.
It's not about easily going to the doctor to terminate an unexpected or unwanted pregnancy.
At the end of the day, it would be a female who has to balance her life and that of a child, nurturing that child for a least 18 years.
There are no guarantees that the father of this child will be there to help, so a woman has to be able to look ahead and ask herself if she is ready to handle that responsibility.
Some say it is a moral question.
Well, in many ways it is.
But it is a moral question that should be answered with the questions between her God and her doctor.
Why should anyone else be included in that conversation?
And finally, no politicians should be allowed to make rules concerning a woman's body decisions.
How damned arrogant.
Too bad Americans can't be as open-minded as Germany.
12
Canada, until 1988, had heavily restrictive federal laws against abortion. Although we never had a Roe vs. Wade, R. vs. Morgantaler established that any such laws were foundationally against the section of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms which guaranteed the liberty and security of the person (in this case, the mother; the fetus not being a person, does not have separate Charter rights).
Madam Justice Bertha Wilson said in her Opinion in the case, "The decision whether to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision, a matter of conscience. I do not think there is or can be any dispute about that. The question is: whose conscience? Is the conscience of the woman to be paramount or the conscience of the state? I believe, for the reasons I gave in discussing the right to liberty, that in a free and democratic society it must be the conscience of the individual. "
Abortion is still in the Criminal Code (but unenforceable) and there are still administrative and access restrictions on abortion at the provincial level, but it is now considered to be a personal health care matter between a woman and her physician, as it should be.
6
It’s curious that the article suggests a majority of Pennsylvanians are pro-life and pro-gun. It’s “nuanced,” but it’s also contradictory.
A right to own a gun is not the same as choosing to own or use one. Just like a right to choose abortion is not the same as choosing to have one. Both rights enable a person to end another life prematurely. Legality does not negate the moral gravity of the choice.
Just as a person should think carefully about the responsibilities and risks that attend buying a gun and using it, so do women struggle with the choice to give birth or end a pregnancy.
In Casey, courts addressed what restrictions are consistent with Roe’s right to choose. Several states are using restrictions to close their only clinics. We’re less clear on what restrictions can function in good faith alongside the right to choose of America’s most vulnerable women.
Just like background checks, high capacity magazine bans, etc., some restrictions are legal. In Roe, the court found the state has the right to protect a viable fetus, so states can and do restrict abortions post viability.
Other restrictions, parental or partner consent, waiting periods, admitting privileges, etc., need viable exceptions to enable the most vulnerable to exercise their rights.
Employers against insuring and taxpayers against funding abortions split the middle. The choice side is diverse and nuanced, but it’s under attack. Division is fatal, so candidates stress unifying principles.
4
@NotanExpert Why should restrictions such as "parental or partner consent, waiting periods, admitting privileges, etc." exist for any women, whether poor or not? Don't you accept that women are capable of making their own choices? Without having to qualify for "exceptions"?
1
In the UK it is illegal to transport in a private vehicle more than 10 litres of spare fuel in [what some older readers may recall] a 'Jerry Can', yet it is lawful to possess, and transport, a 20 litre Jerry Can. Ownership of a 20 litre Jerry Can does not infer the owner intends to carry 20 litres of fuel.
1
In this nation, we conceive of basic rights as "unalienable," fundamental to individual persons, and not things that are legitimately subject to opinion polls or the votes of others. It is conspicuous that we nevertheless routinely speak of a woman's right to control her own body and the course of her life as something "nuanced" by the comfort level of everyone else with her choices.
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Abortion is not listed among the "unalienable rights" enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, nor, indeed, in the US Constitution.
1
@Ozymandias The woman's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
1
The debate may be about whether abortion is available as a personal right under limited circumstances (right to choose) or unavailable under all but the most extraordinary circumstances (pro life). The idea that abortion should be prohibited absolutely is no longer mainstream.
9
I'm personally pro-abortion, but let's not get carried away.
Roe v. Wade held there is a US Constitutional right to abortion. If Roe gets reversed, that won't mean that abortion is illegal (or legal). It will mean only that the US Constitution is silent on abortion. Each state will be able to declare that abortion is a protected right in the state, or just the opposite.
Some states that outlaw abortion will try to extend their laws to prohibit state residents from traveling to other states to have an abortion and then return. Those state laws almost certainly would get invalidated, under the many Constitutional "right to travel" cases. Donated funds that now are used to oppose a Roe v. Wade reversal will instead be used to fund the travel of pregnant women to "abortion is OK" states.
In other words, not much will change. In real life, even less will change, since most abortions these days are performed with drugs, not surgery.
I'd leave Roe unchanged, but I don't think it will matter much either way.
10
@Commenter, I wish I shared your optimism. My belief is that if Roe were overturned, the GOP would move to pass a national law making abortion illegal. I doubt anti-choice extremists would be pacified by overturning Roe. They won't be happy until abortion is illegal in every state.
4
@Commenter
What will stop the Religious Right Wing extremists from outlawing contraception in the Red States ?
1
One nuance often missing from this conversation is how abortion affects the disability community. The British National Health Service universally offers a screening test for Down Syndrome in pregnancy. It's been estimated that the abortion rate for women who test positive for this screening is as high as 90 percent. How is the reduction in the number of people living with disabilities not a moral issue? Should a woman be permitted to choose that an otherwise healthy fetus with Down Syndrome is not worthy of being born? Clearly this is a nuanced, challenging, and moral issue that deserves thoughtful discussion.
7
@Laura A fetus with Down syndrome does not have adult rights, any more than any other fetus. Whether the fetus has Down syndrome or just might be a Nobel Prize winner, the answer is the same. It is the woman's decision as to whether she wants to bear that child and can spend the time and money to bring it up. I would suspect that babies with Down syndrome are not very adoptable. It's either the mother, the parents, or an institution that would bring up the child if it were born.
3
This is about educating people about what life with a child with Down syndrome means- and absolutely that you will have the supports you need to raise this child. Right now we love to talk about the heartbeat but what about food programs, education, maternity leave, etc. don’t hide behind this and not support infants and parents. My daughter with Down syndrome is thriving because I live in a state with supports and I advocate for her. Stop using Down syndrome and a women’s choice as a poster child for anti-abortion.
1
@Laura, of course it's a moral issue--for the pregnant woman! It's not a moral issue for those of us who aren't raising the child.
A society that demands disabled children be born must also be prepared to spend a great deal more in support services for parents and children. Are you willing to do that? And would you be willing to adopt a child with Down Syndrome? If the answer to either question is no, then you can't sit in judgment.
The anti-choice issue is most typically framed in terms of morals and religion. I would argue that, as with most other political issues these days, it's largely about money. Just like the other heated arguments about political issues, including paying off student loans, free college tuition, whether Boomers are entitled to Social Security and/or jobs, whether people who feel they will never need those services want to pay for national health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or SNAP/food stamps. Whether immigrants are entitled to US jobs and social services.
A huge proportion of US assets is owned by the 1%. 99% of the nation does not have enough money, feels they do not have enough money, or fears that someday they will not have enough money. I am 100% in favor of making abortion and birth control easily accessible and affordable for all women. But we also really need to address the issue of moving some capital out of the hands of the 1% so other people are more willing to pay for social programs. Fortunately, the Democratic candidates are not running on single issues and I do not believe that supporting choice will push out all other social programs.
13
One nuance often missing from this conversation is that of disability rights. The British National Health Service universally offers the screening for Down Syndrome in pregnancy. It’s been estimated that the abortion rate for women who test positive for this screening is as high as 90 percent. How is the reduction of the number of people living with disabilities not a moral issue? Should a woman be permitted to choose that an otherwise healthy fetus with Down Syndrome is not worthy of being born? Clearly this is a nuanced, challenging, and moral issue that deserves thoughtful, respectful, and open-minded discussion.
4
@Laura Should a woman be forced to raise a child that will never be independent or live a full life? Whatever the emotional and financial cost to her and if she is married, her husband?
Conservatives fight socialized healthcare by saying the government has no business getting involved in your health, and conjured up the terror tactic of "Death Boards" that would decide who lives and who dies under socialized medicine. And yet, they have no hesitation at all in wanting the government to interfere in a woman's right to make her own health decisions, including having an abortion.
An abortion is a medical procedure, no different than any other. If we allow individuals to make their own decisions about their health, then why is abortion any different?
Of course it's different because of the MORAL judgment made about it. But whose morality are we basing this judgment on? In a supposedly secular country, where church and state are Constitutionally separate, why are we allowing a Christian moral code to hold sway? Because the majority of Americans are Christians and haven't seen a problem in their religion getting mixed up with the government. Maybe now they'll begin to see why it's a problem, although I doubt it - ignorance and superstition are powerful obstacles to enlightenment.
In the end, it really isn't "complicated" unless you "want your cake and eat it too". Abortion is a medical choice, and the woman should be the sole decider in that choice, and like with all choices, she needs to be the one to live with it. Any other considerations are just moral mud wrestling.
29
Yeah? What about the father? Does he get any say? It does take two to tango, or a village...
@Ozymandias In the end, it's the woman's choice. He ought to make sure he knows who his tango partner is before they "dance".
Regardless of one's views on abortion, each side's views are very clear. Neither side would say "It's complicated."
8
I think it’s complicated. I have no problem with the morning after pill because I don’t believe life begins at conception. But the further along in a pregnancy an abortion is performed, the less I feel it is right. I see a big difference in an abortion at 10 weeks and one at 20.
1
Lee Quan Yew, the Father of Modern Singapore, was asked on his return from a visit to Pakistan, what he advised Pakistan's leaders on economic development. He said, "I found everyone there obsessed with the "hear after". I have no expertise in it and did not give any advise".
In devoutly Catholic Ireland, abortion and contraception made elections. But today's cosmopolitan Ireland is more interested in attracting bankers fleeing away from BREXIT-London to Dublin. Frantz Fanon hypothesized that there are pockets of First World in the Third World and vice versa.
Let the GOP's misogynistic elements delight in hurting-harming women's minds and bodies! Progressives and Libertarians should unite to protect women's right to follow their conscience on moral/religious issues and not be bullied by theocrats and hypocrites.
15
Unfortunately, I cannot cite the article I read a few years ago by an abortion clinic doctor. He said when he came to work, he had to endure a gauntlet everyday of protesters. On a ladder was a woman with a bullhorn, fierce in her denunciations. One day he arrived, went inside to his office, and there was that woman in need of his services, which he gave.
Some days later when he returned to work, there she was, up on that ladder, screaming.
I guess guilt drove her return.
Well, that and hypocrisy.
30
This article leaves out that Roe V. Wade actually is a nuanced decision. It left out the medical reasons women need to get a late term abortion. But most importantly, it left out the scorched earth techniques of anti choice activists - clinic bombings and fires, murders of doctors, harassment of women, and and all or nothing viewpoint.
It also leaves out the horrifying numbers of women who are raped or sexually abused, and yes, that includes family members. Our courts and our police system still does not treat rape and sexual violence with the seriousness which it deserves. We do not treat child abuse and childhood trauma with the seriousness and care which it deserves.
Yes, abortion is complicated - and giving women and their loved ones the dignity of making their own choice is the way to make sure the nuances and complications are respected. The federal and state governments should stay out of it.
22
Everyone here is talking about how "complex" abortion is, but approaching it simplistically, as if it were a moral issue where one standard can easily applied across every situation. Abortion is a medical procedure essential for proper reproductive health. Once you put up barriers, make doctors and women justify this procedure to satisfy your arbitrary moral standards, women will be denied proper health care, suffer unnecessary injury, and some will die. That being said, if pretending your arbitrary moral standards matter and should be catered to will allow women to have essential, basic health care, then sure, women should only have an abortion if there are no other options and they should feel very badly about it.
9
My aunt, 36 years old, married, and a mother of 4 children, ages 12 to 2, was killed during a criminal abortion. My grandmother and grandfather, after burying their daughter, found their orphaned grandchildren had been abandoned by their father, who was unable to cope with the loss. Already senior citizens, they raised their grandchildren. The ripple effects of this tragedy are still felt in my family.
It’s really not complicated at all. Without safe, legal abortions, women will die.
318
@JE Women also die in legal abortions. Like Tonya Reaves, who bled to death after an abortion in Chicago's Planned Parenthood clinic. She left behind a 3-year old son. Or Karnamaya Mongar, one of Dr. Kermit Gosnell's many victims in his Philadelphia abortion clinic: https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Woman-Mongar-Survived-War-Died-After-Gosnell-Abortion-203233721.html
2
Abortion as a personal choice is incredibly complicated, dependent upon the pregnant person's feelings, beliefs and circumstances. The same woman reacting to pregnancy with joy at one point in life could opt for abortion with certainty at another.
But forcing another person to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term? That's simple. There is absolutely no justification.
As a matter of fact and as a matter of history, abortion is not murder, a fetus is not baby. Protestant families used to describe pregnancy as "interrupted menses" and published home remedies to alleviate that condition.
People in some communities (mostly religious) have come to form beliefs about pregnancies and fetuses, which is certainly their right. They can certainly apply those beliefs when making judgments about their own bodies. But beyond their bodies, their beliefs have no place.
30
The working poor have Medicaid as their health care plan. These women include wait staff at your local restaurant, childcare workers, personal care assistants working for the elderly in many different settings, etc . They too pay taxes, many don’t work the number of hours that qualify for employee funded healthcare or can’t afford the cost out of their paycheck and qualify for Medicaid. I went to a “designer bag bingo” to help fund our local county healthcare clinic last week, in one of the richest counties in Pennsylvania. Brought a new friend who is here from England for a short while for business. Told her this is how we fund healthcare for the folks that make too much for Medicaid. How embarrassing for the richest country in the world. So please consider these situations when you say I won’t pay for their abortion. They’re paying and working too. These folks weren’t born into the upper middle class such as yourselves, who are you to judge their personal situation?
25
@Gripaha Isn't it wonderful how our policies bash the people who are getting up and trying to make a go of it?
1
I'm pro choice and I'm also uncomfortable with how loudly the Democrats shout about being pro choice. There are millions of Americans who are pro life.
3
@Julia Do you agree with the rest of the Democratic platform? Because you may never agree with 100% of what a candidate proposes.
7
Are you equally uncomfortable with the conservatives who scream loudly about their opposition to abortion?
1
Let me start out by stating that I am a Black male in my 60s. While the article argues that abortion is a complicated matter, it doesn't really delve into the complexities. So let me give it a try. It starts with the views in certain quarters about sex (see Katelyn Beaty's piece in this edition), where sex is virtually treated in the way drug addition was dealt with in the 80s: "Just say no." It is a view that conveniently bypasses the notion that sex, unlike drugs, is an essential part of humanity. Then there is the issue of class and race in America. If, say, all those Black women who, rather than having an abortion, gave up their children for adoption, how many Black families would be able to adopt those children, given the hardships that many Black families in this country are facing? How many non-Black families would be willing to adopt some of those children? And then there's healthcare, which, in this country, is treated like a privilege rather than a right. If early on in the pregnancy a woman learns that her child will be severely disabled and the child may need prolonged medical care, yet still decides to give birth to the child, she can barely count on the government or any other body to help her carry the financial burdens that come with caring for the child. Now, you may think that I'm in favor of abortion. The fact is, I really don't know where I stand on this issue. I do know this: Don't judge a woman until you have walked a mile in her shoes.
31
When I was a college freshman I was told I would be highly unlikely to be able to bear children. That turned out to be true. Years later I learned I have a genetic blood clotting disorder, as well as PCOS. Hard to become pregnant and if I crossed that barrier, hard to stay pregnant.
Because these disorders weren’t understood 30+ years ago, I had to endure four “D&C” procedures before age 30.
And I was never pregnant.
My question is this: what happens to women like me me, who undergo procedures that are essentially “abortion,” but who aren’t even pregnant?
Where do poor women like I was go for care?
Proper healthcare for women includes procedures that essentially are the same as some abortions—the D&C procedures I endured.
Not all of us who need them are pregnant.
What about us?
17
As a pro-choice/ pro-life Catholic Democrat, it is getting lonely out there. I totally and passionately reject what the Republicans have wrought. I remain passionate about everything that has made me a life-long Democrat. Fighting for affordable healthcare, LBGQT people, immigrants, labor, and against racism, guns, islamophobia, anti-semitism, and misogyny? I am your woman. I donate money regularly and volunteered for Hillary and Obama. Given the hard line drawn by my fellow Democrats and our presidential candidates, can i still be welcome in my party if i believe in the life of unborn children?
8
@Sandra If you approve of the rest of the Democratic platform, why not vote Democratic? Why be a single-issue voter?
15
You are still welcome and we appreciate your support on those important issues but know that many will stridently disagree with your position on abortion and continue to fight for access.
2
I am a republican and pro choice... I also believe in all those things you care about and so do most republicans who are almost never represented by most in the media nor by the current president. We also however believe in individual responsibility, individual freedom, and an individual’s right to to live and conduct their business the way they choose whether we agree with their choices or not. In fact, it doesn’t make sense to me that some Republicans are so anti abortion because its none of my business what a person chooses to do with their body. I am uncomfortable however when women don’t prevent their pregnancies and then have abortions multiple times because I see a fetus as a human creation.
Women have been having abortions for thousands of years. They will continue to have abortions. Just like so many things in life, the unfair part of this is that rich women will fly off to wherever they can get a safe abortion (like my mom and other women with the means to do so did in the 1960s), and poor women will do what they need to do out of sheer desperation. They will perform their own abortions or have someone do it illegally, risking their lives in the process. Point is that no law will prevent abortions. Outlawing abortion is a war on poor women.
32
There's no nuance in the outright bans passed in southern States in the past weeks. this isn't an issue either voters or debates, it's the behavior of extremist, fundamentalist politicians.
17
I look at Jeannie Wallace French’s sad face and feel sympathy for what she went through with her pregnancy. If I could have waved a magic wand for her baby to survive, I would have.
When I realized that despite her traumatic experience, she would force an unwilling woman to give birth to a dead baby, possibly losing her life doing so, my skin began to crawl. It hasn’t stopped.
19
When Roe v. Wade was first passed, the only group opposed to it was the Catholic Church. Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, The Southern Baptist Church, etc. did not care and in fact frequently supported it. However, as time went on it was hijacked by these organizations, described as murder, and used primarily to gain votes. In today's age, this is almost unbelievable but it is true.
If these organizations would have stayed silent, we could be discussing and possibly even solving problems such as Global Warming, Healthcare for All, Gun Rights, etc.
8
When I was in college, I had two different friends -- both of whom had previously professed to be ardently "pro-life" -- ask me to accompany them to Planned Parenthood to exercise their right to choose, primarily because they knew how equally ardent I was in my pro-choice views, and saw me as the only friend they could trust with the knowledge of their decision. I was heartened by the trust they placed in me, and viewed it as a sign that I was (and am) on the right side of this issue. But I also found it distressing -- it shouldn't require being personally impacted by an unwanted pregnancy to empathize with the situations that others find themselves in. In other words, it's NOT "complicated." You live your life and I will live mine, and when you come to me for help, I will never judge, and government should have no say in the matter.
35
We can’t opt out of having our taxes pay for putting people to death, waging war, the questionable activities of government agencies such as the CIA, etc., etc., so why should abortion be any different? This aspect of the issue should not be part of the conversation. And, if you have strong religious beliefs that preclude you from wanting to perform certain activities that may be related to a particular job junction, you should seek alternative employment, not expect special treatment or exemptions from work.
34
Because abortion funding is a political decision like all Congressional appropriations. You simply don’t have the votes and never have. While there remains widespread support for the CIA and death penalty. Otherwise, they’d be defunded.
Because most people go into medicine and nursing to save or prolong life, not to abort viable fetuses in healthy women. Only an extremist would demand medical professionals be required to participate in elective abortions.
If you strongly believe in elective abortion as birth control, gain the education and training to perform them. If you want poor women to have access to abortion, raise the private funding to provide it. Do you really want to get the government out of abortion decisions? Because it looks like you just want them to favor your position.
1
Abortion is a birth control. It is used when other birth controls failed. It could be because a lot of reasons: failure to use other birth controls or imperfections of other birth controls. In my mind it is not preferable birth control, but it does the job. Because it is much more risky than other birth controls, I think everybody who cares about women's health, should insure it happens rarely, but it should be freely available as an option when other options failed
21
@yulia what we need is more types of birth control, specifically for men. Men are the cause of pregnancy.
The views of people quoted for this piece, who claim to be Democrats but who oppose abortion, who claim to be ‘pro-women’ but would criminalise and constrain and endanger them, are not ‘nuanced’. The end point for their position is to deny a safe and free abortion to a woman who has chosen to have one and whose doctor has informed her of any attendant medical risks. The nuanced Democrat would insist she carries her pregnancy to term. Let the women concerned decide – what is extremist about that?
17
It depends entire on your view of what a child is before being born. If it is no different than a finger nail, there is nothing extreme about your position. If it is a human, then you are suggesting we let someone decide if someone else should live or die, which is extreme.
4
@Justin Raine
On any view the foetus is part of a woman's body. She on the other hand is a living, breathing, fully formed human being. If her community compels her to continue with her pregnancy then, deprived of dominion over her own body, she is a slave.
1
This issue is really much simpler than this article suggests. For people who state that they are opposed to abortion, the "nuance" that escapes them—it's not a nuance, it's a glaring error in their thinking—is that being opposed to abortion is not the same as being opposed to choice, which is what they too often really are. So let's be clear: nearly everyone is "opposed" to abortion, as it is nearly always fraught with heartbreak for whatever reason it becomes necessary. But the choice to have an abortion should belong to the woman regardless of the "values" held by others who would impose them on the unhappy woman who faces this medical and/or personal decision. Compassion and respect should be accorded to our fellow citizens; anything less smacks of Christian "Sharia Law."
16
I recently read that the majority of women today having abortions are over age 34. And for them, the pregnancy would be an inconvenience, for the most part.
How did we go from feeling the fear of a young girl - even young woman - seeing her life being changed by pregnancy - a pregnancy she did not want but unfortunately had taken no precaution to prevent, to older women being the ones who get abortions the most? Surely by age 34, one has managed to be on a reliable contraceptive if no children are wanted.
No, I am NOT talking about abortion due to rape, but due to women either being careless or realizing that a pregnancy was not going to move their live-in boyfriend of 10 years closer to marriage.
I am not opposed to abortion due to rape, incest or the mother's health. But carelessness? I thought years ago, everyone said that abortion should NOT be a form of birth control. Now, it not only is, with late term abortions, it's a form of wanting to be able to change ones mind. Surely it does not take a woman 6-8 months to decide whether or not she wants this baby.
11
I hear you labeling women careless. I hear you blaming the women. I think abortion is a hard personal choice. Our autonomy and right to privacy is what has helped us women come out and succeed in the world. This restrictive laws that are being passed are an attempt to control us women.
12
It's fun to assume that other people are simply careless, isn't it?
Your comment completely ignores the rates of birth defects and pregnancy complications, which rise rapidly in women over 35. Severe fetal deformities may not be detected until the 20 week ultrasound, and many serious complications don't occur until late in a pregnancy. With women delaying childbirth, the absolute rates of serious complications will rise.
23
Judgement about someone else’s choice is really abhorrent. Why on earth do you think your voice on this issue should be the only way? Who made your ideas about life the most respected, the most important? I truly don’t understand. Until we have walked in another’s shoes we have no right to judge. Keep yourself straight on your narrow road and leave women to be in charge of their own bodies. The decision in question is not an easy one, nor is it frivolous — as you seem to imply.
10
What "nuance?" The right has pushed all of the questions so far to the right over a very private healthcare right of women that only tragedy has ensued. Next time at a physician's office, try to imagine a political and religious force coming into the room and making decisions for you.
16
Being a Democrat and living in the U.S. means giving women a choice; that's not complicated. If a woman needs to make that decision, it might be complicated or not for her, but it's private and has nothing to do with anyone else.
24
Reasonable people can have complicated feelings about abortion. I do.
But we can’t make policy based on feelings. Policy hasn’t to be based on facts, and the facts are that keeping abortion legal is better than the alternative of backstreet illegal and likely unsafe abortions, not to mention allowing the state to control women’s reproductive rights.
I get why people are deeply uncomfortable with the idea. But many who want to ban abortion also don’t want to provide comprehensive sex education in middle school or fund programs for women and young children. Many of them also want to make it hard to women to access contraceptives. And then there is the religious and cultural stigma attached to single pregnancies, the lack of paid parental leave, and health insurance issues. Is it any wonder that some women opt out of motherhood?
So once again: the alternative to legal abortion is worse. If the right wants me to listen seriously to their “pro-life” stance, they need to stop caring about more than simply giving birth.
28
Not to pour oil on an already burning issue..
I see many comments that abortion is exclusively a woman's right and a man has no say in it.
Here's my problem with this, hopefully someone can explain this to me.
Say a man does not want to have the child because he cannot afford one.
Now don't give me, well he should have thought about that before he had sex. That is too late now isn't it, we are talking about when the woman has become pregnant.
What I hear is, if a woman feels she doesn't want to have the baby because she cannot afford it a good life, she can choose to abort. (I am not saying a woman will choose to abort for that reason.)
But a man cannot ask for an abortion when he feels he cannot afford a good life for the child. Did I understand that right so far?
Now what is the recourse for the man in that situation? If a man takes legal steps to let his wish be known to the woman, will he excused from child support for the baby after it is born?
This does not seem to be symmetric justice to me.
3
@Bhaskar Probably just to not pay child support, as I understand many men do.
5
Thanks for the clarification @Frances Grimble
So there is no legal liability to provide child support at all? Has there been a court ruling or a law passed to support that? The reason I ask is, just because many men do that, does not make it correct or legal.
@Bhaskar, both parents are required to support the child after it's born. For example, if a man decides to become the primary parent, then the mother pays child support, and vice-versa. This seems like symmetrical justice to me.
Your complaint is that you have no say in the abortion. You can certainly express your wishes to your partner, but the decision must be hers. You can't force someone to have an abortion.
1
I remember back in the 1990s when a group of feminists took out an expensive full-paged ad in the NYTimes proclaiming "CONGRESS IS TREATING WOMEN AS SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS". Nowhere in the ad did they explain what they were talking about, but having followed the political news, I could decode the ad. They were trying to pressure Congress not to renew the Hyde Amendment. It didn't work.
It was impossible to have an open, nuanced debate on abortion in the 1990s, and it's impossible now. Too many politicians on both sides find it convenient to create an atmosphere of hysteria.
2
Abortion is a personal choice and not an easy one at that. However, I do not believe the Democratic Party should adopt a policy of unqualified support of abortion. There are many Democrats, who for religious reasons do not support abortion. The whole issue should be left up to women, be they Democrats, Republicans or Independents. It should not be illegal though. State legislatures like Alabama's have chosen to behave in a punitive manner towards not only the women, who choose to have an abortion, but also the doctors and clinics, who give abortions. While I do not believe in abortion, criminalizing it is a crime in itself. Democrats should not take the same close-minded approach as the Alabama legislature. Abortion is an individual decision and should not be politicized. And, if the subject itself is ever to be permanently settled, it will be through the reasonable actions of women alone and not men.
4
Sigh.
Just support choice, okay?
As someone watching this debate from another country, I continue to be stunned by the amount of debate, discord, and energy that is put forward on this issue in the US. No other ‘first world’ country spends anywhere close to this amount of time, political capital, or legal handwringing on this topic. How many anti-choice Americans have read about the historical flip flopping on this subject, including within religious communities. This is one of the most polarized periods....why?
12
@Trippe My perception is that in the US, so much of wealth is now concentrated in the 1% that many of the 99% feel they do not have enough. Now different age groups each assert they are more deserving of jobs. Some people want to take away Social Security and Medicare, and some people want to take away food stamps and Medicaid. All on the grounds that they don't use those programs and assume they never will (even Social Security) so why pay for anyone else's use of them? Not wanting to pay for poor women to have abortions via the Hyde Amendment is part of that. But the greater part is that some men don't want to compete with women for jobs. Reducing women to baby carriers and minders full time, by illlegalizing abortion and then birth control, is a large step towards that.
8
Abortion is a tragedy. It is also none of my business, and none of anyone else's business. It is between a woman, her conscience, her maker, and her doctor. There is no room for me or anyone else in this decision.
23
You say it is a tragedy, but why? Is it a tragedy in every case? If so, that would imply that it is irregardless of the situation at hand.
It always boils down to the question: what is a baby before it is born? Is it a human? Do they have rights?
If it is not a human, where is the tragedy? If it is a human, they must have rights.
If they have rights, we as a society have a duty to defend their rights, especially if they are incapable of doing so themselves.
So, back to my question: why is it a tragedy?
1
@Justin Raine Before birth a baby is a zygote, fetus, or embryo. Medicine has determined the likely time of viability. Wikipedia: "According to studies between 2003 and 2005, 20 to 35 percent of babies born at 24 weeks of gestation survive, while 50 to 70 percent of babies born at 25 weeks, and more than 90 percent born at 26 to 27 weeks, survive." Of course, this does not take into account the medical problems the woman carrying the fetus may have. Nothing really mysterious about all this.
5
@Frances, yes, very true. I don’t mean to deny the facts and I suppose my question was naively stated.
I was more so trying to get at what is the source of the OP’s sense of tragedy? In my mind, life is inherently valuable and that’s is the source of the tragedy. That same believe leads me to think an unborn child is of the same moral value (and has the same human rights) as a newborn child. If that is conceded though, where does one draw the line of moral value of the unborn? At what point from sex to birth is the human-ness created? At birth? Viability? Earlier? Viability is intriguing, but brings about many questions as technology improves.
I don’t know the answer, but I don’t think the ‘human-ness’ happens suddenly at birth.
The OPs position of ‘tragedy but none of my business’ is curious to me. I’m worried the polarization prevents the moral questions from being asked. What is the source of the tragedy?
The State actions we’re seeing is not the answer though, neither is any dictate on what anyone can do with their own body. There needs to be more honest social debate (hard to imagine in the polarized, manipulates, and monetized state of things) and huge improvement to social services to support families (paid mat leave, affordable daycare, community resources) and conditions that lead women to feel like they have no other option.
1
I think the Republican party has lost credibility because in addition to being against legalized abortion, they have fought against access to healthcare and education funding. It is hard to believe that the Republican party actually cares about the fetuses themselves when they won't support the Affordable Care Act requiring health insurance to cover certain maternal care necessities. The Republican party has thus made it an issue of controlling women's bodies. I don't think we are ready to consider constraining abortion rights if we haven't gotten rid of barriers to wanting to give birth, for example. If you want to be considered pro life and not anti woman, you should start with the carrot rather than going straight to the stick. Because if you don't support families having what they need to be able to afford a child, for example, you are making it more likely that a woman who actually would prefer to have a child is more likely to get an abortion. I think this hypocrisy is why the debate seems so polarized.
11
Waiting periods are particularly bad policy because just about everyone agrees that if there are moral issues with abortion, they become more relevant the later it is in the pregnancy. I understand that for pro life people encouraging people to have an abortion earlier seems sort of horrifying, but you sure shouldn't be enacting policies to make abortions happen later! And if it is really about fetuses, why is there no full consensus that we should be providing free contraceptives? There is no non-religious reason to be against contraceptives. So it is hard to take abortion opponents in good faith when they don't even like contraceptives. Then it really does seem like pushing your religion on others. I an a vegetarian but I don't go around saying meat should be illegal. I understand that in a society, laws should come from consensus. Many vegetarians work to make sure restaurants have vegetarian options. Most vegetarians do not go around harassing people who are just trying to buy food that will feed their families. Maybe abortion opponents should try that approach. What about all the women who would prefer not to have an abortion but feel they have to because of the cost of childcare? If Republicans are so pro life, why is it that Democrats are more likely to support helping with childcare?
16
This debate will go on for years. I believe that justices on the Supreme Court and future justices will never ever determine if life begins at conception based on both science and religious arguments to the contrary.
@Onward Thru the Fog But, medical science has already determined when a fetus is probably viable. The soul is a purely religious concept and the US has separation of church and state, therefore our courts should never rule on whether it exists and when.
5
Once again, the public is distracted from its serious economic and climate problems in order to go round and round about moral issues. On and on we fiddle about bathrooms, slavery, abortions, and affronts to various communities, as our Rome and spaceship Earth burns to the ground.
10
When you talk to people about pregnancy - whether wanted or not, whether it comes to term or not - every single one, and the circumstances, is different and personal. Miscarriages can cause a lifetime of emotional pain, or enormous relief. Abortion can create a lifetime of guilt, or enormous relief. Birth can be joyous and enriching, or it can create horrible stress, increase poverty and break up families. Why would anyone, ever, want government to make the decision when a woman should bear a child? Think of it- our government? It can't even pass legislation! And it does an abysmal job of protecting the born child it supposedly so treasured when he or she was a clump of cells.
16
There’s an easy answer. These decisions can only belong to the woman involved.
17
The morality of having an abortion is never discussed, only the "It's murder" morality. Yet there is a strong moral case for abortion. Every abortion, and every adoption, is unique, but all things being equal having a child you know you cannot take care of is immoral; having a child whom you know you are going to place in the hands of a stranger is immoral; having a child who will be at the mercy of an abusive,cruel, or irresponsible person is immoral as is having a child whose life will be suffering. A woman's responsibility is to protect the child she bears, and it's the father's responsibility too. Even if the woman must make the final decision, the man has many moral responsibilities toward the child from its conception on.
5
You don’t seem to refute the “it’s murder” morality, more so just accurately acknowledge that having a child isn’t inherently moral (immoral things can happen after birth, as you’ve pointed out).
Wouldn’t that imply though, that *getting pregnant* was the immoral part? If you can’t support a child, then you have two immoral options: abortion or some post-birth immoral fate.
I think that’s a required conclusion, but incorrect.
While I agree that immoral things can happen post-birth, that is not assured. The immorality of “it’s murder”, though, is more inescapable. There is nothing inherently immoral about suffering. Many people live with joy in countries and conditions far worse than the US. Many adopted kids live wonderful lives.
It is never immoral to give birth to a child, but it doesn’t mean injustice won’t happen in life. There IS a moral duty as a society, however, of minimizing those injustices. Free contraceptives, free/cheap daycare, social programs, racial equality, and the list goes on...
The conservative pro-lifers also love their guns and they fight all forms of gun regulation. My Idaho GOP Congressman, Russ Fulcher, is a textbook example.
So I find these pro-lifers' argument against abortion a cruel joke given they allow our children to be used as target practice in their schools by one sick creature after another.
17
The most important thing is that a women gets support for which ever choice she makes.
I live in the UK and women have the back up they need when situations like these arise.
They have free abortions...free contraceptives...free morning after pill...any male or female can walk into a clinic and get free condoms. There are Family Planning Clinics that they can go to and talk about decisions they choose to take...but above all they are not made to feel bad about what there choice is...I just wish there was a NHS in the USA.
16
I am an agnostic but was raised in the evangelical branch of the Christian faith, so I have some understanding of where many people of faith come from regarding the issue.
Psalm 139
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in ithe depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
If you believe this writing, you will believe that life begins at conception in a world overseen by an omniscient and omnipresent creator. No amount of political contortion will overcome someone’s reservations as they see abortion as murder of an unborn child.
My personal take is that in 2019 there should not be many instances where and abortion is necessary and like President Clinton once said, it should be safe, legal and rare. I have no confidence that this will be the case in my lifetime. Our Supreme Court has been stacked with members of the Catholic Church by Republicans in part because of the bright line drawn concerning abortion. Any conservative Catholic is going to be anti-abortion at least on a personal level. Most Americans are neither conservative or Catholic and are not represented on SCOTUS.
7
I can envision dozens of scenarios where a pregnant woman might need (or want) to be delivered of her pregnancy between 6 and 9 months ( After termination of the pregnancy, the pre-term infant would be given supportive care or comfort care only, depending on the specifics of the infant’s health...) I am 100% supportive of this.
But why would an _abortion_ ever be performed between 6 and 9 months?
2
@GBR
For the obvious reason that a change in health status occurs, either for the woman or for the child.
Just because you can afford to raise a child with disabilities or other expensive health problems doesn't mean that's feasible for everyone.
Cancer diagnoses are growing fastest in women of child-bearing age. Why shouldn't the woman have a choice to get cancer treatment?
3
@Viv
Re: a cancer diagnosis - Sure, so the woman can be delivered of her pregnancy early and she can undergo chemo etc. The preterm infant may or may not survive the induced pre-term termination of the pregnancy. This would not be an abortion, just early delivery of the fetus.
Re: child with possible non-life threatening disabilities: Abortion after the point of viability in this setting doesn’t sit well with many folks. It’s got the eugenics vibe about it.
1
I have often thought that the moral dilemma the pregnant woman faces is unexplored and overlooked. As a moderate Democrat, I support Roe and first trimester abortion.
But I also think there should be more readily available independent, non-religious counseling where a woman can, without pressure, be given options. The old days of women being supported through unwanted pregnancies, and guided through appropriate adoptions, still seems a very good alternative if women so choose. There are indeed many loving people looking to adopt and this option, in addition to the option of legal early abortion, represents a possible middle ground.
That to me would really create "choice" and perhaps solve much of this unending conflict.
3
I am one of the 1% who have had an abortion into the second trimester (22 weeks). I understand the moral struggle because I myself had a hard time wrapping my heart around ending a very much wanted and loved pregnancy. My son had a severe open neural tube defect that multiple drs said was so severe, it was likely incompatible with life. After multiple drs and lots of tests and scans, we decided to end our baby’s life in order to save him from what would have been a very painful very short life (if he survived to term). It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make but I do not regret it and know that we did the most compassionate act possible for our son. We as a society need to de-stigmatize abortion and speak out about our experiences if we ever hope to make this Not a polarizing political issue.
62
Most of us (polls say about 70%) are between the two extremes of "Always" or "Never" that continue to suck all the oxygen out of the room.
It is not inconsistent to see a need for abortion-on-demand during the first few months and be dead set against elective abortion much thereafter.
At a point where an assuredly healthy baby could be born by Caesarian, the case for legal abortion is quite weak and the case for protecting the life of the prospective infant is strongest.
When abortion advocates try to demonize those who would accept 1st trimester abortions but oppose those in the last months, they run the risk of alienating nearly everyone.
But that seems to be the litmus test in the Democratic Party in 2019, and it is no more appealing than the insanity in Alabama.
7
@Kevin, you misunderstand the position of the Democratic Party.
I know of no candidate who supports elective abortion after the fetus is viable. That's simply illegal, and no one wants to make it legal. No one is demonizing those who oppose elective abortion in the last months--in fact, that's the party's position.
In short, the position of most Democrats is to support Roe, which is a nuanced compromise that allows elective abortion prior to viability and strict regulation of abortion in the final months. The article is misleading in that it implies an absolutist position for Democrats, but when candidates say "No compromise," they're talking about no compromise regarding support for Roe.
1
@Kevin Roe vs. Wade is the litmus test, and that is not what Roe vs. Wade says.
Perhaps this will sound simplistic, and I will no doubt be roundly "called out" here for asking the question, but here I go. (I would first like to make it very clear that, although I am spiritually inclined, "religion" has no influence on my beliefs, and that I don't think that abortions should be illegal under any and all circumstances. And, in case anyone would like to accuse me of caring more about the life of a fetus than I do about other human beings, I have spent much of my life doing social work, and working as an individual, trying to help improve the lives of the homeless, substance users, and people with AIDS.)
So here it is: would those of you who claim that a fetus who would not be able to survive outside the womb is cannot be considered more than a "cluster of cells" have any difficulty destroying a nest full of birds' eggs? A baby bird would not be likely to survive being out of its egg until it hatches on its own. In my opinion, it would be a ghastly and cruel thing to do because I would consider them living creatures. But maybe that's just me.
Full disclosure: I had an abortion in college. Afterwards, the doctor made me look at what he had taken from my body, and it looked nothing like a mere cluster of cells. The image has haunted me ever since.
So have at it.
5
@NGB I do not have to carry those birds through nine months of pregnancy, at risk to my own health, nor care for and financially support them for the next 20 years or so. If I did have to care for those birds that long, I'd destroy the nest. I frequently eat eggs, after all. As for lifetime regrets: There are times I regret not having had a different major in college and embarked on a different career. But I did what I did, it's turned out OK, and having a different career might not have worked out as well. I don't believe in spending my life regretting what-ifs.
21
@Frances Grimble , not to quibble, but I assume that all those eggs that you (and I) eat are not fertilized and have no baby birds inside of them.
I can see your point about the birds becoming your responsibility for years, but, as for me, I still could never do it. (Of course, I once brought home an injured pigeon I found on the street, thinking she wouldn't survive the day. She could neither stand, walk, nor fly, but she ended up living with us for almost 15 years. I suppose there are people who would think it was cruel to keep her alive, but she was responsive, affectionate, and apparently quite content. I miss her very much. I suppose I've strayed off topic, but you made me think of that.)
As far as regrets are concerned, I guess everyone is different.
2
@NGB, it sounds like your doctor was very judgmental. Shame on him. I'm sorry that he traumatized you when you needed his understanding.
Do you remember why you decided on an abortion? Do you believe that other young women should be given the choice to decide? Would you have been happier if you had been forced to have the child?
1
"Ms. Smith-Holmes, who works for a day care center in the Allentown neighborhood of Pittsburgh and votes Democratic, said there should be limits. And she is not comfortable with the idea of taxpayer money going to fund abortions — a position that has become almost impossible to hold in the Democratic presidential primary."
____________________
It's 2019, wake up. Nonsense to claim opposition to the Hyde Amendment, which Biden just flip flopped on and now opposes, along with other main Democrats running for POTUS.
Choice and women's Constitutional rights is the issue.
Barbara Bush supported abortion rights.( It's 2019.)
12
As a lapsed Catholic, I pray that there will never be a need for another abortion. As a realist, though, I know that my plea is like a plea for an end to poverty and hunger. Until we can reach that Nirvana, mustn't we help those who need help, and will seek it whether or not we help them?
3
“She was pregnant with twins when she said the doctors discovered one had a form of spina bifida and advised her to abort. She declined and the baby, a girl, died shortly after birth. But doctors were able to use her heart valves to save two other infants.”
And this is considered a good outcome? I have to admit that, as open minded as I try to be, it’s hard for me to understand how someone can justify bringing a child into the world knowing it will only ever experience pain and suffering before being harvested for parts.
25
And you don’t think such a well developed fetus experiences pain during an abortion? If you’re actually pro-choice, you’d respect her decision to deliver to full term and try to save the baby. For the two infants saved, it was a good outcome for them.
4
@H
No, of course not. The recommendation to abort such a fetus happens in following screens early in pregnancy.
I’m not even going to touch the horrendous ethical implications of making medical
decisions based on the “good outcomes” which might come to those who receive organ and tissue transplants from patients we “save” in this way.
5
OK. You're a happily married couple in your late 40's.You got married in tour early 20's, have three children in or heading off to college, and it happens. Your wife is pregnant! You both love your children beyond measure. You're in a fair amount of debt for helping your children get the education they need and you're seriously thinking about a retirement that would arise just when this new child would require help for college. What to do? This without doubt is your child. But that about your other children and yourselves? What about grandchildren that could be born with a year or so of their aunt or uncle? Life is complicated without doubt and these material issues are not trivial, a child versus a possibly more certain future. And the government sticks its rigid, legalistic and alien nose into the intimate issues you and your family are struggling with? If morality is the issue, keep the law simple. Let people decide for themselves. It's not your business no matter what you may think otherwise. Too simplified a case? every abortion is a version of tis however different it may seem.
28
In the case you describe, it’s easy to ensure that one won’t get pregnant. It’s called vasectomy or tubal ligation. If you fail to do this, then live with the consequences of your irresponsibility. If you find that scenario inconvenient, then give up the child to adoption.
1
What happened to responsibility? Cause and effect? Yes, a baby in that scenario would complicate life. No doubt! But why shouldn’t it? Your “oops” just created life. There is no undo button, just different ways to move forward, each with their own cause and effect.
Calling abortion a woman's issue is wrong.
It is a mother's issue.
Women who have not been through the experience of pregnancy or birth are as much qualified as men, gays and transgenders to talk about abortion.
But then that reduces the number of voters to influence, and has less incentive in politics.
2
Jeannie Wallace French, oppose abortion? Don't have one. Oppose it politically, work on functional public policies, amenable to step wise refinement, that approach a '0' state for any woman having to face a decision that most, in my limited experience, find catastrophically horrendous.
Until you work on the 2nd you have as much right to a voice in the policy debate as my dog, I'm sure he as an opinion, confident that at right time, appropriate conditions it might be interesting. At this moment it carries no forensic weight in this 'debate' (which has never been a 'debate' about either 'life' or 'abortion' in any case). Until you get beyond religious bias neither does yours.
8
Actually, bring God to the discussion of abortion is really contraproductive. We can not ask God directly about what he wants, and why he sends the innocent baby to the woman who doesn't want to have the baby. Woman could always claim that God told her to have an abortion. Of course, it is impossible to check, but it is also impossible to check. that God doesn't want her to have abortion. At the end of the day, the matter of
abortion is between women and God, not between woman and those who speaks for God. If God is so mighty and so caring, he could speak directly with the woman. Why does He need a middle man with trust issues?
5
@yulia
How true. But God’s, Spiritual or Religious Guidance may factually (material evidence) be offered in Sacred Texts (Proofs not Hearsay’s ). As to whether one ‘believes’ such evidence & proofs are of Supernatural origin or Truths is a ‘personal’ opinion.
1
Being a single gay man, I have very little insight into a woman's view of this issue. So can't say what "must be right" as everyone seems to be searching.
Instead we should consider what is PRACTICAL. Women must have a last resort to protect them from a pregnancy for any number of reasons it may go wrong or be a bad outcome. This means a legal way must exist for an abortion.
The pro-lifers I think may be most concerned with the idea of "Termination for Convenience", in which a woman simply gets pregnant, carelessly from casual sex any number of times, and gets abortions with government funding. This is the extreme view, but obviously not implausible. The analog to this is the cocaine-addict who obtains heart-valve replacements, but then goes back on cocaine and needs another operation (at great cost both to society, surgeons, and themselves).
Best to find a middle road to avoid termination for convenience, pre-birth infanticide, and still preserve a last resort right for a legal abortion.
3
This article is really odd to me. Legal abortions does not equal "Abortions for everyone!" It just literally takes the government out of what is otherwise (as pointed out by the article) a very personal and emotionally and morally complex choice.
19
Language has gotten garbled here. This is not about abortion or not abortion, it's about choice. Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion, it means giving pregnant women the right to choose what is best for them -- not their families, not men, not other women, not religions, or some interpretation of religions. Pro-choice has to do with a fundamental right in the modern world, the right to self-determination. Only I get to decide what's right for me. By the way, the person writing this is a man. If my daughter were to come to me asking my advice I might say many things pro and con about having an abortion. But it would not be my decision!
27
Who seriously thinks that anyone will usurp the right to unfettered access to choice for women in California? One would try at their own peril. Ain't gonna happen even if they overturn Roe vs. Wade.
4
@Frank, if Roe is overturned, the anti-choice crowd will try to get a law passed in Congress outlawing abortion nationwide. They'll keep coming.
My theory is that a group that has been denied its say for a period tends to get carried away when they do have their chance to propose politcies. You see it among the Democrats, embracing new economic reforms that they once considered too "socialistic". And the Republicans, dropping incest and rape exceptions when voting abortion bans.
The Supreme Court deserves some blame as well. Instead of encouraging nuanced debate about what abortions should be allowed, they came up with the most extreme decision they could think of "abortion on demand, and voters have no say in the matter". Difficult to come back to nuanced discussion after that..
1
@Charlesbalpha, I disagree. Roe is a nuanced decision since it permits elective abortions only until viability, then allows states to regulate late-term abortions. (There is no abortion on demand after the fetus is viable.)
There's also the question about whether another person's rights should be decided by majority vote. The Supreme Court is the correct place to decide constitutional issues.
1
The real issue here is that Republicans, who say they want to stop abortions, don't seem to have any real interest in doing anything to help reduce unwanted pregnancies -- other than promote abstinence, which is proven to be ineffective because -- let's state the obvious -- people have sex.
So, Republicans want to stop abortions (by women), but don't want to do anything to help women avoid unwanted pregnancies by providing better access to birth control (to women), because people (women) should, instead, stop having sex.
It's misogyny cubed.
22
@fact or friction
Did you mean friction or fiction? If the latter.
All fictions are also facts. Respectfully, suggest you change your moniker to: True or False
Ex. The fact that someone lies to you or about you is a fact. Further whether such was done mistakenly or intentionally is of equal importance. Great novels & movies of fiction do in fact entertain us intentionally on purpose.
"Pro-Life" is an offensive term created by the radical right. To say one is "pro-life" in it's political context suggests that anyone who favors choice is implicitly anti-life.
Let's re-frame the debate into what it ought to be: Pro-choice or Anti-choice.
I know women who have had an abortion. I don't think anyone is pro-abortion, but the decision to end a pregnancy is no one's business but the individuals involved.
21
As a long-time legal scholar, let me say that there is no other "issue" that is less "complicated." If we believe that the Constitution means what it says, our government shall not prefer ("establish") one religion over another. In fact, the dictates of our Constitution mandate that our government remains secular. A secular government's only legitimate interest in abortion comes down to legislating against homicide. Some day in the future, perhaps medical science will be able to keep an embryo alive to term. Until then, we are left with viability only up to about 22-24 weeks. The government simply has no business dealing with abortion before viability.
14
@Farmer D
“Viability” as you’ve remarked relates to a scientific and legal definition but not necessarily a religious one. All plants, animals, micros, etc. as well as humans are all life forms with two basic innate biological qualities: self reproduction and the emission of detectable energy. Regarding the latter many inanimate things can also produce energy i.e. batteries. Respectfully, to be human or having personhood for billions worldwide is viewed as a ‘special’ Creation by timely Divine Intervention that distinguishes us from all other life-forms.
1
“I think that if you do not express any moral doubt about any aspect of abortion nobody trusts you,” she said. “You are so far from the sensibility of women who actually have abortions.”
It is for this reason that abortion needs to be strictly the dominion of women. Democrats have come to the realization that government involvement only makes a difficult situation impossible.
8
Unfortunately we Americans debate issues as if they are separate from each other and not, in reality, connected. If all the folks who are anti-abortion, or have misgivings, would support unlimited access to women's healthcare and birth control, abortion would be extremely rare. But we give in to companies like Hobby Lobby, and lawmakers who want to run Planned Parenthood out of business. We supply unlimited amounts of Viagra to vets, but deny women sexual healthcare. Really America....enough.
13
upper middle class people will always be able to get the safe abortion they feel they need regardless of the law in place.
We should all be very clear that those harmed by restrictions are predominately poor women/girls who can't afford another child, who can't provide the care necessary for a disabled child or terminally ill child.
Planned Parenthood has worked ceaselessly to help bring down the number of unplanned pregancies plus all the other side health care they provide. Pro-life could earn my respect if they would work hard on raising the minimum wage so that poverty isn't the reason why someone seeks to abort.
The #Metoo has highlighted how many of us were sexually abused as children, how many were victims of rape/inces. Let's take care of the children we have before we start denying women bodily autonomy.
14
Beware, anti-choicers: a government that can force you to stay pregnant can also one day force you to abort a pregnancy or get sterilized. Why? Because you gave them the power to control your body. Your body now belongs to the state. And it’s already happened in recent history. Beware of unintended consequences. Once you give the government power over your body, things can go either way - forced pregnancy or forced abortions/sterilization.
17
If someone is having an abortion at 5 months it is almost surely because of health reasons (the mother or the fetus) and is, for the parents tragic. However in the few cases where it is not, it is most likely because of the difficulty the woman had in finding a place and jumping through all the many hoops, like in mississippi.
8
No less than Rev. Theodore Hesburgh of Notre Dame talked about the importance of respect for others with different opinions. Demonizing those with different opinions allows delicious righteous indignation, but it is currently destroying us.
3
We need not respect the opinions of those who would rob women of their human right to control their own bodies. I respect people who mind their own bodies. Mess with my body and you got yourself a big problem.
The so-called pro-choicers today are heavy with simple declarations, followed by "End of story!", "full stop" and "P.E.R.I.O.D.!". I think they're feeling the tenuousness of their argument and its lack of popular support.
4
@Wine Country Dude, what are you talking about?
According to the NBC/PBS/Marist poll released last Friday, 73 percent of American want the Supreme Court to keep Roe v Wade in place; 13 percent want it overturned; and 11 percent are unsure.
That's pretty overwhelming support for choice.
2
Perhaps if the argument was “should the government have the power to force women bear children against their will” people would think differently.
14
It’s not hard to understand the data. When abortion is criminalized, or access to it is arbitrarily restricted, the mortality rate spikes among both women, and newborns.
When someone’s agonizing over the morality of someone else’s private decisions, the issue at hand is not one that needs to be enshrined into law.
6
I was 17, my girlfriend was 15. She got pregnant. Telling our parents wasn’t easy but I was willing to be a father even though I was 9 months from graduating high school. It was 1977. The decision for her was obviously much more difficult. The stigma of being pregnant at 15 could not allow her to continue at school, at least when she started to show. Her step mother decided it would be best to terminate the pregnancy and she got an abortion without involving me. The day she told me I dropped to my knees and wept. Probably an unusual reaction for a 17 year old but I had fallen so deeply in love with her, I was willing to make the sacrifice. Fast forward 42 years and we have three grown children and 5 grandkids. Parenting our children was challenging, no question, but on the other side of parental stress, we have found the joy of becoming grandparents. As I hold those grandchildren today, we find our thoughts drifting back to 1977 and wonder, what kind of brother or sister would that aborted fetus have been? What kind of mother or father would our real first child have been? The worst part of it is there will be no reunion, only regrets. The life that could have been is only a vapor in our imagination but the guilt and sadness remains. We did what we were told but at the end of it all we feel great loss for the decision we really had no say in. As our great grandchildren look back on our lineage, there will be one permanently missing branch of the family tree
96
@Tiger
You sound like you are wonderful parents. Were you and and girlfriend, now wife, able to complete school and provide a better life for your 3 kids? The one universal truth that guarantees that a child will live in poverty is to be born to a teenage mother. I would guest that less than 5% of all teenage couples who get pregnant are still together in their 20's. My major problem for the anti abortion group is that they presume to make decisions for everyone else. More importantly, they deny a woman control of her body.
78
@Tiger
While it is wonderful that you have a large and loving family, it boggles my mind when couples romanticize the creation of a baby. Any fertile couple can have a baby....or 10 or 20 babies. I had a helper in a 3rd world country who had had 13 children. If one worked hard at it, couples could conceivable have about 20 kids.
Consider, perhaps, the noble loving thing is to have fewer children and take better care of the ones you have.
63
@Tiger
I know. I had three miscarriages and I mourn those potential lives, too.
But I still would never ever ever fit e a woman to be pregnant if she didn’t want to be....
54
At the risk of angering everyone ... Roe v. Wade was a flawed decision IMO because it settled a moral/human rights question on our medical technological capability. The decision said at 6 months, a child is viable outside the womb, therefore it is legally a separate person, has rights, and can't be aborted. Relying on the state of the art in medical capability and technology to define the start of an unborn child's rights is deeply disturbing to many people, myself included. We have been struggling with this decision ever since.
Can I also point out that when we tie ourselves and the government in knots over these culture issues, we are not finding solutions to solve problems that affect almost everyone -- like funding social security, establishing universal healthcare, regulating the cost of healthcare and prescriptions, promoting fair wages, and providing access to low-cost excellent higher education. Distraction is the means to keep taxes low and regulation at a minimum. Think that's accidental?
3
@Helen I agree that there are many important issues to address. But the Democratic Party is addressing those. They have not dropped everything in favor of addressing women's civil rights and equality--which is what the abortion issue is all about. Nonetheless, women's rights and equality are very important to women. Who are 50% of voters.
8
I was raped as a 15-year-old virgin, became pregnant and because of circumstances, was forced to give birth to my rapists' child.
Later in life, although using birth control, became pregnant and had an abortion.
And yes, it's incredibly complicated, but I can tell you with 100 percent assurance that the forced birth practically broke me as a person, and still today, 45 years later I suffer mightily, and mostly silently, from being forced to give birth.
I tell young women who work for Republicans, I will fight with everything I have for them to have a baby, if what is their choice.
And I tell these same young women that if they were to become pregnant and did not want to carry through a pregnancy, I will fight with everything I have to give them that choice.
Yes, it's complicated so one side needs to quit telling the other side, whether intra-party or inter-party, that having a choice is paramount, period.
344
I am a Democrat and usually vote that way. Of course in Alabama my vote normally does not affect the outcome of any race.
I was not that concerned about the abortion issue until recently when Alabama in my opinion went too far by essentially saying no abortions will be allowed in the future. That is wrong in my opinion. I really think the system we now have works and should be left alone.
9
Of course it's not "complicated." Women absolutely have to be in control of their own bodies, or they have no freedom at all.
The Roe v. Wade decision stated that late abortion can be regulated. But many women now are forced into late abortions by the many roadblocks set up in many states, cf. Missouri, where only a court decision prevented the closing of the sole remaining abortion clinic in that large state! Imagine a poor woman trying to get the money together for an out-of-state clinic visit, especially since the regulations often require two or three days' delay.
So often women who have abortions are trying to save their own lives and the futures of the children they already have. For them, the choice is more than obvious.
21
The author implies that Democratic candidates have taken absolutist positions on abortion. That's flat-out false.
The Democratic candidates, including those quoted (Gillibrand, Sanders and Buttigieg) take the position that there can be no compromise on support for Roe. Roe v Wade does not support abortion on demand in the third trimester--in fact, every state strictly limits so-called late-term abortions.
The pro-choice side is on the defense. They're NOT trying to pass laws that make it legal to have a late-term abortion on demand. There is no equivalent among pro-choice states to the draconian laws being passed in anti-choice states.
Roe v Wade is the centrist position for most Americans. That's what we need to defend. I think Democratic candidates are reflecting this reality when they say there can be no compromise on Roe.
26
In my 60s, and very tired of this debate. I support the right for a woman to choose, but if some conservative states want to ban abortion, so be it. If the voters in those states don’t care, then I don’t either. And as a donor to PP, I’d suggest thinking of work-arounds for women who need and want abortions - such as a free bus ride to a blue state.
9
@Sarasota I'm in my 60s too. Forced-birthers have announced their intention to attack the right to abortion in states that have passed laws affirming its legality. And I care about other women who are still fertile.
3
We pay for the healthcare of poor women. Legal medical procedures they decide to undergo should be a decision left solely to the patient and their doctor.
12
Planned Parenthood and NARAL are the two leading abortion advocacy groups. Both have been led by women for many years. The fact of the matter is that women care the most about abortion policy. The relationship between women and their pregnancies is of far greater importance to them than it is to men. The abortion debate mostly consists of one group of women against the other. The Supreme Court is an exception to the rule. But chances are that. if women were overwhelmingly pro-choice, the Court wouldn't stand in their way. Women are sharply divided on the abortion issue, and so the resolution of the debate remains a close question.
4
I could take the conservative position more seriously if they actually were willing to help pay for care, feeding and education.
15
@Sarasota You seem to forget who pays for food stamps, subsidized housing, Medicaid, and public education. So stop with the nonsense about what conservatives don’t pay for.
5
@Jackson, c'mon. The GOP regularly cuts funding for food stamps, subsidized housing, public education and other benefits. When they tried to repeal the ACA in 2017, they included drastic cuts (40 percent) to Medicaid funding.
And why repeal the ACA, which guarantees pregnancy and well-child coverage? How is that consistent with supporting life?
2
Really, really tired of this ever present "both sides are so strident". It is not true.
Those of us that believe in a woman's right to chose believe women should be in charge of these very difficult decisions, while the other side holds their own religious beliefs should dictate what medical options a pregnant female can access. One side is trying to stick their noses into other women's healthcare decisions, while the other side just wants to ensure pregnancy is treated like every single other medical decision an adult makes- if it is your body, it is your call. So if everyone can just learn to mind their own business where others' healthcare decisions are concerned, yes even for females, then there will be no strident response from the left.
14
I understand that there are many whose religious and ethical/moral values find abortion completely objectionable. I find that anyone determining for me, and by extension any other sentient being, what medical procedures may be performed on my body as the most basic infringement of my human rights. When people choose NOT to donate their organs at death I find that horribly objectionable but I am not demanding a law that requires it. No law forces a woman to have an abortion, it is a matter to be determined by the woman and her physician. Whether her personal decision is the correct one as determined by an outsiders personal values is irrelevant. Our government already has for too much power over the decisions of individuals, giving them this power makes all of us less free.
15
I'm a 36 year-old married man, a middle-class professional in a two-income household. I've never thought it was that complicated.
If you are a man, and abortion goes against your religious beliefs, than discuss that with your partner early on. If there's disagreement, you can either walk away from the relationship or decide it's not that important to you.
If you're a man, and the woman you love unexpectedly gets pregnant and unexpectedly has an abortion over your attempts to persuade her otherwise, you can walk away from the relationship.
If you're a woman, and abortion goes against your religious beliefs, then you can carry an unplanned pregnancy to term and either reconfigure your life or put the child up for adoption.
If you're a woman, and you're not ready to have a baby, you can have an abortion.
I know everyone says, "but it's nuanced, it's difficult, it's grey," and on and on, but is it? Is it really? How about knowing the mind of your partner and otherwise minding your own business?
24
I just want to help you see a little bit of the pro-life perspective based on what you’ve stated.
I think that pro-choicers are motivated by compassion by and large. Compassion to women who find themselves in extremely difficult situations. I think that’s commendable and that most republicans have A LOT to learn on that front.
And of course, I think that freedom and choice are almost always the right thing to give people. Our government should only step in when that choice is going to hurt others.
We would never applaud anyone who in the 1800s fought to uphold slaveholders’ choice to own slaves. There is a huge moral error there. It was right and it was good that eventually that choice was taken away. Because it was hurting people. People who, at that time, had no voice.
The way that pro-lifers see things is that there is a third party. A small body that is not getting any choice of what is happening to him/her.
Most pro-life people are not obsessed with controlling women, but are motivated, also, by compassion.
If you stop and look at this little third party who has no choice. And who is being hurt. Abortion becomes very complicated indeed.
2
It should also be noted that the so-called heartbeat bills are flawed. A "heartbeat" or beating cell is detected before an actual heart is formed in the fetus. A lot of people have a lot of opinions and don't really know science or ethics. The assumption that the heart somehow indicates personhood or soulhood is something that these so-called ethical legal experts cannot prove, yet they wish to thrust their religious beliefs on others. Women have a right to control their own bodies and to believe their own beliefs.
10
Joe Biden flip flopped on this issue and may have to flip flop again if he makes it past the primary. Thing is, Democrats are less forgiving than Republicans when it comes to flip flopping.
3
The basic, underlying problem with those who tend to support a more extreme pro-life position is how little they end up caring for that life after it is born.
There is no sense of real continuity when taking that kind of position and, as a result, they are placing an undue burden on the mother, her circumstances and, at times, the kind of childhood that baby might end up having.
They are completely disconnected from the end results of that kind of decision making process and the end result of that kind of genetic crapshoot because babies do not choose the circumstances they are born into and they should not be subjected to a kind of life they will have absolutely no control over if it turns out badly.
Furthermore, because those who support more extreme pro life positions have no real connection to that life, then what exactly are they saving and for whom?
Should they not share in the burden in the raising of that child if the mother and maybe father is not able to support that baby properly? How about providing them with better living conditions, better diet, better schools and overall better opportunity? Our foster care system is also far from perfect and frequently failing these children as well.
You want to save babies, then save the ones that are already living!
Show that you care!
The number of abortions are now at their lowest level since the Roe vs. Wade decision. Education and birth control has made this happen.
Why change course now?
11
I find this piece incomplete insofar as there is no discussion of the highly negative influence of extremist Republican anti-abortion positions/legislation, allowing no exceptions for rape and incest, upon the growing "absolutist" abortion rights movement. A strong argument can be made that the former has directly given "birth" to the latter. When women are so unfairly and grotesquely punished for being a true victim of actual criminality, is it any wonder that there is a strong and defiant counter reaction?
6
@John Grillo, while I agree that the movement to protect Roe was spurred by extreme anti-abortion legislation, I'm not clear on what pro-choice absolutism is.
I think the author is making a false equivalence. It sounds like he means that support for Roe is an absolutist position.
Any true conservative has to acknowledge a women's right to choose and to keep government out of the bedroom. What is somewhat more nuanced and ought to be fairly debated is whether that right translates into a government requirement for funding abortion, or men being required to support an unwanted pregnancy.
6
One’s political views around the abortion issue are often tied to one’s beliefs surrounding physical bodies and souls. If more of us were to believe that the soul does not attach or commit to the body until quite late in pregnancy, abortion would clearly be seen as a woman’s decision related to self-determination - not infanticide. And what logically follows is protection of those rights. However, women are still not seen as equals in our society, nor is this reflected in our laws. This is still primarily and fundamentally about men’s need to retain power over women.
4
@A. Human Being And about the need to infantilize adult women. As unable to be "responsible" about birth control, as unable to control their sexual impulses, as unable to make their own moral decisions. Their concerns about their health, income, ability to care for a child, and future are dismissed as trivial. I am continually struck by the fact that forced-birthers blatantly ignore the fact that many married women have abortions, usually with the support of their husbands. Because that does not fit their narrative.
6
I’ve come to believe that abortion is an issue about which only women should be allowed a say, to debate and make decisions. Most western moral theory has been conceived and articulated by men who can have no idea what is to conceive and give birth; they have no experiential knowledge of it whatsoever. Certainly they have no practical insight that there is a significant difference in giving birth physically and being a mother, I.e. a loving parent.
Among the men who have been in the forefront of framing the terms of the current debate on abortion are Catholic prelates who have allowed children under their care to be molested by their fellow clerics while at the same condemning women desperate for reasons of personal health to terminate unplanned pregnancies. Is this really the group we want to be responsible for defining our public policy?
9
This issue is polarizing because it really is a binary question: is a fetus a "human" deserving of protection under the law? I don't think so, but acknowledge that many of the pro-life people do believe this in good faith, and don't see a difference between aborting a fetus and killing a 6-month old infant. Given that background it's hard to find common ground on the issue these days.
2
I disagree. Even if you consider fetus as a child, you still have a woman who is definitely a person. And as a person she has the right to decide how to use her body. Unless society decides that saving human lives beats the right of people over their body (mandatory blood and organs donation) you can not force woman to donate her body to fetus.
There is nothing complicated about it. You either believe a woman is a fully formed human being with rights and autonomy or you think she's an incubator controlled by the whim of the state.
Pick your position. And pick wisely because you may not be able to take it back.
13
Everyone will agree with me that a newborn baby is alive and is undoubtedly a human being. Everyone with any sense will also agree that an unfertilized egg maybe alive but is certainly not human. The basic disagreement seems to be exactly when this unfertilized egg becomes human, or when it becomes wrong to kill it. Some say at conception, some say at birth, Supreme Court says at viability.
I would suggest that it doesn't matter. There is nothing intrinsically sacred about human life, so when someone/something becomes human is irrelevant. There are over 7.5 billion of us currently infesting this once fair planet of ours, and 360,000 more of us are being born every single day. We are choking the life out of our planet with our numbers.
Once a woman, any woman, becomes pregnant, getting an abortion is without doubt the most environment friendly thing she can do in her entire life. A mass transit loving, vegan ecowarrior with one kid will end up emitting more carbon than someone who eats steak everyday and drives an SUV but is childless, if you consider the impact of her kid and future descendants.
So abortion is without doubt a good thing, and so is anything else that will reduce our unsustainable numbers.
7
@A Cynic when two human beings reproduce, their product of conception cannot be anything other than human. People who advocate for abortion to “save” the planet send a chill down my spine very much the same as I get reading the detached way the worst regimes in history went about their annihilation. Those who think it makes a difference when you kill someone won’t stop with abortion. Next it will be the elderly and the infirm are using more resources than they contribute and so on. And you wonder why some people are skeptical about the global warming crowd? Look no further than what you wrote.
Yes, the issue of abortion is complicated. Integral to this discussion, in my opinion, is health care and health insurance, in other words equitable access to health care for all and the ability of everyone to have help paying for it. Doctrinaire Catholics and other groups are opposed to abortion and even to contraception. Worse yet, businesses and institutions are allowed a religious exemption so they do not have to cover contraception for employees. Conservatives may be against abortion for any reason, but generally do not want any government plan, whether the Affordable Care Act or any improved version if it, that covers children after they are born, let alone adults. As for me, I will never vote for someone whose campaign promise is to make abortion illegal.
8
It's interesting that the recent laws on destroying fertilized eggs are only directed at women. Eggs fertilized in laboratories do not not come under these laws, these eggs are destroyed. The difference? One is in a laboratory, the other in a woman. This shows the real motivation of the politicians, not protecting life, but controlling women.
There is a war against women as their status is being degraded everyday. They are being denied control over their bodies. Rapists are being sentenced to no time or only a few months in jail. Rapists are allowed to have rights over children who are products of rape. Now, in certain states, women who have been raped don't even have the right to terminate a pregnancy caused by rape.
Outlawing abortion doesn't stop it, it only puts the life of the woman in danger. Abortions have been done for thousands of years. No matter what laws or punishments have been used, women will still find a way to have them. We have a federal law saying terminating a pregnancy is a woman's right. This is not stopping men from making laws to take away that right. We need to keep a women's right for a safe abortion legal or women will die.
13
First of all labeling Democrats, progressives, and liberals as “pro abortion” is a gross mischaracterization. The correct label is pro choice and within that category there are infinite nuanced views regarding whether an individual would choose the option of abortion based on many religious, cultural, medical and other beliefs. What current Democratic presidential candidates are shifting toward is the right to maintain that choice. And I wholeheartedly support that position. Issues such as third trimester abortion are red herrings: they are incredibly uncommon and universally for medical reasons. So too the Hyde amendment which is basically just discrimination against the poor whom disproportionately are people of color. If pro life, anti abortion people were practical about the issue they’d be pro the best sex education possible and free or very low cost contraception so unwanted pregnancy happened less often but they oppose that as well. Basically they want to impose their personal religious and moral viewpoint on the rest of us by any means possible and I find that reprehensible and out of step with our secular democracy. The only shift in politics I believe is the reality that this established personal right and choice is under threat. I support anyone’s individual choice in either direction but I adamantly support the right to that choice.
8
Arguments between “right” and “wrong” are melodramatic and tend to be predictable and boring. Struggling with arguments between “right” and “right” are always more interesting and much more likely to be civil and educational.
Abortion is a simple issue. Really. Except in politics.
It's a mother's personal decision. Repeal all laws related to abortion. Government has no say in it. Period.
Liberals like to stir up a hornet's nest, like with Roe v. Wade.
OTOH, conservative believe two wrongs make a right and make it worse, like in Alabama.
The only law -- if there ever needs to be one -- should be at the state level passed by all the states, that "abortion will be a personal choice."
3
Pro-life. What does this even mean? Are you against the death penalty then? Too complicated? Why are Republicans so adamant about protecting human life but when it comes to inequality they turn their heads? Once born, they are left to their own devices, so to speak. Head start? Nope. Increase wages for a living wage? No.
6
In my opinion, the issue should be fetal sentience rather than "viability". The nervous system develops very early in gestation, and consequently the potential for fetal pain. (Dismissals of potential fetal pain are reminiscent of dismissals of infant pain, which have only in recent years been critically reassessed.) If more time and energy were devoted to identifying a method to fully anesthetize a fetus (a method safe for the mother) prior to its removal, that would reduce ethical qualms about abortion substantially for many people. The staunch pro-choice platform thinks it can't afford to admit the fetal pain issue into the discussion, lest it be co-opted and exploited by the staunch pro-life advocates, but by refusing to acknowledge this issue they are setting back actual progress. Simply yelling "my body, my choice" convinces no one when there's a sentient being inside your body that you may be subjecting to unnecessary cruelty.
4
@A Reader. This is incorrect. A fetus is not pain capable until near 30 weeks. I cannot demand an organ or even a blood donation from you to save my life. There’s nothing cruel about denying the use of one’s body to others.
7
There seems to be very little conversation about the future quality of life of an unwanted child. The reasons women feel the need to end a pregnancy are heart-wrenching but could be viewed as the best alternative to a life of poverty, unavailable healthcare or future abuse. Those who want to see that child born should step up to the plate and adopt them.
8
@Linda Goetz Me don’t we ALL have a responsibility to step up to the plate? If health and economic issues are of such consequence that we’ve had 50,000,000+ abortions, why isn’t EVERYBODY working to address poverty, lack of access to quality care, education and decent wages? But no. Abortion is the biggest plank in the Democrats’ platform. Two evil organizations are holding our two major parties hostage and both are about profit at the expense of human life. The NRA and Planned Parenthood. They’re both immoral organizations holding America hostage. Abortion is the worst manifestation of a throwaway society.
@JR, no, abortion isn't the biggest plank in the Democrats' platform (which hasn't been written). Candidates are talking about universal healthcare, subsidized childcare, affordable college, raising the minimum wage, lowering drug costs, gun safety legislation, climate change, and a range of issues. Abortion is only one issue, and it comes to the forefront only because of recent anti-abortion laws.
Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit charity that provides healthcare to millions of Americans--hardly an evil organization.
I remember when abortions were back alley. We are returning to the Dark Ages when women's lives were changed irrevocably if an unwanted pregnancy occurred. The men went "scot free." The conversation needs to be totally reframed. With DNA testing, the impregnator (word?) should be instantly identified. Why is 100% of all pregnancies the "woman's issue" or "problem?" Why should women have 100% responsibility while the man has zero? He goes on with his life, nothing is changed....for her everything is changed. If we are to outlaw abortions...then the males must be held financially responsible until the child is 21 and must share in all other responsibilities of raising a child.
6
Here we go again. I can't count all the things I'm supposed to be hating my neighbor for. We wonder why this country is so divided?
1
Roe v Wade truncated any sane conversation Americans were having on abortion and turned it into a political football, a rallying call to the extremes.
In Europe, where abortion largely became legal through the normal process, views and laws are much more nuanced.
Is a first trimester fetus a person? Most religious traditions (including the Bible and most Judeo-Christian traditions, historically) and individuals would say no. Fetal development at this stage is primitive - no consciousness, no fully developed organs, no obviously human form yet. We don't mourn miscarriages like we do stillbirths or the death of a child. No normal person would save 100 embryos from a burning building over an actual baby.
Second Trimester? This is getting into a grey area. Many people are uncomfortable with abortion this late, except for serious reasons. A fetus is coming close to possessing the characteristics of a person. Yet there are still life and health threatening situations where a baby can't be delivered and live, but a pregnancy must be ended. There are severe deformities discovered that possibly warrant termination. But it is more morally complex.
Third Trimester? Yes, I think most people would agree that a third trimester fetus is a person. They have consciousness, a human body, and agency. A fetus stillborn at this stage is a horrific trauma to the mother. They can live outside the womb. Abortion in the third trimester is a devastating act of medical last resort.
6
I do not understand why this is complicated; I understand that people would have feelings about how abortions are paid for, but fundamentally why is this anyone's business other than the carrier of the fetus, the doctor with whom she confides and her god?
8
Everyone should hear what Melinda Gates, a thoughtful catholic, who has taken a intelligent and progressive decision based upon reality. her thoughts and experiences in the poorest parts of the worls also apply and pertain to the experiences of women in this country as well!
4
People who are anti-abortion should not have them. But their beliefs should not prohibit women in need for any number of reasons to have them. They should not have the right to invade the most personal of decisions. When I read about Feminists for Life I am flummoxed by the oxymoron: fostering women's rights while denying them to other women.
6
For the people saying this issue isn’t complicated, that it’s simply about women’s autonomy, I ask you to really consider if you are ok with an abortion occurring at 8 or 9 months? By not stipulating any restrictions on abortion, giving full unequivocal freedom to attain an abortion, you are effectively stating you are fine with abortions at full term. If you are ok with that, I can only presume you have never experienced the miracle of birth, or held a seconds-old newborn baby in your arms.
I am Pro-Choice AND Pro-Life, and I do feel like this particular position is not getting the attention it should. On the left if I don’t accept a woman’s right to abortion as nothing less than her absolute right, than I am given the “Handmaid’s Tale” treatment. On the right, if I don’t view abortion as evil and unacceptable under any circumstances then I am betraying my faith. I am a moderate to left-leaning democrat, and I am also a person of faith. But most importantly to this issue, I am a citizen of a secular democracy. My religious beliefs must not dictate law.
As with most things in our nation politics today, we are reactive instead of proactive. Let’s look at what we have to do to reduce the instances of unwanted pregnancy. To not put people in the position of having to seek an abortion in the first place. More sex education coupled with affordable and accessible birth control. Ultimately, I don’t believe anyone really wants to have to make the choice to have an abortion.
4
@Patterdee, I think many of us describe ourselves as pro-choice and pro-life. I haven't felt any guilt-tripping from others about my position.
I don't think anyone advocates elective late-term abortions. The one commenter I've seen who advocated no restrictions whatsoever seemed to be in fact anti-choice. There is no move to make it legal to have late-term elective abortions.
Giving women access to free birth control is such a no brainer, and a win win for both sides, yet we can't even agree on that.
8
Abortion is not a matter of either debate, opinion or law. It is a personal matter and the choice of whether or not to have an abortion is up to the woman. Period. Those who don’t believe in abortion should not have one, but they have no business imposing their beliefs on others. It would help tremendously to have improved contraception as well as improved access, and let’s not forget sex education.
9
The issue is not about abortion.
Abortion is the GOP's wedge to get enough conservative politicians elected to push through their entire right-wing agenda.
No workers' rights.
No women's rights
No minority rights
No consumer rights
No support for the indigent
No birth control
'Pro-life' voters are the tools to achieve this end.
9
It's easy to see that Americans can have different views on abortion. It's a very personal matter. If you're against abortion, you shouldn't have one.
But Americans thinking they can use the government to enforce the choice THEY would make on the lives of OTHERS?
That's always struck me as a bizarre flourish from folks who normally can't wait to get government out of your life.
8
It is complicated, which is why it is simple: no one has the right to impose one decision on all women.
10
Only the mother/woman should be the deciding factor. Government or any religion does not have any right to make this personal decision except the woman, teen or girl.
7
It's not complicated. A woman's abortion decision is none of anybody's business.
10
If sex leads to accidental fertilization, for a woman who was not intending to start a family, she should be supported in choosing an abortion and/or encouraged in that choice. Of course it is her choice. A fertilized egg should not have to lead to a child.
Conception/ making children should be a deliberate and focused joyful process. Making children should be life affirming.
4
Well, imagine that. Abortion is a "complicated" issue.
Does anyone remember Bob Dole's utterance in 1996 that "reasonable people can disagree on this issue"?
With Democratic politicians hostage to the “abortion = sacrament” ideology, and Republicans to the “passport for every zygote” and "a funeral for every miscarriage" crowd, there is little cross-fertilization with the silent majority who believe that women should not be jailed for abortion, or federally legislated to breed; nor is abortion the moral equivalent of a teeth-cleaning.
Perhaps it is time that the discussion return to what is evaluated as right and what is seen as wrong, instead of what is legal and what should not be legal.
(BTW abortions have taken place throughout humanity. Roe v. Wade did not presage an “abortathon”: U.S. census data shows that live births to women of childbearing age from 1965 through 1980 went UP following 1973. (www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr50/nvsr50_05.pdf)
But facts are silly things, right?)
5
Pro life seems to be a position where you can assert your beliefs on everyone else and nothing else will satisfy you. Abortion rights people don't impose their beliefs on you and force you to have abortions.
I don't consider anti abortion people to be pro life because so many of their other positions are anti life.
10
I wish pro-life/forced birth supporters would consider this:
If abortion is murder, if there should be consequences for women who choose and the doctors who perform abortions, then what about the zillions of fertilized eggs that are discarded when a couple no longer has use for them.
What about the rights of these fertilized eggs. Excuse me, babies. Should the parents go to jail? Should the lab workers who handle this discarding go to jail?
There are real life consequences for each nuance of this discussion.
And I wish the NY Times would ask more detailed, expansive questions of people they're interviewing, other than just publishing an article about a woman - pro choice Dem - who feels uncomfortable in her political circle. The reporter should have done some more homework.
7
"Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced."
- Albert Einstein
4
@Craig Willison
What about unjust laws like those of slavery, Jim Crow and redlining etc. that were enforced over generations?
What’s intended by laws may be of more significance than an actual law!
1
It’s not complicated. There is no equivalent interference in mens “rights” that compares to this Orwellian mandate over women and their bodies. It is perverse. And sadly leaves America stuck in the 17th century, under the rule of white men and extreme fundamentalist religion.
7
I had an abortion when I was in college. I was treated kindly at a time when I felt most vulnerable, and it probably changed the trajectory of my life. I think every woman should have that choice. And yet I think an absolutist position on abortion is stupid. At worst, the failure of us liberals to appreciate that not everyone shares our views or urgency about abortion could lead to another four years of Trump, which will almost certainly lead to the appointment of a Supreme Court justice whose vote will almost inevitably lead to the erosion of Roe v. Wade.
When I canvassed for Clinton in 2016, I asked other volunteers why we had to debate abortion with Italian grandmothers who went to mass every Sunday when there were so many other reasons these women might want to vote for Hillary and against Trump. The volunteers looked at me like I was a wearing a tinfoil hat. I hope we can be smarter in 2020.
156
@Katie
I agree. Politics is about giving as many people as possible a reason to vote for you. That way you win elections, and get to implement policies that you think are important. Of course, the policies you campaign on and those that you implement are often entirely different things. Obama is a great example of this.
Choosing to antagonize as many people as possible so that you can feel smug in your moral superiority is what the left seems to delight in doing these days. I hope all progressives enjoy Trump appointing RBJ's successor in his second term as much as they loved watching Kavanaugh and Gorsuch getting confirmed.
25
@Katie
It has been my experience that some of those devoutly religious grandmothers talk a good game when it comes to the sanctity of life but know from experience it doesn't work that way in the real world.
Translation: Pro Life in public, Pro Choice in the voting booth. (never judge a book by its cover!)
... because they know the day may come when someone near & dear to them will need to terminate a pregnancy and they'd prefer it be done legally, safely, and discreetly.
16
@A Cynic: Yes, yes, yes!
1
It is complicated, I am all for all the freedom to the mother, but I also come from a country where sons are favored over girls and moms are pressured to bear sons. And pro choice would certainly be abused in those cases. I do get that in such cases women are pressured again to acquiesce to the patriarchy.
I like the way the choice is there currently, right of choice until 20 weeks. I do hope that it stays that way but also we as a society provide more to the young moms in terms of better health care, daycare, FMLA, and other support systems.
4
I wonder how much a child born into the system, who might have to depend on the system their whole life, will cost? My guess is the abortion would cost less.
It’s really not complicated.
Women have the choice and the right.
49
@Bradley Stein
No, they don't--not alone anyway. You're right; it's not complicated.
3
It is pretty clear to me. I will not vote for any candidate who supports indiscriminate abortion rights.
As a pediatrician, I have dedicated my entire life to saving many children’s lives.
And I will tell you a million times over: a late term abortion is infanticide. Nothing less. Nothing more. Period.
23
And I'll tell you a million times : When it's a choice between the life of a pregnant Woman and a fetus, I'll choose the living, breathing WOMAN.
Every single time.
15
@MPM, as a physician, what would be the reason for a woman to have a late-term abortion? Medically speaking.
12
An educated person and a pediatrician should have the good grace to address all the types of abortion instead of singling out the rarer case as a sounding board to frame the discussion.
The reality is that your argument is being used as a legislative basis to ban all abortions.
And in that regard, especially as it applies to the day after pill and plan B, you have a public responsibility to state the facts if you are going to accompany your opinions with appeals to your status as a doctor.
15
The Republicans in their exaggerations and outright lies about abortion are aided and abetted by various churches which with distortions and lies whip up their flock into an anti-abortion frenzy. It's about control by men over women in both the political and religious sphere. My heart goes out to women who are tortured by ruthless men into carrying full term. - From an old man
37
Ironic that many pro-lifers are the same people railing against Big Government. What a bunch of confused people we are.
Wish the schools were better.
29
To those who say a fetus is not a baby I disagree. You do not say I am expecting a fetus. Have you ever heard a pregnant woman say this? Of course not. It is only those who support abortion rights who do not see the unborn as babies. I see the value and dignity in every stage of pregnancy. They should be given the right to life.
7
@KMW To those who say a fetus is a baby, I disagree. It may become a baby, but that's a different story. i see the value and dignity of every woman, including those who are pregnant. They should be given all rights necessary to protect themselves, up to and including the right to terminate a pregnancy in the early stages of a pregnancy and later on, should their lives or health be endangered by continuing the pregnancy. Certainly, no victim of rape or incest should be coerced into carrying a fetus that results from these acts.
9
@KMW Whatever someone calls an embryo or fetus, it is still medically an embryo or fetus. I have often heard people call their pet dogs and cats their "babies." That does not make their pets human.
8
@KMW
There are plenty of desperate families running for their lives now being held at our borders under appalling conditions and minimal if any access to healthcare and suitable nutrition.
What about those babies, born and unborn?
9
It's not complicated. Women have a right to determine what happens with their bodies, not government and not religious zealots who want to give the "unborn" the same rights as an infant child. I'm sorry, but the belief that personhood begins at conception is more often than not informed by religious belief, and if I don't share those beliefs, I should not be subject to them, period. Your right to exercise your belief system ends at my body. There is separation of church and state, and I don't get how these zealots are able to codify their insistence that fetuses are persons into law.
30
Those who don't want taxpayers to pay for abortions (via Medicaid for example) - you are on a slippery slope.
Abortion is legal.
What about paying for drone attacks that kill civilians in Afghanistan? Are you o.k. with that? Do you get to say no to that?
What about giving tax breaks to folks who send their kid to a private or church school? Why should the public pay for that?
What about tax subsidies ad payments to big farms for not growing crops? Are you o.k. with paying for that or making me pay for that?
The list could go on and on. Your bad is my good or someone else's . We don't get to pick and choose.
42
Abortion is a never-end discussion. America is facing so many threats by today's politicians that talking about abortion is just a big distraction.
Abortion must be left each State to decide about,
4
The forced birth movement is actually trying to make *their* position look simple. Their false narrative is: "Young single woman or teenager, carelessly not using birth control, willingly has sex with some man. She is healthy and the fetus is healthy throughout the pregnancy. And of course, pregnancy never damages the woman's body. She has enough money to get good medical care throughout the pregnancy, and to support the child till it is an adult. With no financial assistance from either the father or the government. Or if she cannot support the child till adulthood, hordes of people will be eager to adopt the child at any point in its pre-adult life. The woman has no life goals of her own other than being a mother. Or should not have any, once she is pregnant. Pregnancy and parenthood are all so *easy*. So why does this woman or teenager want to take the irrational step of having an abortion?" I'm hearing an awful lot of this in addition to "abortion is immoral and women are incapable of making their own moral decisions. The Democratic Party should find some way of calling out this entire false narrative in a concise way.
41
I thought this was supposed to have been all resolved 50 years ago...
25
The same logic that applies to allowing euthanasia also applies to abortion, and that is self-determination.
Abortion laws violate the principle of self-determination or as your wonderful Bill of Rights puts it everyone is free and equal under the law.
11
At this point I truly question the N.Y. Times’ decision to publish articles that say there is something complicated about a women’s right to choose what to do with her own body. What Democrats are talking about is that right, and no it’s not complicated. You either support this or you don’t.
30
@N
The Times is a newspaper. There are millions of people who disagree with each other on this issue. The disagreement itself is newsworthy.
1
There's nothing special about the abortion issue. There are Dems who support gun rights, there are Republicans who respect LBGTQ, there are Dems who denigrate the undocumented, there are Republicans who think Trump is certifiable. People with the same party affiliations aren't all the same.
8
"Pro-life" protestors intimidate well, but if their purpose is to draw the health care providers and pregnant women to their side, their tactics are reprehensible. Better to protest the treatment of children at our Mexican border.
15
If many abortions are performed before there is any brain tissue, and if most occur before the fetal brain developed to the point of functionality: when a person is declared brain dead, why is it OK to harvest their organs and burry them in the ground?
I may not like the idea abortion, especially late term, but it’s not my choice, and as a male, I’ll never have to make the choice. Regardless, it’s no one else’s business what a woman does with her doctor! For if it were your wife, daughter, granddaughter or friend, and late in the pregnancy they develop fatally high blood pressure, or renal failure, or heart failure, any of which can kill both her and the baby, it becomes a no brainer what to do.
Look up Roe v. Wade. You’ll find that the very reason the supreme court legalize abortion was so that a woman and her doctor could make medical decisions. It’s no one else’s call.
31
What galls me about those who preach for the "rights of the fetus" is their lack of comment about the living children born into poverty, addiction, abuse and neglect. The fetus is sacred until it becomes a living breathing child. Over 400,000 children are in a broken and over burdened foster care system. Adoption is for the rich. The effects of institutionalization is life long. Where is the outrage for those children? It is simple to call abortion murder. What is the name for a child born to addiction? What do we call the life of a child neglected? Is there a term for a child born into abject poverty?
20
Precisely. What about the child victims of gun violence or the children seeking asylum here being ripped from their parents arms? I would like the so called pro life movement put at least half their energy into addressing these problems as they do protesting at abortion clinics.
4
as they say, if you don't believe in abortions, then don't have one. but it your decision only.
pretty simple.
18
How ironic that in our nation of freedom, no one agrees with others having it.
Democrats are so easily led by any messaging. Does anyone lead anymore, or does everyone just continue the Republican cued conversations?
Republicans are no Angels. They love guns that kill and start wars that kill as well.
3
Given the U.S. Constitution's separation of religion & secular doctrine. I wonder how a Muslim woman less than 120 days pregnant would be effected by secular abortion laws if she chose to abort the fetus she was carrying within that period?
'Human' life is explicitly defined as beginning 120 days after conception in centuries old Islamic text.
8
@Samuel Owen
Jewish and Mainline Protestant views on abortion are similarly nuanced. And the Bible and the history of the Judeo-Christian tradition are on their side.
"Personhood begins at Conception" is a relatively recent belief, first taken up by Roman Catholics in the last few hundred years, and taken up only by Evangelicals after Roe v Wade, as much as an anti-feminism cudgel and a cynical way to drum up political power with emotions about women "killing their babies".
3
Jewish religious law considers a fertilized egg to be water for the first 40 days.
I would love to see someone sue on separation of church state, because a Christian belief is being forced on non-Christians.
It is not complicated women deserve a choice and the controls eg their body. Very simple to anyone with a brain. The war on women will yield a negative result for republicans for a long time .
13
The debate only gets complicated when you take the attitude that women who need an abortion are murderous monsters, their doctors are accomplices, and that you can somehow legislate abortion out of existence.
18
It is complicated. As the article ends, it's a hard issue.
This is the kinds of reporting I would like to see in the New York Times, as well as other main stream media.
Unfortunately, balanced articles such as this are all too rare nowadays.
6
After so many years, why can’t we just stay out of people we don’t know business and if you don’t want an abortion, don’t get one. But if a woman realizes that is her best or only decision, then that’s between her and a doctor. Why, why, do the anti choice sector feel that they have the right to but into a women’s choice due to her circumstances. It’s just stupid thinking you have the right to but into people’s personal lives. Can’t we get this long standing duel over already and deal with problems that affect all of us....climate change comes to mind.
16
I still don't see the issue. Of course it's a moral decision.
I'm glad the woman with twins was able to make the decision to carry both to term and help others, as well.
Moral decisions are personal. It's only within the framework of a pro-choice society that she was allowed to make that decision.
If we didn't place a value on allowing for moral decisions to be personal, she would have been forced to terminate based on the physicians recommendation.
Moral decisions are also fluid, allowing for growth, assimilation of new information and changing circumstances. Some folks will change how they view this issue only after they've been affected by it, personally. Others will have their views confirmed after personal experience.
I will never understand how people are so sure they understand the nature of a very personal, moral decision for everyone else.
18
Preventing unwanted pregnancies has to be mentioned every time this issue is spoken of. Access to affordable and effective contraception, education on contraception, as well as the benefits of higher education and better jobs for women are all important parts of this discussion. We are wrong to not put those in the center of the debate.
17
I don't really see how it's complicated: No one has a right to another person's body. If a fetus is a person, then it doesn't have the right to force another person to provide life support. If it's not, then it's not. That covers 100% of the possibilities.
23
I think there is a distinction between pro-life and anti-abortion. While I do agree that abortion, like guns, should have some restrictions, I disagree with most who oppose abortion. I respect that people have strong feelings both ways but there many in the right wing who want to impose their beliefs on women using government to legislate their opinions and control women.
These people are not pro-life since they do not respect or support the living children or pregnant women. The Republicans have sought to cut the social safety net, food, housing and education. They have sought to deny access to birth control in insurance plans. Nearly 1/4 of American children live at or below the poverty line. We have an embarrassingly high infant mortality rate that certainly is due to lack of support and health care for pregnant women, infants and children. If they were truly pro-life, they would provide support the children that they are trying to force women to bear. They want the children to be born and then care absolutely nothing about the quality of life, education, opportunity, hunger or death. It is not about the children.
I do think abortion should be legal, with some qualifications, and rare. If the Democrats dropped the word rare because they thought it shamed women, that is a good example of why I left the Democrat party. They have moved too far left, are fractured into self interest groups, have failed to compromise and can't see the bigger picture on many issues.
5
I am not "pro-abortion" or "pro-life." I am pro-choice. I do not recognize the right of someone to make this decision for anyone else. I also believe firmly that every child born should be wanted and well cared for. This is part of the reason why I am pro-choice. Everyone talks about the sanctity of life, but I do not see people rush in to help provide for and raise children whose parents cannot or do not parent well. Too many people seem to care about the child only before its birth.
10
The real curious fact of this complex subject is how little contraception is discussed and promoted. In fact it’s just the opposite. Cut funding for it. Make it difficult for women to get.
You would think preventing an unplanned pregnancy would be their first and foremost concern.
14
That's where the Catholics come in and a few other denominations that believe contraception is the same as abortion and that God and God alone should determine how many children you birth. That's fine, I'm all for freedom of religion, but there's also freedom from religion. If I don't believe as you do, I shouldn't be subject to these views.
6
Excellent article. The Democratic Party for many years was a big tent that included many immigrants who personally would not choose an abortion for religious and cultural reasons but whose respect for the separation of church and state would never countenance forcing their personal beliefs on anyone else. The Hyde Amendment's prohibition on the use of federal taxpayer funds for abortions except in limited circumstances in tandem with the rights conferred under Roe presented a middle ground . The recent assault on Roe in several states now has led to attacks on politicians who supported this middle ground. This may well be the end of the big tent party with implications for the future of the country.
2
@NESCRIBE, I think that anyone who supports leaving the choice up to the woman should be comfortable in the Democratic Party.
The article misrepresents several candidates' positions as "absolutist." That's bad journalism. The author should have clarified that "no compromise" means no compromise on support for Roe, not unfettered access to abortion.
Doctors don’t advise someone to abort if the fetus has an anomaly, they’d offer that as an option. Not everyone is in a situation to continue with a pregnancy where there is a severe fetal anomaly. If legal, abortion as an option is discussed with the expectant parents.
7
How do we get past the challenge of talking past one another? How does an advocate for choice who insists that the state must not control a woman’s body engage with those who, as a matter of individual (or denominational) belief that “life” begins at conception (implantation? or?)? Can those who oppose abortion because of their belief (yes it’s a “belief”) exhibit the humility to acknowledge that others do not share that belief and assert that the state has no role, or as Roe v Wade asserts, no role until the fetus is viable outside the womb? My tendency is to acknowledge the complexity of moral and political issues. I’m inclined to support candidates with thoughtful, nuanced views rather than those with rigid, narrow positions.
3
That's the issue with religion. There can't be a middle ground when you believe you have found the way. It's the way and that's all there is to that. It's built in. Jesus IS Lord. Period. So given that, why would you compromise? Abortion is murder, life begins at conception.
Both parties do tend to speak of abortion in absolutes. They thus leave no room for sincere discussion, or for honorable people on the other side of the debate. Both seem fueled at least in part by desire to pander to the loudest voices in their respective parties.
2
@Franco51, not really. One side says that abortion is murder. The other says that it should be the woman's choice until the fetus is viable. The latter isn't an absolutist position.
It's "complicated" because forced birthers purposely made it complicated- via TRAP laws - to grind access to a halt.
The pro-choice position is simple rather than complicated: the decision should be left to the pregnant woman and/or teenage girl, her family and their physician. They know what is best for them, their family, their finances, their life - not strangers, forced birthers or religious zealots who seek to control their bodily autonomy.
16
It's puzzling to those of us in Canada where the issue of abortion won't come up in our fall election, except when all political parties affirm a woman's right to choose and have access to a safe abortion. I wonder how many politicians who have supported restrictions that result in unwanted babies being born have adopted children. My guess is not many. They should be asked, and if they say no, I have not adopted any of these babies. The conclusion? They didn't want them either.
10
There is no morality issue attached as and necessary to form a choice about whether or not to have an abortion for. many women. I am one of them.The only issue worthy of discourse is whether or not the woman has the right to choose whether or not to have a medical procedure that terminates pregnancy. and the answer is of course she does. What people who are on the other side of this discussion are missing is that freedom of choice applies to BOTH SIDES. So any woman can choose for herself whether to continue any pregnancy she wants or even to become an organ donor. If she chooses so she can follow religious beliefs that dictate her choices. That's her choice. That's her ethics. That's her morality. Those on the other side of the abortion issue dont have the right to impose ethical personal dilemmas on other adults. But they are free to choose to see abortion as a morality play or ethical dilemma. For me, and many others it is not. When we reach the age of adulthood we, as humans, each have our own conscience, our own soul, our own being to care for. When it comes to the sanctity of the life of children the Catholic Church has already proved irresponsible and untrustworthy. They have no business fighting for the lives of unwanted children to be born into vulnerable circumstances.
8
I agree. Any church that for centuries has ignored the sexual exploitation of its children has no moral authority whatever. The same with those on the right who seek to obliterate the safety net that helps women and children.
5
We live in a world where kids and children live in starvation or poor nutrition, broken homes, in abusive homes, with poor or no daycare, suboptimal education, exploitation and pollution. We give the a world with a questionable and likely worse global environment and questionable economic futures for millions of children. So when people decide it's their priority not to take care of the kids that are here but to harass women over their reproductive rights, I hope it's understandable that I have almost zero respect for their opinion or outlook.
14
Question for Pro-life: If abortion is murder then why isn’t the law negligent to place vulnerable infants into the arms of the very caregivers who sought to terminate them in vitro?
Question for Pro-Choice: Why doesn’t planned parenthood include in-home concierge services for new mothers of infants who are at high risk for battery, drug abuse, poverty and child abuse? It would cost less to personally guide high-risk caregivers through the first 5 years of the child’s life than it costs to deal with the aftermath in homelessness, mental health, crime, chronic illness requiring repeated hospitalizations, permanent disability and the perpetuation of poverty.
3
@Carmen
Why is this Planned Parenthood’s responsibility? They have a mission, to make every child a wanted child.Their resources are stretched to provide the services they do, and diverting funds for after birth care means fewer woken get reproductive health care.
Why doesn’t our government give support to new mothers like other developed counties do? The same people who want to outlaw abortion are also against WICk SNAP, TANF, paid family leave, universal health care, and many other things that allow at risk women to properly care for their babies.
6
Lucy H - It's a sorry state of affairs when everyone is so busy arguing about childbirth and no one is looking after the children.
IF the “pro-life” forces were not so disingenuous and absolutist, perhaps the “pro-choice” side would be more open to a “good faith debate.” But with each passing year, it becomes increasingly clear that “pro-life” wing is really about limiting women’s autonomy.
And to those who call for “compromise,” we HAVE compromised. Roe v. Wade is a compromise. Casey (“undue burden”) is a compromise. Hyde is a “compromise.”
If we’re to have absolutism, it can only be the kind that grants women full autonomy.
10
Certainly an individual can reject abortion as an option in their life, as long as they don't remove it as an option for someone else. The entire argument about the "pre-born" boils down to individual religious/philosophic beliefs. You see an unborn person; for at least a certain number of weeks, I do not.
I'm sorry some people feel that taxpayer money should not fund abortions. I feel equally strongly that my taxes should not help to fund unnecessary wars that maim and kill already walking, talking, sentient people, but I don't have that privilege.
10
It's not complicated. A woman has the same right to do what she wants with her body as a man does. When will the United States roll into the 21st century. If men had babies this problem would have been solved at the beginning of time.
14
Everyone who read this article should read today’s obituary of Franco Zeffirelli. He was violently anti-abortion. Why? He was born out of wedlock in a country dominated by the Catholic Church. His mother was urged to abort. She did not. We have all benefitted from the extreme talents Mr. Zeffirelli gave the world. If this does not give everyone pause to at least admit that the abortion issue is COMPLICATED and of profound moral scope, nothing will.
4
@Romeo Salta
It is wrong to reduce a fellow human being to no more than a means to some end even we happen to believe that end is somehow “good”.
7
@Romeo Salta And yet, we have plenty of brilliant film makers, actors, actresses, writers, composers, musicians, dancers, artists, etc., whose parents really wanted them. And those parents were probably more able to give all those wanted children the educations that enabled the children to grow up into adults successful in their chosen fields. However intelligent a person may be, he or she is never born a film maker or a member of any other profession. For example, a child may have the potential to be a brilliant musician, but the parents have to pay for musical instruments and lessons, drive the child to frequent regular lessons, constantly encourage the child to practice, and quite possibly, pay for education at a prestigious conservatory. Not likely for the financially strapped parent of an unwanted child.
9
@Romeo Salta. His mother made a CHOICE. Why should the world be denied the gifts of talented and creative women who may end up permanently injured or death through the childbirth you would force upon them?
4
It is so good to read an article which recognizes the reality that abortion IS a complicated issue. I have been attacked by both sides when I've stated my views. I don't see it as an easy issue. The arguments of the opponents of abortion, carried to their logical end, would mean no birth control either. (Follow the logic: the instant the egg and sperm combine it is a human, so isn't preventing that combination stopping a human life?) The arguments of the supporters of legal abortion, if carried to their logical end, would mean that a woman has the right to kill a living baby. (Yes, think about it - my body, my choice and why should I be stuck with feeding and supporting this mewling bit of barely out of the womb flesh for the rest of it's life?) I don't have the answers. I just can't accept the extremes of either position.
@Elaine Turner Considering the Democrats support Roe vs. Wade, which has been settled law for decades, how is their position "extreme"?
4
@Elaine Turner
Once a baby is born no one in our culture denies that it is a person with rights of its own. A woman with a newborn is not forced to care for it, if she was adoption would not exist. The question is, should a woman be forced to use her body to continue a pregnancy and give birth against her will?
4
@Elaine. Plenty of people on the pro-life side believe contraception is not o.k. and is morally wrong. That’s part of the problem.
No one on the pro-choice side thinks it’s ok to kill a living baby (outside of the womb, I assume you mean).
3
It’s not complicated. The person who bears an unwanted child must be allowed to value her life and her choice over the fetus. That’s it. End of story.
9
It is not complicated. If you are against abortion, do not get one. The rest is a form of brutality in which the discomfort of busybodies is used as an excuse to restrain the freedom of others. May they all get lost, and quickly.
17
What’s complicated is each individual’s decision whether on not to get an abortion. There’s absolutely nothing complicated about preserving the right to make this decision. As to whether taxpayers should “fund” the procedure, the funding is so laughably small & indirect compared to the gargantuan sums wasted on things most Americans don’t support at all, that this argument is also rooted in ignorance and obfuscation. The harm articles like these cause by perpetuating the red-herring position of “it’s complicated” is truly disturbing.
9
This sounds like an absurd exaggeration. It is not. If government insists that abortion is murder, then it must recognize the fertilized egg as a citizen at the moment of conception. If that is true, then government must know that said citizen exists.
It can't be done halfway. To protect these new citizens, government must compel every woman of age to report on her sexual activity, say once a week, and prove that she was not pregnant during that time.
Anything less would leave that new citizen vulnerable to secret murder by a woman who uses a Plan B pill and erases the citizen without the law ever knowing it was there. The law then becomes just a gesture, and worse, it provokes a black market in pharmaceuticals that kill citizens.
It doesn't stop there. Repealing Roe means that some states will still provide abortions. If, say, Kansas criminalizes it and Colorado does not, then the Kansas law becomes a gesture yet again unless travel for abortion is criminalized and unless day-after drugs are stopped at the state lines. That means that every car, bus, train, and plane leaving Kansas is prey to stoppage and searching; that every woman in them must be questioned, with some or all being tested for pregnancy; arrest and detentions for women found to be pregnant or non-compliant; the mails inspected for illegal pharmaceuticals; and the parties on both side of a contraband transaction subject to prosecution.
And violence, of course. That's inevitable.
5
It’s curious how those opposed to abortion don’t offer logical and practical alternatives. Then, what is the solution? Make contraception widely and freely available and the ratio of abortions will decline dramatically. Further, make men financially responsible for their children and they will embrace contraception pretty quickly as well. In the end, women should have the right to have a choice, specially if medical issues are involved.
The moral police, so enamored with issuing fatwas, should begin by supporting gun permits which kill children everyday.
8
300,000 children in Alabama live in poverty. Alabama has the highest rate of infant mortality in the US, at over 400 infant deaths last year and the second highest rate of maternal mortality. There were over 11,000 reported cases of child abuse and neglect in Alabama in 2017. Corporal punishment is legal in Alabama and more than 20,000 children were paddled in schools last year. Alabama has the 5th highest rate of accidental child shootings, but no law requiring guns to be locked up.
So if Alabama legislators care so much about children why are they not addressing these issues? Why the focus on abortion?
Because Pro-life doesn't really mean pro life. We do not have a tidal wave of women demanding late term abortions of healthy babies. This is not about "murder". This is about controlling women, and especially low income women. It is about votes. It is about religion. It is about money.
It is not, and never was, about life, or children. So yes, its complicated, but not in the way presented here.
24
There is nothing complicated about "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". This whole monstrosity of an issue is defiance of it.
10
I don't understand at all the argument for the Hyde Amendment, (that no taxpayer funds shall be used for abortions). Many of us very fervently believe that our taxpayer funds should not go to pay for lots of things, like useless wars, chemical weapons, atomic weapons, etc. etc. Yet we don't get an option to pick and choose. Why is there even an option to choose that taxpayer funds not be used for certain medical services, ie abortion, while they may be used for other medical services under Medicaid regulations?
15
This is an asymmetrical discussion.
Those on the "pro-life" side want to legislate their morality on everyone. Legislation includes unnecessary intrusive exams (Missouri), 99-year sentences for Doctors if a jury doesn't agree with their judgement that the procedure was necessary to save the mother's life (Alabama), and more.
Those on the pro-choice side are playing defense, since 2016. Republicans saw SCOTUS vacancies as an important issue, and although the majority didn't like Trump, voted anyway. Democrats, not so much.
2018 was a good start, but we are still not seeing turnout in state elections, where the bad stuff originates.
12
These are life and death questions, so it’s going to be hard to find a “middle ground.” The comments validate the article’s premise.
Here’s a question: All abortion’s prior to 24 weeks are legal. Are they all therefore equally moral?
3
Depends on whether you choose to see abortion as a moral issue. Some choose not to see abortion as a life or death situation so there is no dilemma.
4
@Cold Eye
Since morals are an individual's own principles regarding right and wrong each person must decide for themselves.
7
If I don’t personally feel that stealing a car is immoral because I don’t see it as a moral issue, does that mean it’s ok? When individual morality conflicts with the morality of the society, for example participating in a war, there are mechanisms to allow for that.
Have you ever persuaded a woman not to have one? That's the only power you have.
Leave politics and the law out of it, otherwise it's just blackmail.
15
"Give to Ceasar what is Ceasar's and to God which is God's". Those who try to limit abortion are playing God and casting the first stone. We live in a multicultural society with many different religions that must have rules to allow harmony among those disparate groups.
Roe recognized this and has stood us in good stead since 1973. To attempt to change it now is a theocratic endeavor that means to split the nation apart. These same people are cutting aid to those in need, building war machines to spread their view of the world afar, jailing large portions of our society, cutting wages to working women and men, suppressing the vote, etc.
There is a big election coming up in 2020. Kick these theocrats out of office.
18
There should be no nuance. It’s your body or it’s not. Government has no business regulating what’s in a woman’s body. Period.
23
@John
You are right. It is my body.
So why should the government interfere with MY right to sell MY kidney, buy heroin with the money and pump it into MY body? How about MY right to ride a motor bike without wearing a helmet on MY head? Or MY right to walk around in public without wearing clothes on MY body?
5
@A Cynic
None of these are examples of the government forcing you to risk bodily harm for the sole benefit of another person.
1
If not for the intransigence of conservative Christians and republican politicians we could have a country where abortions are rarely needed outside of medical necessity. But no, why, because this is not and never has been about “babies” alone. Its primarily about sexuality and morality, its about contraception, education and domination by a conservative religious orthodoxy. So conservatives try to block anything that could lower the abortion rate while beating their chests in opposition. Its not a coincidence that the people who oppose abortions are often anti contraception and anti sexual education as well. They are often among the most virulently bigoted against the LGBTQ community and in opposition to equal rights for them. So all of us “conflicted” about abortions need to look at who “really” promotes them & it ain’t planned parenthood. When the anti abortionists get their way at the Supreme Court then its on to the rest of their agenda. Guard your condoms (hyperbole intended) their next. Or actually just the contraceptives that they consider abortion medications, pretty much all contraceptives that interfere with conception or initial pregnancy. They want the control that they had before the sexual revolution back & nothing else will do. The babies, yeah right.
24
@John Chastain
Yes, but I propose it is mostly about keeping a political issue that helps Republicans.
4
I dream of the day that the flagrant misuse of “nuance” comes.
Here, as is typical in the popular misuse of the word, nuance is used to describe something that is straightforward.
Opinions on abortion have been easy to understand for decades with the majority opinions remarkably similar over time.
4
1. There's no such thing as "unborn" or "preborn". Those are not medical terms, they are made up concepts and are NOT accepted by the scientific community.
2. Folks who describe themselves as "pro-life" are not. What they are is pro-birth. How else to explain their complete silence regarding the death penalty. When that issue is brought to their attention the response is...crickets.
30
Yes the nuance is gone. Women can no longer suffer any tolerance of human moral degeneracy in its most mysogynistic form: anti-abortionists who claim spiritual or emotional attachment to tissue in a woman's body, while sublimating the agency of that very woman. Also, pregnancy kills, and abortion saves lives. Nothing pro life about outlawing abortion, unless women are chattel and inherently subservient to men. Further note how the anti-abortionists never direct their ire to the man involved with every abortion, or even mention the responsibility that arises to both parties from insemination (No matter brah where your seed goes, not your problem dude.)
16
No! It’s not complicated!! Keep religion and personal morals out of women’s individual decisions, their Constitutional rights, and the law. It’s that simple.
19
Why do pro choice folks call those of us who are opposed to abortion forced birthers or anti choicers among other names? We are pro life. We do not like that the unborn are being aborted and have finally come forward and voiced our opposition. Can we please have adult dialogue and stop with the name calling. As a pro life woman, I do not call you names and there are many that I could use. Is it our fault that we see the injustice and immorality of taking away innocent life?
6
Anti-choice seems like an accurate description of your position, rather than name callimg. You want to prohibit other women from aborting the gestation of a human being until they give birth even when they don't want to.
13
Abortion is a woman's right to pick and choose what is best/right for her. Why does it seem that sanctimonious uptight men are always telling women what's good for them?
17
There is a massive hole in this article around men controlling women and a separation of church and state. Also half the population is voting for something that allows them to dominate the other half without real consequence for their actions. And in some cases allow rapists to maintain custody?
The religious have made their choice to force their extremism to the point of conception. Yet many of these same people have no problem murdering children at the border, locking people in cages and denying them safety as they flee from violence. This proves to me this is about dominating women and religion domination, not about life. We are wasting our time debating with people that are simply lying to our faces and have an alternate agenda.
Then we have people running around yelling, "They shall not replace us." Obviously religion needs to propagate and that requires people to have babies. Now they are trying to force it to produce more white babies?
I grew up extremely religious and at one time would listen to Republicans but they have proven they want their religion to dominate people and they don't give a da__ about life. This is not about saving babies, period.
In the end this should always be between a doctor and a patient. And out of respect for individual liberty men should not have a say in this vote.
19
Thank you. My thoughts exactly.
6
Abortion issues prevent many Catholics from running for office. Their Social Justice perspective aligns with Democrats, but their pro-life perspective has been taken, somewhat cynically, by the Republicans— who are otherwise selfish, wealthy bigots.
6
As the world burns, the United States is consumed by a theocratic battle over abortion. I can't wait for you guys to join the 20th century, and you better be quick about it because the 21st century needs our attention.
26
As a practicing OB for many years, am always struck by the comment “the doctor advised her to abort”. I have been part of the difficult conversation surrounding pregnancy events and complications for which one option for the patient is not continuing the pregnancy, but cannot think of any scenario that it would be presented as the only option. We, as OB’s, need to impart difficult and heart wrenching information in a way that insures the patient clearly understands the most likely outcomes for either her, her baby or both. And as in the case of the Ms Wallace, it was her other child who also was going to be affected by her decision. But in the end, it was HER DECISION.
Allowing patients the right to make their own decision with the help of her physician should not be taken away.
50
@PA OB
I always wonder about this comment too and it has always seemed totally disingenuous to me that the doctor "advised to abort."--a comment that comes up time and again in these articles. A doctor presents options to a patient but does not advise. I've often wished I could get a definitive answer from a doctor about any variety of medical situations, but had to grapple with the reality that it is my decision, with my family, to make.
3
Yes. Abortion is a moral issue. But a moral issue to the woman who is considering the abortion, not the moral issue of outsiders to her thought out decision. Not a moral issue seeped in politics; which should uphold the right of privacy as dictated by Roe v Wade. Privacy. A woman’s right to privacy. Ms French and her donation of heart valves of her dead child to others. To her an altruistic choice, but to others who frown upon donated tissues, parts and organs; appalling. Deliberately birth a child only to give its parts away!
See how this can be twisted? It was her choice, not the choice of that child. And did Ms.French pay out of pocket for any of the procedures?
Women need to unite and support each other, knowing that the decision to end a pregnancy is difficult. Either support the decision of your sisters or help support her child. I don’t hear any of pro-lifers advocating for child care and maternal support.
29
It’s not a moral issue, especially done early. In an overcrowded, overheated earth where there are millions of starving children, a tiny bit of cells is does not warrant this ridiculous unending mess. It’s none of your business, none of your business. If you’re so into morality, go help the millions of babies that have been born. Get out of my life and my morals. It’s none of your business.
6
@LBQNY
You don't hear it because they are busy doing. The largest group of people who adopt children or offer foster care are religious Christians. https://adoption.org/who-adopts-the-most
Ain't the least bit complicated for me. In fact it's never been clearer. I will not support a single candidate who has EVER been on the wrong side of the abortion debate (limiting choice, access, restricting funds, switching positions, holding forth on the morality of abortion) to include having had no opinion or ever belonging to a party that has waged a war against women on this issue for decades.
32
@Rae, I think all the Democratic candidates have always been pro-choice. Are you saying that you would oppose Joe Biden because he changed his mind on the Hyde Amendment? Wouldn't that be self-defeating if it assured a Trump victory?
2
I am not commenting on how/if I will vote or whether Joe Biden will assure a Trump victory. I stated my opinion clearly.
2
People have a great deal of trouble grappling with ethical issues that range along a continuum. For religious people (who seem to do well with absolutes- "thou shalt not," etc.), the moment of fertilization defines the entire panoply of human life (that is, we are all no more than a vibrating tiny lump of tissue, provided there are 46 chromosomes); for pro-abortion absolutists third trimester abortions aren't very different legally from first term abortions. I would hope that Americans would have the ability to try to measure the ethics of abortion from "difficult but legal" (first 4-5 months) to "absolutely not" (barring special circumstances) after six months gestation.
5
@Richard Katz
First, you and I are men and have no clue what a woman is going through when she makes these decisions. We should not be inserting ourselves or our views into her decision making process.
Second, “third trimester” abortion procedures are exceedingly rare and in every case I’ve ever heard about the woman was facing extreme health risks of her own or of the fetus’s.
7
@Richard Katz, every state, even the most liberal, already limits late-term abortions to special circumstances.
I disagree with your "difficult but legal" standard for pre-viability. Barriers to abortion like waiting periods and ultrasounds only affect the most vulnerable women. No woman should have to surmount obstacles to a legal procedure.
Have you ever met a pro-choice "absolutist" who thinks that third trimester abortions aren't very different legally from first trimester abortions? I'm genuinely curious because I think this may be an imaginary being that a lot of people seem to think really exists.
5
I don't want laws against abortion, but I don't like the label "Pro-choice." Women who need abortions are hardly in a position to choose. I am similarly turned off by "Ön Demand."
I do think people (male and female) need to take more control over getting pregnant.
This doesn't apply to children. Children shouldn't be having children.
1
@dr. c.c., I think the label "pro-choice" is the most apt. "Pro-abortion" doesn't fit because many on the pro-choice side are personally opposed to abortion but support the need to let every woman decide for herself.
I'm not sure where the term "on demand" originated, but I think you're reacting to the word "demand." Maybe a better term would be "at request."
1
I do not favor abortion on demand and would consider myself more pro life than not, though there are circumstances where I could see an abortion as an act of regrettable self defense. This has never been the major issue I voted on. I look at a candidate’s positions and judge which person is most likely to help fund a generous safety net, support civil liberties and do the least amount of damage. I believe the pursuit of perfection is the enemy of the good and politicians ought to compromise and work together, even if they can’t agree on everything. In other words, I am a moderate Democrat. It’s a pity that the party is doing its best to push people like me out.
5
Any unplanned pregnancy is a life-changing event. Bringing another unwanted child into the world is a tragic event. Making the difficult moral decision to abort an unwanted pregnancy is both, and neither government nor religion should have any role in that decision.
15
It became impossible for those of us who were moderate Democrats on abortion in the face of Republican absolutism. We were the only ones compromising, and the result is what we have now: theocrats banning all abortion outright.
It takes two sides acting in good faith to compromise. We don’t have that. So ultimately the Democrats were forced to be just as absolutist in the other direction in order to preserve our freedom.
23
Your point of view is exactly how people feel about guns. Instead of nuance they are forced to take an absolutist stance.
I feel that my own nuanced opinions about abortion have been changed by the fact that so called pro lifers are now so blatant in their misogyny. A couple years ago I was “I support abortion rights, but I understand religious objections.” Now I’m just pro choice.
24
I urge people to look beyond the abortion issue and rather at the goal of the Republican right. Roe v. Wade made abortion a civil right for women (albeit with state restrictions) but it voided state laws on abortion, pre Roe. If Roe is overturned, the issue will be returned to the several states, on the basis that abortion is a state matter, not a civil right protected by the federal constitution. Such a decision could become the legal foundation for finding education is a state issue and voting is a a state issue. It could be the turning point for strenghtening the individual states, reducing the power of the federal government to enforce privacy laws as well as the 14th amendment. Because I was a member of a pro-life group which worked with pro-choice women's groups to pass the Family Medical Leave Act, some 26 years ago, I was inadvertly present in discussions mainly by republican men outlining their real goal: More power to the states. Listen, you will hear Republicans talk about returning the issue to the states and "let the people decide". The current repressive abortion state laws are openly described as designed to "overturn Roe". The abortion controvery is only a cover for the real plan - return power to the several states to repress all rights protected by the federal government. J. Roll
16
I'm a Democrat and a feminist (Women's Studies prof), and I support abortion rights. In a society where women still lack complete sexual agency, we must have access to safe and legal abortion.
But...
I also support waiting periods and greater restrictions on elective late-term abortions. (We're told the latter are exceedingly rare; it's about optics, folks.) I feel if we had these in place, as do many liberal European democracies, we would not have states passing outright abortion bans.
5
For vs Wade was all about such limitations. The abortion question is so complicated because people voice their opinions without knowing the facts.
5
@Erica V., there are no states that allow elective late-term abortions that I'm aware of. No woman can simply change her mind about pregnancy once the fetus becomes viable, so this kind of abortion doesn't happen. The myth that healthy viable fetuses are aborted on demand in some states is anti-choice propaganda.
I strongly disagree with you on waiting periods, which only serve to penalize poor women. Waiting periods, like TRAP laws and other restrictions, make abortions legal in name only to millions of women without the ability to travel and take time off work or afford childcare.
5
@Erica V.
You misunderstand the anti-choice/“pro-life” crowd if you really think greater restrictions on elective late term abortions would change anything. And for the record, those abortions cost several thousands of dollars plus travel expenses in most cases, are only available at a handful of clinics in the country, and comprise fewer than 1% of abortions - not sure how much more restrictive you’d need them to be? They occur almost always because a woman’s life is at stake (cancer, severe preeclampsia, etc.) or because a fetus is irreparably damaged and not likely to survive birth, or will survive only to experience an agonizingly painful and short life. Women don’t just put off elective abortion until the third trimester because they’re fickle.
5
Of course it’s complicated. I am both pro life and pro choice. So many people I know cannot wrap their heads around that. But I steadfastly believe this decision belongs to the mother (or guardian, if the mother is not mentally capable), her doctor and her god, if she has one. No one else.
12
@Buffylou, thank you for describing your nuanced views. I'm also pro-life and pro-choice. I think millions of Americans share that position.
Why not do an article on the vast amounts of women who lack access and will be further marginalized by having no choices at all? They are the ones who will be most affected by the draconian laws. They need a voice and choice more than anyone. More often than not, their circumstances don’t allow a debate or a barrage of commentary. Who is ensuring their reproductive justice?
8
Ultimately the issue is who gets to decide. Frances Kissling doesn’t get to judge other people’s situation and whether their ethics are acceptable. Only the pregnant woman and whoever she chooses to involve get to decide. Period.
No one else’s opinion matters. It’s not really that complicated.
16
Are their any circumstances that would make an abortion in the first 24 weeks immoral? If not, we also need to be able to distinguish between abortion and eugenics.
@Cold Eye
Somebody proper believe drinking alcohol is immoral, others dancing and still others believe interracial marriages is somehow immoral. They are free to live according to those principles but they cannot create laws that prohibit others from following their individual conscience.
And positive eugenics is the government encouraging people with certain desirable traits to reproduce while negative eugenics involves the government disallowing others with undesirable, inheritable traits to create offspring. Individual women choosing abortion is not eugenics.
3
I have a very hard time with people who claim to be “pro-life” and vote Republican. Sorry, I hear nothing from the Republican Party that indicates a desire to support women and married couples insuring they have health care, available and affordable day care, time off for child care, etc. I hear nothing from the Republican Party that supports the life of our planet - no recognition of global warming and its impact on all life. I hear nothing from the Republican Party limiting or restricting or registering guns to save lives. No, “pro-life” is not what the anti-abortion people are all about.
19
Also, no word from Republicans on supporting access to contraceptives to prevent the need for many abortions in the first place. In fact, the opposite is true. How can someone be interested in preventing abortions and against one major tool in accomplishing that?
6
It's not all that complicated. If you choose to tell another person how to live their lives or treat their body, and if you press to make medical decisions for another person trough law, then you must be prepared for the same to be done to you.
So, if you are prepared to pass laws that say a person may NOT have an abortion, then you had better be prepared for someone (the government?) to come along and tell you someday that you MUST have an abortion. The power to make these kinds of determinations for others is a two-way proposition.
How about we just all decide to live by what I call the Negative Golden Rule; "Don't do unto others as you would not have done unto you."
10
It is so insulting to hear an anti-choice woman explain her position on the issue by describing her personal experience when she she pregnant and then made the choice to not abort.
Completely missing the point that she had right to CHOOSE what was best for her circumstance, her family, her body. And then in her next breath tells us every other woman should not be afforded this right.
35
The elephant in the room is "is a fetus alive". Everyone dances around that issue which is ultimately central in whether one believes in a woman's right to an abortion or not. I understand the confusion around this after a fetus could be maintained on life support sometime after 20 weeks, but a fetus prior to then is not "a life" in biological terms, nor would it pass a Utilitarian definition of life. Liberals need to be bold and change the terms of this debate
10
Wrong. Scientists like embryologists and pediatricians have concluded that human life exists at the moment of conception. As with the fetus, we are always humans at different stages of development. All our lives.
3
@V. Sharma, MD
The problem with that framework is that technology is continually improving, pushing the viability stage earlier.
Regardless of fetus viability, it is disturbing to set the precedent that so long as the fetus is viable, it may be removed to live outside the womb.
Sorry, but people have a right to determine if they want to donate their organs, and that should apply to any genetic material especially a viable fetus.
I'm a Democrat who opposes abortion. I would hope there's lots of us. But it wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me.
5
The Republican Party desperately depends on the votes of Christian fundamentalists who want their religious beliefs to become the law for everyone in violation of the Constitutional separation of church and state. it is difficult to determine who is more hypocritical - religious leaders who want political power or Republican political leaders who want "religious power".
14
Nature performs "abortions" in the form of miscarriages all the time. Having the technology to see in advance the serious problems a pregnancy might lead to may provide a choice where one didn't exist before. Only when we as a society are willing to provide fully for every child that is born will it be okay to even think about putting limits on the right to abortion.
4
Surely someone can come up with birth control pills for men just as they have for women. Planned Parenthood, if it survives Trump and the Republican blitzkrieg, as well as doctors across the nation can distribute the birth control medications. Let’s use some of that medical science wizardry to diminish as much as possible the need for abortions. Then maybe Christian moderates will see the Republican Trump/McConnell reign for its rampant amorality.
8
I believe the most people believe that abortion should be legal, but only up to a certain point. For example, I believe that most people do not think that aborting fetuses a week before the due date is acceptable. And most people do not think that abortion should be banned just because there is a heartbeat. There is a clear middle ground here. But one party wants to completely ban it, while another wants it to be available when a woman is in labor. The smart candidate will take this middle ground.
4
@Jake
If that fetus being brought to full term would cause the woman to die, then you are absolutely wrong.
It is none of our business in any case because it seems you, like me, are a man, we have no say in what a woman does with her body.
5
@Jake, you've fallen for anti-choice propaganda. No one wants to make abortion legal for a woman is in labor. In fact, there's no such thing as abortion when a woman is in labor--at that point it's called delivery. It's also not possible to have an abortion a week before delivery--that's called induced labor, and it results in a viable infant.
There is no extreme pro-choice position that matches the draconian laws in states like Alabama and Georgia. No state allows abortions on demand after 24 weeks. So-called late term abortions are only allowed in very limited circumstances--life or health of the mother, or fetal nonviability.
I believe that you're supporting the Roe v Wade position, which is what the pro-choice side supports.
4
I don't believe that abortion should be permitted after a heart beat is able to be detected except when the mother's life is in grave danger by following through with the pregnancy or the pregnancy is the result of nonconsensual intercourse. That said if the law permits it, the law permits it. But since it is presented under the argument of "my body, my choice" then it should be considered elective surgery and the pregnant woman should not receive any government assistance to have the abortion.
2
@DC
There are also serious health concerns for the woman or girl and mental health issues and other matters. These are not covered by the two situations you mention. There are other complex matters that pertain to medical matters.
6
Really? Well if that is going to be the case, then I think that vasectomies, viagra, and any prostate care should also be paid out of pocket. In fact why don't we just make any procedure that involves the sexual organs of either gender cash only.
5
@SMB of course + who raises the baby and pays for its existence/schooling etc in a capitalist society with a shrinking social safety net - people who have these opinions care nothing about these considerations or the woman herself
4
The Democratic Party needs to envision a day and come to terms with an environment where Roe is dead, overturned by a court whose appointments and structure are now specifically aligned to reverse the decision. Progressive and moderate Dems need to come to terms with the moral implications of abortion, and to join together in crafting a strong position, and a sincere response to the piercing accusation that if you are a Democrat, then you must a baby killer, when in fact most registered Democrats have not been directly involved with an abortion procedure, and as the article points out, there is still a sizable block of the party that is not pro choice. The issue has become like a large stone wheel placed around the neck of Democrats. Regardless of one’s position, with Roe struck down, the simple brushing off by stating “its my choice, it’s my body” isn’t going to be effective. Democratic leaders within the states need to be prepared to place a strong defense and argument as to why an outright ban of the procedure is immoral in itself, and fight for reasonable protections for cases of rape, incest and medical necessity. The party now longer has a future in the advocacy and defense of unrestricted and open access to abortion.
3
Your assumptions may sound convincing to you but nothing will ever change a woman’s right to determine when she has a child. There is accepting defeat as you imply because to most thinking people this isn’t a war of conscience. It’s a battle between those who want to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us, and sadly, using the government to achieve their agenda.
16
@Floyd
It’s my body is effective because its Constitutional. As SCOTUS stated in its Casey opinion: “matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment."
All people, men and women, have a protected right to the dignity of privacy and autonomy. Forced gestation violates this principle.
11
@Floyd Democratic leaders within the states need to support state measures supporting abortion. As some have. My state of California did it years ago.
2
I think the right / GOP would have credibility if their prolife beliefs extended beyond the gestational period; the GOP platform is pro-gestational life only. One need only take an honest look at their every action from cutting food stamps, denying healthcare, supporting corporate welfare, tax cuts for the top one percent while the lower and middle class work hard for basic necessities.
If all of us, both Republican and Democrat, arrived at work each morning with the work ethic, general stupidity, callousness and outright ignorance of facts to complete our jobs, as is on display here, we would be walked out the door by the end of the day.
No wonder the political divide is so severe.
25
@Brylar It's simple; the GOP's pro-life beliefs are strictly pro-gestational because the unspoken subtext is that no woman should be having sex if she's not willing to bear a child as a result of that act. They're getting ready to come after birth control too.
3
I am very glad to see this article and the thoughtful reader comments that follow it. The abortion issue is so morally and ethically complex for so many, likely most, people and the recent polarization of views that does not allow for a complex, thoughtful discussion is, in the long run, a great disservice for all.
3
I think the article mischaracterizes the current left-leaning position. When candidates say "No middle ground," they're actually referring to Roe v. Wade. The ruling already is the compromise. No late term abortions without extreme exception. Abortion is almost universally illegal after fetal viability. Fetal viability begins between 20 and 30 weeks.
That's it. That's the standard by which we judge abortion laws constitutional or not. The "middle ground" is unconstitutional because you're actually three quarters right of unregulated abortion. That's what Roe v. Wade established: the center.
If you can figure out how to reliably keep a six week fetus alive outside his or her mother's womb, I happy to talk about moving that 20-odd week mark back. Until then, you have absolutely no basis for complaint one way or the other. No one who carries a child for 30 weeks wants to abort the pregnancy. There's something else going on and it's none of your business.
60
@Andy
Exactly.
4
@Andy, thank you.
The article entirely mischaracterizes the pro-choice position. The author implies that there is a segment that supports abortion on demand throughout pregnancy. I've yet to see anyone support that view, candidate or otherwise.
The pro-choice position supports Roe v Wade, which is the middle ground.
6
@Andy
Thank you. It's as if no one has read the actual opinion. It's so frustrating as a pro-choice woman who supports Roe to have people complain that the two sides can't compromise and then suggest the very compromise Roe provides!
It's a medical procedure that is only complicated to those who despise females, those who do not think females have the right to make their own choices and control their own destinies. Over and over for 2000 years, those who enslaves females are one in the same as those who genuflect to the 4 ancient Abrahamics, especially the evangelicals, muslims and Vatican Inc.
The U.S. was founded as a secular nation, despite constant attack from the hypocritical, ignorant and misogynist religious element.
No one operates under the illusion anymore that the bible bangers are focused on anything but the temple money changer male hierarchies punishing every generation of reproductive age females.
If the ancient cult followers were sincere about life, their focus would be on males who kill everything in sight and who create the unwanted pregnancies, either by careless consensual sex or violent rape - esp. incest rape of young girls by a father, brother or grandfather in so-called families.
Their focus is on ensuring females are pregnant, destitute and dependent, miserable and punished for having had sex as a single female with a careless male, or had a dangerous life threatening pregnancy even if married. Their goal is cruel mistreatment of females for simply being female. It is the foundation of all the 4 son culture religions. They will never change. They will never recognize half the planet that is female as anything but inferior servants to all males and breeding livestock.
38
@Maggie
First off, I am an atheist man whose wife had an abortion that I completely supported and did not attempt to influence in either direction as I assumed that it was her call and my job was to be there for her no matter what. This was very early during the pregnancy so it was a “minor” procedure from the medical point of view. For us personally it was incredibly difficult and to this day still causes me anxiety to remember 10 years later.
Now, I don’t want to over-emphasize the frequency of abortions in later stages of the pregnancy (I know they are rare and more frequently for medical reasons), but a blanket legalization of them makes me deeply uncomfortable. Not because I think the woman doesn’t deserve the right to decide, but because I believe that at some point in the development of the baby, they acquire rights of their own, and that it happens at some point before birth.
I have no idea on where to draw the line as to where those rights start and it starts to become uncomfortable for me to support abortion, so I will not attempt to do so and instead prefer to err on the side of protecting the right for all women to decide on their own, but I do not do so without deep discomfort.
Ultimately, I believe that everyone’s goal is to do what we can to reduce the number of abortions through sex education, broad access to contraception and full medical support during pregnancy. I hope this makes sense.
I hope you see that there is a broader spectrum on this.
4
@Carlos
That “point in the development of the” fetus IS WHEN IT IS BORN. Then it is a baby and it has all the rights of every other American born on US soil.
7
@Blank That is your opinion and from a legal point of view it is true today. But that doesn't mean that everyone else feels that way, nor that they should. Too many democrats today confuse their opinion for dogma.
Thank you for this thoughtful article that articulates so sensitively my own feelings about abortion.
As a feminist and a lifelong Democrat who cares deeply about the environment, socialized medicine, workers’ rights, and an end to unnecessary war and a limit on guns, I have found it difficult to voice my pro-life sentiment. Many of my liberal friends have no idea I am pro life.
While I’ve managed to soothe myself with words such as those carefully crafted statements about how abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, I have lately begun to feel that the Democratic Party has no place for people like myself- as evidenced by the black and white comments posted here.
I find it hypocritical that people who oppose violence, war, guns, the death penalty and animal cruelty close their ears and their minds to arguments in support of the human rights of the preborn. It’s as if their hidden status in the womb makes them somehow less real, less deserving of compassion.
Perhaps this is the time for me to choose to abstain from politics. I cannot support most of the platform of the Republican Party, but I find the hard-line views of the left untenable.
172
On the other hand, I found it is surprising that person who cares about the right of unborn, has no problem to deny the right to already-born person. We are not allow to dismember dead people to save other people's lives, and yet we deny same right to a living woman. Isn't this violence against women? You can be pro-life and work for improving conditions and access to contraception that the abortion was a rare choice. I don't think any Democrat will have any objections to that, but you can not deny the people their rights and expect Democrats to support your stance.
153
@Teresa It doesn't sound like your values about life as a whole--climate change, quality of life, survivabilty as a species--are all that firm if they can be effectively countered by a single issue and a few postings on a web-site.
108
@Teresa, I can tell you from my own perspective that it's not appeals to the life of the child that I close my ears to. I want all pregnancies to be *wanted* pregnancies. I do not believe criminalizing abortion is the best way to achieve a reduction in unwanted pregnancies, and I can see that the places where abortions are difficult/illegal to get have higher maternal mortality rates. It's complicated indeed, as the mothers that die are not only those trying to end their pregnancies. Turns out threatening doctors with jail time and closing clinics results in worse prenatal care.
So by all means let us support the lives of the unborn by making it easier for women to choose life, but let's not pretend like there is only one moral position in this debate or that it must be hypocritical to argue for women's rights and lives.
140
Well past time to get the white male Republicans out of our bedrooms. Leave it to the woman to decide decisions regarding her body and her life. Misogyny is a greater wrong, particularly when it is tolerated by the very white guys legislating invasive procedures and decisions about Women’ s bodies. Enough already.
45
Unless you know with certainty the exact point that life begins, it’s complicated.
3
Life begins with the first breath.
4
Scientifically speaking, human life begins at conception
1
@Jennifer Well actually, medicine does know when viability begins. The concept of the soul, now rebranded as "personhood," is just nonsense.
2
It IS complicated.
Which is exactly why the decision to abort or not should be the woman’s decision.
23
This doesn't have to be complicated. It should be the business of no one else of what your faith is or is not. What you do in your bedroom should concern no one else and the same holds true for what occurs between you and your doctor. What a much better country we would live in if everyone just minded their own business.
And what a much better political party the GOP would be if it didn't have to lie in order to rally its base.
30
A few years back an ardent (and angry) abortion opponent demanded to know what I thought about the decision to abort. I said that in many cases I would wish that mothers gave birth and adopted out if they could not or would not parent. But, I added, it's not my call. Not his call either.
That's the line - I absolutely respect your right to practice and preach your beliefs. Passionately. But using the law to impose your practice on others who don't share your beliefs is arrogant beyond belief. What does the right not get about free choice?
28
It's complicated but we seem to be in a time when it is ok to make laws about bodily integrity and behavior for women, absent science, medicine or any respect for a moral view that might be different. Saying I'm ok if you die since you are a murderer and my religious belief system must be legislated makes it hard to look for nuance.
Stories always start with "the woman" pregnant and alone. But that is not the beginning of the story. In hearing abortion stories I would like to read more about the lead up to a decision about a pregnancy such as access to access to accurate sex, reproduction and birth education, myths about contraception, cost for reproductive health care, being forced out into "clinics" away from other kinds of health care, what men who participate in these decisions believe their role was/is, etc. Maybe context will provide room for a more nuanced middle ground.
9
None of that story line is any of your, or your GOP legislature's, business.
5
No legislation can curtail the sex drives of teenagers...And hasn’t it been nice that for generations the phrase Shotgun Wedding has faded from the American lexicon?
I still maintain that American Dads, no matter where they live or worship, will move Heaven and Earth to get their daughters “out of trouble”...It’s the friendless and ignorant women “in trouble” for whom I worry...
5
Conservatives, and by extension white supremacists, are looking at this all wrong. Statistics show that women who are not white, aka the minorities, are more likely to get one or more abortions in their lifetime than white women. This is for various reasons, including poverty, partner violence and lack of access to contraception.
Whatever the reasons may be, there is no denying that from the white supremacist conservative point of view, every minority woman getting an abortion leads to one less non-white American being born, thereby delaying the dreaded minority majority scenario that is every white supremacist American's worst nightmare.
So conservatives railing against abortion are basically shooting themselves in the foot, demographically speaking. The smart and most cost effective long term strategy for maintaining white dominance in politics, after minority voter suppression and reducing legal and illegal immigration, is to encourage anything that leads to a fall in fertility rates in non white women, at the same time trying to keep white fertility rates as high as possible.
This would include various tactics like promoting education and employment for minority women, ensuring easily available and free contraception for minority women, encouraging abortions among minority women and financial incentives for minority women who choose irreversible surgical sterilization early during their fertile age. Do the opposite of all the above for white women.
5
@A Cynic. Don’t think you can have a policy that is only for one skin color or ethnic background. Even if we lived in a society where white supremacists were in control, I don’t see white women going along meekly with that plan, even if a depressing percentage voted for Trump.
@A Cynic
The only problem with your plan is that it would cost money. This is something Conservatives are always happy to tell us we don't have, unless it is for a wealthy donor.
"The party dropped the word “rare” from its platform in 2008 at the urging of activists who felt it was shaming to women. And Democrats today seldom discuss reducing the number of abortions as a goal. “The argument,” said Ms. Kissling, the pro-abortion rights ethicist, “is if we want to reduce the number of abortions there must be something wrong with it.”
A pox on these "activists" who will surely be responsible for four more years of DT and his ilk.
HRC's comment that abortion should be "...safe, legal, and rare" pretty much addresses the all concerns that matter in the upcoming election. The intransigence and short-sightedness of those who insist the term "rare" is shaming to those who have had abortion(s) demonstrates unparalleled ignorance. Abortion, spontaneous, therapeutic, induced, whatever, IS a response to a failure. A failure on a genetic level, the failure of the zona to prevent more than one sperm from penetrating the oocyte, a failure of cell division, a failure to use birth control, failure OF birth control, and even the failure of a man to abide by social rules and commit rape resulting in pregnancy. Why can't we call a mistake a mistake? A failure a failure? If you really want this monstrosity out of the white house, you need thicker skins!
3
Democrats want free easily accessible contraception for all. Republicans don’t like contraception anymore than they like abortion
1
@Factumpactum And why can't we call a medical problem a medical problem?
3
We don’t live in a black and white world despite how much conservatives think we do.
8
It is a complicated issue and the American public generally does not agree with either extreme.
If I was running a Russian troll farm to re-elect Trump I would have my troll army posting:
“This issue is not complicated! Women should absolutely be allowed to have an abortion whenever they want, including week 40 if they don’t want a baby.”
5
Do you really think that a woman decides to abort at week 40 because suddenly she doesn’t want a baby? Leave the decision between the doctor and the woman and stay out of it.
4
@Midwest Moderate. Sorry. I am not giving up my bodily autonomy to save the USA from another 4 years of Trump. It’s disgraceful to even present that as our “choice.” I’ve heard it said too that if we nominate another white woman or POC (of any gender) instead of a white moderate male it’ll be 2016 again. Take it for The Party, Ladies! Otherwise Donald Trump is your fault. God forbid we should blame the people who voted for him.
1
It just is not complicated, at all. Women own ourselves.
We can work, drive, vote, eat what we want, go where we want, live where we wish, have sex with other willing adults if we so desire, and seek medical care if we believe we need it.
The ways in which women, like other human beings, can exercise free will are myriad and countless.
We are not objects, vessels, or incubators to carry the religious fantasies of others.
Believe what you will, for yourself. Fetuses are not sentient beings. Women are, and we own ourselves.
Just like men.
38
People buy into conservative cpropaganda that late term abortions are frequent and done for no reason. This is not true. Andtaxpayer money goes to fund the war machine at an exponentially larger percentage. That money is used to kill people. Also if a woman cannot afford abortion then she really can’t afford to go through pregnancy, birth and providing for a child.
17
If you bring up the subject of abortion
Some will object
Gets blown out of proportion
Passions will flare
Because they care
Is there a chance we’ll lose
Our right to choose?
Sounds like bad news
Hope Roe v Wade
Won’t get betrayed
I am afraid
5
The Catholic Church, with it's rich history of sexual abuse, has no moral high ground on this issue.
Those who condone capital punishment have no moral high ground on this issue.
You have your right to your opinion. I support that right. But you have no right to dictate to me what I can and can not chose.
29
Let’s step back a bit, for the sake of dealing with this honestly.
The issue is not—and never has been—abortion.
It is—and always has been—choice.
Which is to say, control.
Some of us want to limit choice, individual choice, by having the state enact and enforce one-size-fits-all statutory restrictions.
These same people often oppose state-sponsored control in other matters (e.g., water quality). Also, they know, full well, that those with the financial means to get around restrictions on abortion will do so. So it’s not clear that their position on the matter of “abortion” (i.e., on choice versus control) isn’t, on some level, a kind of racism-cum-class warfare. In any case, it’s definitely not about abortion. It’s about choice-versus-control.
The media does all of us a huge disservice by allowing those who oppose choice, to couch the matter as abortion-versus-anti-abortion. It’s not, and never has been, about that. Nobody in favor of choice is trying to promote abortions, per se.
Grow up, all media people! Get real. Do your job, which is to get to the bottom of things and tell the truth, be it nuanced or simple. You people have much to answer for. Now answer for it!
16
Abortion is wrong but should not be in our election. GOD will deal with these bad people doing it. Our founding fathers said keep religion out of politics as it is very dividing. It sure is. The GOP are anti life will get us into wars where women a nd kids are killed they support coal which is killing humanity so how about supporting life for every one.
2
Abortion is a false political issue created by activist, demented, theocratic Evangelicals. Their ideological madness also includes the destruction of the world written in Scripture by men who listened to God.
Some fellowship.
I thought the silliness of “the abortion issue” was resolved by Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer in the pizza arc.
11
For all those like Jeannie Wallace French who oppose abortion they should step up to adopt the children born when no abortion is available.
9
Most Americans do not understand Roe v Wade, that it is really a middle ground affirming:
1. No prohibitions during the first trimester,
2. Reasonable health regulations during the second trimester, and
3. States can ban abortion during the third trimester except when mother’s life or health is at stake.
In one of the Trump/Clinton presidential debates, Trump said something to the effect ... “she wants to allow a 39 week old baby to be pulled out of a mother and killed!” Clinton’s response was something like “not true Donald” and she moved on. I believe if she had effectively messaged something like:
“... Donald, you’re lying, Roe v Wade does not (!!!) allow a 30-40 week pregnancy to be aborted unless the mother’s live is in grave danger. I thank God I have never been faced with this. Good people might disagree whether an abortion should be allowed to save the mother’s life, but don’t keep on lying about what rights Roe v Wade granted women ...”
we would likely have a President Clinton today.
12
The Democratic Party platform is now “free abortions for poor people!” Even Biden got on the bandwagon. Such a painful, complex issue, reduced to this.
3
I’m finding it hard to understand what your objection is to free abortions for poor women. Poor women should pay? Or poor women should not have abortions?
4
@David. No, it is, as it has been for decades, help poor people have better lives. Any simplistic reduction here is entirely on you.
2
@David
Why does MediCare cover Viagra?
1
Kirsten Gillibrand said yesterday that there is no room in the Democratic Party for a candidate that doesn’t support full reproductive rights for women. She just told the American public not to vote for any Democrat that doesn’t. Bad move Kirsten. Very bad.
6
@Steve Kay
Why do you want to control what a woman does with her body?
What makes you think that legislating what a woman can do with her body is cool with other Americans?
1
I would like to hear more from women who refused advice to abort their pregnancies or who considered abortion but didn’t follow through. If Ms French and others like her submit op-eds detailing their experiences to NYT, I hope they will be published.
54
Why? No one is suggesting a law to force women to abort problematic pregnancies. That's the beauty of being pro choice. Women get to choose what's right for themselves.
64
@Lynn in DC
Why on earth would it be any of your business what these women decide? These are all adult women, like you, and they aren't asking why you made any of your private medical decisions. How about recognizing that your opinion of another's healthcare choice is beyond irrelevant?
26
@Lynn in DC yes those stories are powerful and they are pro-choice in every way. Thank god those women had the right to make that very personal choice that no one could possibly have made for them.
I had a friend faced with a pregnancy she had tried for years for, but where the fetus was not developing and would not survive. Her health was best protected by having an abortion as was her ability to try and get pregnant again and despite the heartbreak it caused her to have to make that decision she knew it was the right one for her. She recovered and went on to get pregnant again and now has a baby boy. Do you feel you have the right to tell her she needed to carry that fetus until she miscarried knowing it could risk her life and she would be unlikely to get pregnant again.
Likewise those that decide to continue a pregnancy despite health or other challenges have every right to do that, because only they can decide what risks they are willing to take with their bodies and their lives.
All of these stories of choice are important and all women must have the right to make those choices.
36
I am in my seventies. In 1972 when RoevWade had recently been decided by the Supreme Court, I was a newlywed living in Atlanta Georgia. We were both from the NE, recent college graduates, and had decided to pack a trailer, and move south. We had little money, and found an apartment south of downtown, near the airport. It was a two story brick building with about 20 units. There was a staircase to the 2nd floor cat walk. The railroad ran right by our front door. When the trains would pass it was not only loud, the entire building shook.
Within weeks my husband found a very good job, with good benefits. We only had one car, so when I could figure out the transportation, I too would look for work, and begin a career. We were both 23 years old. I hadn’t felt well, but figured I was just tired. My contraception was an IUD. It was a relatively new form of contraception, and apparently for us it had not worked. I was pregnant. Six weeks pregnant. We had been married for almost 9 weeks. Both of us were of one mind. I would have an abortion.
We were married for forty-three years when my husband died. We have three adult, productive children. We were resolute that our early decision had been right for us. We were always appreciative we had a right to choose. I think those who do not want an abortion should not have one.
It is my belief that we should each a right to live as we choose.
56
Why is this "complicated"?
No right wing conservative would deign to tell me, a male, what to do about my medical issues.
What gives such a person the right to give my wife (or my daughters, my daughter-in-law, or my granddaughters) advice about any of their medical issues?
If your answer is "religion", you just fell into a 1st amendment trap, under which laws that give preference to the views of any religion are unconstitutional.
If you say "morality", since when does your morality obligate anyone else? What you see as "immoral" may not be "immoral" for the next person. In addition, immoral is not the same as illegal.
How about we just leave issues relating to a medical condition, pregnancy, to a woman and her doctor?
35
If anyone can explain how a zygote, with 46 chromosomes- 23 from the sperm and 23 from the egg, is not an independent living thing rather than just “part of the mother” like a tooth, then tell us.
We need abortion because in an advanced society women must control their bodies, not because it’s more “moral” than not having abortions, and because since abortions are going to happen regardless of the law, then it’s better they are safe and professional. The morals argument, both pro and con, always ends in a statement. So abortion must remain available. But progressives, deep in denial about the profundity of the unborn, are not helping. As has been said, progressives and abortion have become something like the NRA and gun rights. Black and white thinking is part of the problem.
102
@Chuffy
A fertilized egg is alive, as is every cell in the body. The egg and sperm were both alive before fertilization, no life was injected into it.
That fact that it is not independent should be obvious. It is not. It is tethered to the body of the woman and receives all its nutrients, and oxygen from her body and her body carries away and disposes of its wastes. It is 100% dependent on and contained within her, and without her body it will die.
No person can be compelled to use their body to keep someone else alive. Parents cannot be forced to donate organs to a child, even if the child will die without it. Organs cannot even be taken from a corpse without permission given before death. Woman do not lose their bodily autonomy and the right to not have their bodies used to sustain the life of a fetus against their will.
81
It's not an "independent living thing" because it's not an "independent living thing." Hence the need to rely on a separate human being to serve as an incubator for nine months.
60
The lack of basic biological knowledge undergirding this comment is mind boggling. You fertilize a egg and its a “independent living thing”? Really, independent? As in self-reliant, self-supporting, able to thrive separately. A zygote has the potential to become a “living thing” otherwise its just another fertilized egg, many of which often spontaneous abort or miscarry. Its just this sort of nonsense advocated by the anti abortion movement that muddies the waters of intelligent discourse. In other words is a fertilized egg a chicken? Of course not. But if you talk about humanity then biology and science disappear into a black hole of religious dogma and reactionary conservatism. It ain’t a “baby” until it is and calling it so in order to promote a religious objective is disingenuous nonsense.
67
They don’t like taxpayers money going to fund abortions for women of color and low economics. Well, when their kid is thrown from his four wheeler ATV, of course, not wearing a helmet, who is going to pay for that Medevac helicopter ride to The University of Kentucky medical center Emergency Room. a 100 miles away. Guess who pays for that. An abortion only costs about $300. That Medevac helicopter ride to the ER, cost $15,000. Wake up!
17
I think the problem really is more about sexuality than it is about abortion. One is not supposed to be sexually active unless one is prepared to give birth. Including married people, including rape victims, including minor children who are victims of sex crimes.
18
I hope the Democratic candidates have a thoughtful conversation about the complexities mentioned here.
Too often, too many of them come across as “abortion is just another procedure.”
6
@Mike McClellan An abortion often is simply a miscarriage chosen by the woman. In those circumstances, it's not very complicated at all.
7
The economics may be tough here, but as I am unsure, let me be clear: if one opposes the use of taxpayer money to fund abortions, then I would use the same logic to ban its use for anything fertility or sex-related if it is already covered by, say, Medicare or Medicaid. That means Viagra, all penile dysfunction treatments, all sexual pleasure enhancing medications or treatments, heck, all sex change operations.
Add this: if you ban abortions, and force all women or victims of rape or incest to have kids, require that the males fully support the resulting children or, you guessed it, be prepared to use taxpayer money for that purpose. People mean as much as fertilized eggs, if you have any humanity at all.
If I sound like a raging abortion advocate, I am not. Quite the reverse. The Greek Orthodox faith to which I recently converted after decades of atheism condemns it. But it also stresses that God gave us free will. I am not a woman. Were I a woman, as Greek Orthodox I could not have an abortion without being prepared for a reckoning with God for my choice. But that’s the key. Even then, it would be MY choice, because God gave us free will precisely to force us to choose.
So I will continue to support a woman’s right to choose as a citizen and human being. Unlike the GOP and so many so-called “Evangelical” “Christians”, I am prepared to see my tax dollars used to pay for their abortions or to support the children. Better than tax breaks for the plutocracy, for sure.
24
No need for government intervention on personal rights & freedoms !
15
@GLO I wss told by thr NYS legislature yesterday what I can do with the building I bought with my own money and what I can charge for it. What happened to personal rights and freedoms? You must also be for unfettered access to assault weapons as well right? The hypocracy of the left is baffling.
2
Not complicated at all! Don't have one if you don't want to. Just mind your own business. Men need not reply till they can carry fetuses.
21
Climate change will result in crop failures and a severely restricted food supply. Future governments will need to force abortions to control the population size. Overturning Roe v. Wade will enable this. Tell that to your so called Pro-Life neighbor.
5
It should not be federally decided but left to the states. Nothing in the US Constitution about abortion.
4
@JDK
I presume that is true, however abortion is a human rights issue which I believe are part of the US constitution.
All people should have the right to choose what they do with their body.
The southern states have a terrible record of voting on human rights. Remember slavery? So, no, the states SHOULD NOT be allowed to vote on what one may do with his or her body.
Whether it’s educational attainment, infant mortality, maternal health, drug addiction, or suicide rates, these states FAIL every measure of what constitutes a thriving society. Their results in these areas are similar to those in third world countries. It is a JOKE for them to presume to tell any other person or state what to do. Despite all their whining about paying for abortions, blue states subsidize red state’s failures & stupidity with our tax dollars. We all subsidize their bogus churches & religious schools through their underserved tax deductions.
Republicans & religionists have become liars & science deniers hostile to existing constitutional protections (except the 2nd amendment of course.) So, no, ignorant unpatriotic liars should not be allowed to vote on anyone’s constitutional protections or medical decisions except their own.
There is no obligation to compromise women’s human rights with such people or respect their opinions and beliefs. None of the attributes I mentioned are remotely respectable or worthy of compromise.
1
But not with the body of another person. Which the fetus is.
1
we need the kind of protests that hong kong has been doing, in regards to our elections, issues like abortion, and trump. what kind of country allows our president to lie so blatantly in our faces and the next day deny he said it? if we don't start some kind of mass protest, to invoke the 25th amendment to get trump and pence out of office, then we deserve the likes of this lying creep. i am so sick and tired of his lies, i could scream.
10
“...she is not comfortable with the idea of taxpayer money going to fund abortions.”
I am not comfortable with the idea of taxpayer money going to fund churches.”
72
I’m really not comfortable with Blue State taxes subsidizing failed Red State stupidity. Whether it’s infant mortality, maternal health, drug addiction, suicide rates, or educational attainment, most of these states are at third world level. And they want to tell the rest of the states what to do?
9
If you’re against abortion, don’t have one. It’s a personal choice. It’s ironic that the GOP wants to force women to endure a 9 month pregnancy (after rape in Alabama) but yet won’t force a baker to bake a cake (about 90 minutes) for a gay couple’s wedding.
33
Religion has no place in any government.
34
Like Christopher Hitchens said “Religion Poisons Everything”.
18
Vasectomy prevents abortion.
25
It's not complicated at all. Stay the heck away from the decisions I make about my body, my health, and my life. Full stop.
20
It's not complicated at all. Keep your religion and your beliefs out of everyone else's lives. Don't want an abortion? Don't have one. It's that frikkin' simple.
23
Decision making in abortions is a complicated thing,... to the persons directly involved, the woman, her partner if he's available and willing, and the doctor treating his patient. The answer for anyone else is simple — they should keep their opinions to themselves and butt out of the intimate business others are unfortunately saddled with. Abortion, within established parameters, has been legal for nearly 50 years. Time to accept that fact and move on to other moral issues like poverty, malnutrition, war — all of which kill far more people.
15
Not complicated, mind your own business is the answer, especially if you have a penis. It is none of your business what a woman chooses.
17
@Paulie
Although I agree that this is a decision of the female, I would hope that my partner would at least consider my wishes if she was making such a decision.
I think that stating it’s none of my business is a bit extreme.
1
@Rod Sheridan. If you have a good relationship I am sure she would consider your wishes. You would probably have many long conversations about it. What you wouldn’t have is the legal power to force her to give birth. And I can’t conceive you would want to.
1
@LizJ
Hi, I agree completely.
Everyone thinks this issue is complicated, I don’t see it that way, the woman should have absolute control over her body.
I honestly don’t understand the “Pro life” position as to me it seems more like an anti choice position.
I think it’s a matter of both sides on the extreme edges: the ultra-left, abortion under any circumstances; the ultra-right, no abortion under any circumstances.
There has to be room for compromise.
For the Left — no, abortion is cruel in the third trimester, or anytime after the viability of the fetus outside the womb. A woman can make her decision before six months. That’s not onerous.
For the Right — you’re kidding, a woman has to carry to full term if she was raped or she has gestational diabetes or another life-threatening issue?
109
@David G.
Sorry David, you and I, being males of the species, have no say in what a women does with her body.
49
@David G.
I don’t think the ultra-left is advocating abortion under any circumstances. If “they” are, I would like to see some evidence of this. Speaking as a left rep, I can see some instances — health-related — where abortion in the third trimester should be available. I have read about the experiences of many parents who have had to make this decision, and it sounds like an agonizing one.
58
“A woman can make her decision in six months. That is not onerous.”
With all due respect, you clearly are not an Ob/gyn and are fortunate not to have had someone in your life experience serious complications in pregnancy. There are admittedly rare cases where a late term procedure is necessary. It is cruel to delay and complicate such a difficult decision. It is disgusting to invade a family’s privacy with legal proceedings in such a case. How about giving women the benefit of the doubt, and honoring our right to privacy?
62
People should not have the right to terminate pregnancies after 20 weeks because they don't like the sex of their child or the race of their child. Can we just begin with that?
5
@Observer of the Zeitgeist
People should not have the right to prevent a woman from making a decision about a 6 week old fetus by falsely calling it a "person" or a "child". Can we just begin with that?
Your "obvious" example represents a rare extreme - an argument from the margins. Mine represents what anti-abortionists are actually doing.
12
It is absolutely about control of women now. As a resident of Georgia, I remember when all the Democratic women in the state legislation walked out in 2012 when a severe abortion bill was passed on the bogus medical grounds of "fetal pain".
Now you have the false "fetal heartbeat" when fetuses don't hace hearts yet. Nor do Republican men.
This last time, the Georgia politicians bypassed the health committee and zoomed it by the science and technology committee, so essentially 3 Republican men on that committee passed it (the women were opposed).
The Georgia bill means miscarriages can be investigated. The six-week period of course includes the time back to a woman's last period when conception has not even occurred so it might be only 3 weeks since conception when most women have no idea they are pregnant. The rape exception requires a police report to have been filed which many incest and rape victims would be reluctant to do.
So this is entirely about controlling women. For too long, Republicans were able to make up terms like "Pro-Birth" when it is the opposite. These are forced birther laws.
And it is overwhelmingly being pushed by white male theocratic Republicans who continuously mention "their beliefs" to ignore the science, medicine, and rights issues involved as they deny the personhood of all women and girls.
War against women.
24
More than 2/3’s of Americans approve of a woman’s right to control her own body.
The Religious Right Wing ANTI-CHOICE extremists do not have any right to force their religious views on other Americans.
24
It seems complicated, but seems is not is: it seems complicated because one side is congenitally dishonest. The self-styled pro-life side fudges, conflates and avoids logic, because logic and clear thinking would abort its claims, or force a far more radical reform of moral life than any card waving Republican would ever tolerate.
First, abortion kills living set of cells. The cells have human DNA, so are arguably human. For the sake of simplicity, let's grant that abortion kills a human being. The problem, however, is that you cannot assert in any credible way that there is anything remotely sacred about that sort of human being that makes it any more sacred than your average pig, rat, bat, cat or chicken: all are living things and all have heart beats when we cheerfully kill them either to stuff into our mouths or simply because we think them inconvenient pests.
What drives the anti-abortion people is typically ancient religious superstitions about souls, and that is just not going to float. You can't justly interfere in people's lives because your pet superstition tells you to. So the anti-abortionists fudge and pretend that every human being is a full human person, entitled to every legal right and protection of any other human person. But in doing so, they set the bar for personhood so low that every single animal we eat also qualifies, and that won't do for meat devouring Republicans or even most hungry Christians.
It's simple: the cognitive dissonance runs deep.
8
“Obama, then the party’s presidential nominee, spoke of how Americans wrestled with the issue in good faith, saying that “anybody who tries to deny the moral difficulties and gravity of the abortion issue, I think, is not paying attention.”” Does not mean that abortion is a moral difficulty. It means that Religious zealots and opportunistic politicians have framed abortion as a moral difficulty. This has great gravity in context to the treatment of women.
Women are inferior to men in financial, medical, scientific, and religious matters because men have made them inferior. Women are paid less than men because men control decisions about pay. Women are treated as hysterical, and too “complex” in medical treatments and research because men control medicine and research. Women are less recognized in science because men control the scientific community where “peer reviews” are done by men. Women are subordinate to men in the Abrahamic faiths and others because God is male and men have had final word on all of the religious texts. Religion is the last refuge for male supremacy. Religion is used to justify it.
Ending a pregnancy is ethically and morally the prerogative of a woman. Her decisions are her own. Lies about cancers post abortion, mental illness post abortion, and narratives about special outcomes of fetuses that were not aborted but had heart valves transplanted are anecdotal rubbish. Religious tyranny and beliefs violate the freedom from religion, are Sharia law.
11
Your interpretation of Obama’s comment is Orwellian. As is much of the rhetoric of the left.
There is no room for pro life folks in the Democratic Party. You are not wanted. I will never be able to vote for them as long as they support abortion rights. I am welcomed by Republicans and they are the party that supports the unborn at all stages of development. I cannot understand how anyone can be pro choice today with the mounds of science and technology evidence that supports there is life that exists in the womb. Until the Democrats welcome me, they will never get my vote.
3
@KMW
There's plenty of room for pro-life folks in the Democratic party. There's just no room for anti-choice folks.
18
@KMW So if you're in favor of every progressive Democratic platform except their platform of adhering to Roe vs. Wade--established law for decades--you still won't vote Democratic? I don't buy that.
4
@KMW. You’re right: you have a party. You don’t need ours. Perhaps if you feel at odds with your party on issues other than abortion, e.g. workers’ rights, immigration, public investment, civil rights, consumers’ rights, you can work from within to change its positions on some of these. THEN we have a real possibility of bi-partisan legislation and a better society.
1
A conversation about setting parameters for abortion might be acceptable when contraception is as available as aspirin for ALL women. It is so hypocritical to curtail women's ability to control their reproduction and also prohibit abortion. Unless this debate really is about controlling women and hampering their rights to their own bodies. Which I suspect it is.
6
Complicated?
Ok, so let's make this simple.
Every woman is responsible for and has full control over her own body.
P. E. R. I. O. D.
15
I'm not comfortable with my tax money going to weapons to kill people and often kids in other countries. And that is 100,000 times as much money as would ever go for abortions.Why are they so focused on that little bit of money?
22
Abortion is not complicated. It is the termination of the unborn. You are either for it or against it. There is no middle ground as far as many are concerned.
We keep hearing over and over again about women being able to control their own bodies and making their own decisions. This would be fine if there was not another human being involved but when you have a baby as the victim it is immoral. Where are their rights? Finally the pro life folks are speaking up and not remaining silent. They are the ones who are defending life. They will continue to fight for the unborn.
60 million fetuses/babies have already lost their lives to abortion. Finally people are saying enough is enough. They have turned a deaf ear to these lame excuses. They have made a difference and will not stop until this barbarism ends.
2
@KMW--You are assuming, as a matter of unquestioned fact, that a fetus is exactly the same thing as a baby. But that is precisely the point at issue. Those of us who are pro-choice think that a fetus is NOT a baby; it is something that has the potential to grow into a baby, but it is not one yet. Thus, your statement that "a baby is the victim" of an abortion is simply not true, unless and until one accepts your premise that a fetus is precisely identical to a baby.
I do not think that a fetus is a baby any more than I think that an acorn is an oak tree. If I step on an acorn on the sidewalk, I do not feel any of the horror that I would feel if I saw a healthy 100-year-old live oak being unnecessarily cut down. Yet that acorn had the *potential* to develop into an oak tree. Similarly, when I hear of a few-weeks-old fetus being aborted, I do not feel any of the horror that I feel at reports of infanticide. Why not? Simply, because I do not think that a fetus is a baby. Something that has potential to become a baby, yes; already a baby, no.
8
@KMW. A baby has some rights under the law. A fetus should have none. You say “it’s fine” if women have their equal rights (as if that were some favor granted to us), but not if some other human being is involved. That’s what husbands and fathers used to say: what wives and sisters and daughters- and mothers!- did affected *their* standing in the community so women just couldn’t be allowed to have the same legal rights as men! Speak to men and women in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and South Asia if you want to know what that’s like. Once it wasn’t much different in the West.
6
@KMW Embryos and fetuses are not babies. Merely potential babies. They are not sentient.
6
This has probably already been stated, but Jeannie Wallace French made the choice (operative word being choice here) to carry her baby, who ultimately and tragically died, to term, after her doctor offered abortion as an option. I am pro choice, and a mother, and may have made the same decision that Liz made, especially knowing that the baby’s organs could be donated thus saving others’ lives. However, I did have a D&C after a first trimester miscarriage because I was young, and distraught, and didn’t want to wait for the pregnancy to be expelled. I can imagine many circumstances where I would and would not have an abortion. I just can’t imagine the arrogance of thinking that option shouldn’t be available to women based on consultation with their medical provider.
11
Without Roe v Wade, abortion would probably be legal everywhere in the US and very few people would be arguing about it. Our current abortion debate is what happens when courts practically write laws (e.g. Roe v Wade).
44
@RandyJ -well, do you want to have a constitution protecting your individual rights and freedoms, or not?
10
@RandyJ. I’m curious how you came to that conclusion. See Brad Page above. He saw genuine and deep emotions on the issue, so much so that he, if I understand his post correctly, changed his mind on the issue. You think that if laws on abortion and a woman’s ability to terminate a pregnancy had been left to the individual states, those emotions would not exist? Do you also think the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s and the BLM movement of today just “stirred people up” and people of different skin hues would just be getting along like the Peaceable Kingdom? You think people responsible for INjustice just deliver its opposite with no demands being made and no rancor?
9
Very confusing comment - even with federal protection abortion rights are being stripped or eliminated in conservative states. I assume your position is that without Roe there wouldn’t be the intense controversy, but not certain that is true.
I agree with the article’s premise - there are substantive moral issues, but ultimately the decision must rest with the pregnant woman. The grotesque lies and mischaracterizations from Trump et al - that a woman just decides in her 8th month of pregnancy that she’s changed her mind about parenting (vs. major medical issue for her or the fetus) cheapens the dialogue. We have to be adult about this, however religious convictions of some shouldn’t force others to give birth.
12
I am an elderly married male, unlikely to father children in or out of wedlock. You might think I don't have a stake in this controversy, but I do. This issue is political, religious and biological all in one. Foes of abortion cite religious justification for their opposition, and I respect their right to believe as they will. But when they usurpt the awesome power of government to take away the political and biological rights of others who do not share their religious beliefs, they are way out of bounds. Separation of church and state is essential to our democratic government and our pluralistic, open society. I will listen all day to arguments about whether a woman should or should not have an abortion, but that decision is hers alone. There is no middle ground here.
865
As a society, we have an important stake in respecting the unborn life. Not every decision a woman may make about abortion is an ethical one. The most vulnerable need our protection. Some actions are so abhorrent and in humane they need to be prohibited.
8
@Reader In SC
"Some actions are so abhorrent and in humane they need to be prohibited."
Preventing a woman who needs an abortion from getting one, for example.
156
@Reader In SC:
It’s far more important to respect BORN life: adult women who, for their reasons alone, cannot see their way clear to carry, nurture, birth, and care for another human being.
“Not every decision a woman may make about abortion is an ethical one.” Really? Ethics are very difficult to force on another human, but for some diabolical reason you believe you have that right?
No, you do not.
138
It's "complicated" only for those who somehow believe they should have a vote on what a woman does or does not choose to do with her body. And that category, unfortunately, includes both women and men. For the rest of us -- the woman's choice is hers alone. Full stop.
14
The thrust of this article is that so-called progressives have become absolutist about abortion and should better accommodate those who share most of the progressive agenda but have misgivings about abortion. But why should it be this way? If I agree with most progressive aims except abortion why can’t I vote for progressive candidates that I agree with mostly. We talk endlessly about the need for our politicians to compromise so that we may solve problems. Does’t this rule apply ro us. I don’t people to agree with me 100% but I also don’t feel that when we disagree about one thing I am out in the cold alone. Those who are most resolutely committed to choice also support all those measures that help women prevent pregnancy in the first place.
7
All the passion poured into opposing a woman’s right to choose would be better spent protecting the life of the melting planet; resisting Trumped-up warmongering; demanding a living wage and healthcare, so parents can raise a family; pushing for infrastructure improvements to fend off cyberattacks; promoting renewable energy to end oil dependency; and holding financial institutions to the fiduciary fire to avoid another catastrophe.
But none of that matters to the antiabortionists. A zygote has more rights than a woman, end of discussion. Fetuses who sadly cannot survive outside the womb must be carried to term. Women whose health is imperiled by pregnancy must die, all because adults are being stripped of the right to make personal decisions in consultation with medical professionals.
So, when the cyberattacks in 2020 gum up the works at the voting booth big time and Trump’s Republicans decide they all must stay in power, maybe the antiabortionists will stop poking into private lives long enough to notice their rights are gone, too.
11
Of course it’s morally complicated-
and that is for the woman to wrestle with- and the man involved, who often has no more complex role in abortion, than offering to pay for “half” of one, as if he has to deal with half of an unplanned pregnancy, half of being pregnant, or half of an abortion.
As far as being pro- life, I would call myself that, if the government wants to have a voice in pro-life policies and women’s personal decisions, why not make sure housing, education, income guarantees and adequate resources either to stay home with your child or to have qualité childcare are all in place for every expectant mother lacking private funds?
Or- to encourage adoption, compensate the woman by public honor and position and financial support.
Otherwise women are nothing but free gestational chambers, walking around thinking they are whole people who matter unto themselves and have inherent worth, whether or not they breed the future generation.
5
Yes. Got it. It’s complicated. Which is why the government has no business forcing women to remain pregnant against their will.
14
There are many ways the Democratic candidates could potentially handle this. For one thing, advocate making birth control like the pills and the patch, available at low cost and over the counter. Subsidize IUDs and implants - and say it is to REDUCE unwanted pregnancies. Leave the 'sex' part out - focus on Colorado's success with their pilot project. If nothing else, fewer unwanted births will keep welfare and prison costs lower.
Also we apparently need to educate the public on serious fetal defects, the vast majority of which cannot be detected until after 20 weeks.
Lobby for support services for parents with disabled children - the GOP is very weak on helping parents. Point that out!
6
Dear NYT:
Thank you for a thoughtful article exploring some of the complexity and moral ambiguity at the heart of the abortion debate.
Too often, all we get from the media are talking points from partisans more interested in scoring political points than exploring a difficult subject. We should acknowledge there are "good people on both sides;" it does no good to keep chanting "baby killer" or to accuse Catholics of toxic patriarchy.
Most Americans understand that neither the "choice" or "pro-life" framing is sufficient to fully define this issue. We need a balancing test.
Should we recognize as a matter of Constitutional law a woman's right to control her own health choices? Yes, of course; this follows from the right to "privacy" recognized in Griswold, and more fundamentally, to our most basic notions of individual "liberty" and autonomy.
Does life start at conception? Well, it is certainly "life," but not yet viable human life. Most of us recognize the State has a legitimate right to intervene to protect a viable human baby.
Roe v Wade, Casey and Whole Woman's Health created the prevailing tests for determining when the state should intervene to protect that tiny human baby. I hope the Supreme Court continues to uphold these well-rooted precedents. It is time for all of us in the middle -- the new "moral majority" to -- take back the argument from extremists, whether they advocate late term abortion of viable fetuses, or the outlawing of all abortions.
2
But pediatricians and embryologists agree that human life begins at conception. True, it is not viable human life as yet, but there are many humans that have life sustaining dependencies. Are they less human because of it?
1
@Cold eye
Not accurate. The official positions of both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists is the continued safe access for women to abortion services. These are people who live in life’s grey areas, when it comes to this topic.
It makes it very difficult to have a fruitful conversation about any topic when one side uses lies, misinformation and disinformation to promote their position, and the anti-abortion faction has been doing that for many years. I recall facing-off with groups like Operation Rescue when they tried to shut down women's health clinics in the five boroughs during the 1992 Democratic National Convention in NYC; they carried posters featuring stillborn babies which they claimed were abortions (they were not). Of course those images were disturbing but they were not what they were purported to be (and the images were often used without the permission of the mothers, no less). Still, this kind of disinformation has been very effective, has influenced a generation (esp. of evangelicals) and interferes with having fair, balanced, fact-based and nuanced discussions.
Groups like Op. Rescue were once a fringe endeavor, not representing mainstream Republican views, but the Fox/evangelical/Tea Party's usurpation of the GOP has made the fringe the new Republican center. And it has made disinformation a common tactic now used across the board in GOP circles. Activists like James O'Keefe - who claims to be a journalist but deliberately produced false and misleading videos through selectively editing what he secretly recorded and filmed at Planned Parenthood in order to distort what PP was saying or doing - are now the norm.
Propaganda and disinformation should not drive public policy.
9
It is not complicated at all. It is quite simple actually. No one has a right to interfere with a woman's sovereign right to determine her own reproductive future or to make her own health decisions concerning her own body. Period. I don't care if you are opposed to abortion at all. Because, unless it is your body we are speaking of, then your opinion has absolutely no currency or legitimacy. Abortion is a private and personal matter between a woman and her doctor. Problem solved.
10
Then the government should not be funding abortion if you state it is private matter...
Excellent, well-balanced article. Thank you, Jeremy W. Peters.
Such an important discussion. I am a progressive democrat who opposes abortion after 20 weeks unless it’s for the health of the Mother.
I became firm on this view after becoming a Mother myself, and understanding what 20 weeks of pregnancy feels like-that is a person in there! All this “my body my right” talk is sickening-the rights of the child are scantly acknowledged by Democratic politicians today.
Another factor in my position, and this is more controversial, is that the only women I’ve known to have abortions did so as a method of birth control, in cases of healthy pregnancy. They lacked the “morality” to do anything else, and while I hope that this isn’t common, the fact that so many pregnancies are accidental, and arise from casual relationships, indicate that it might be.
2
It’s not your decision.
1
@Jennifer Sweet. Then you haven’t been paying attention. Many women have put their private business into the public square to help broaden society’s understanding of why women choose to terminate pregnancies. Just Google the subject and you will learn a lot. Public policy should not be decided on the experience of your small circle of acquaintances and your interpretation of their choices. In any event, a baby deserves to be a desired choice, not a punishment. Yeah, pregnancies carried to term as a modern Scarlet Letter: that WOULD be “controversial.”
Yes, it's complicated. And that's why the simple solution is pro-choice.
8
Pro-choice and pro-life positions are simple answers to a complicated question.
Its not "complicated".
Women have, and SHOULD CONTINUE to have, full complete and absolute control over their own bodies.
7
No it's not complicated. If a woman does not want, or is not ready to have a child, then she has to right to terminate the pregnancy.
It's that simple.
10
The problem will always be that every woman who becomes pregnant has a different experience of pregnancy: a woman who has been raped may not feel conflicted about aborting the conceptus at all, while a woman who wants a child but cannot have one because pregnancy endangers her life will be devastated by the prospect of abortion. Too often, "pro-life" activists forget that pregnancy is a serious health condition in its own right-- and what do you say to a woman whose pregnancy is molar if all abortion is banned? I am grateful to the Democratic party for wishing to preserve a woman's right to choose, and not very sympathetic to Democrats who identify as "pro-life" and want the party to change; someone needs to defend the rape victim and the woman whose pregnancy might kill her, as well as the woman who is single, poor, and abandoned by the father. But it seems that rights that only apply to women are more subject to fluctuations and external control than rights that apply to men, or to everyone.
5
I don't mind the assertion that abortion should be rare because unwanted pregnancies should be rare.
They are, in a word, unwanted. We want to minimize something unwanted.
I also want catastrophic pregnancies to be rare and pregnancies as a result of rape to be rare.
Let’s make contraception widely available and minimally priced. Let’s get comprehensive health care for everybody and accurate sex ed for children and adolescents
Let’s get paid maternity leave and universal affordable child care.
Let’s get a living wage for everybody.
Then, let’s see how rare abortions become.
6
pro choice: women decide whether to continue a pregnancy
it's really not that complicated
pro choice or forced birth
8
I truly believe there is something divine about the birth of a child. Therefore I could not accept abortion as another method of contraception except in the case of rape or incest.
As a young lawyer, I was assigned a case of abortion defending a woman who had performed an abortion on a young girl who was poor and uneducated and was not able to find the man who had impregnated her. During that trial, I became so nauseated because of how back alley abortionists who used methods like bark from a tree to force an abortion. The back-alley abortionist was unfortunately my client to defend. If I could have left the courtroom before the trial was finished, I would have.
We must have ways to protect women who become pregnant without any idea of caring for a baby due to their condition of poverty. I have supported democratic policies for many years but I cannot accept abortion when only used as a contraceptive measure. Perhaps a solution can be found when we pass a law to charge the missing male participant with a crime and demanding that he support the child for 18 years whether a subsequent marriage occurs or not.
2
@Underdog No And if the man is already married to someone else, quite possibly also having children from that marriage? Or if the woman is already married and her birth control method fails?
1
Would it be better to force a woman to carry and bear a child with profound disabilities discovered during pregnancy? And would it be reasonable to force the mother to bear all of the expenses related to caring for a profoundly disabled child? And would it be better to force that child to live a terrible life?
Would it be better to force a woman to carry and bear an unwanted child? And then force her to bear the expense of raising that child? And force her to forego any hopes she had for education and financial security?
Would it be better to force a woman to bear an unwanted child who is then shunted into foster care homes?
These and other questions need to be answered, and not by old men.
6
Here's what's not complicated:
-No doctor has to provide any abortion.
services
-No woman has to have one.
-Under Roe, states can already disallow abortion at 'viability'. (third trimester) and many states do so.
-Statistically, almost all abortions performed in the first trimester (when almost all miscarriages occur).
-Statically, very very few women elect to have an abortion in the third trimester unless they might die , or the fetus might die.
-It is really nobody else's business what any woman does with her reproductive organs.
11
Over the last 40 years my pro-life views have become more nuanced. I consider myself a feminist, but I don't see how young women who trade sonograms of their babies in the womb, and with all the new scientific evidence regarding fetal development, can turn around and justify abortions after the first trimester. It is inhumane and violent. The great majority of countries around the world allow first trimester abortion only. Why can't American politicians find the same middle ground? Signed, a former Democrat, former Republican, current independent.
1
I am so tired of the condescension. This issue is not simple, nor is it only about female autonomy. I lean Pro Life because I believe a fetus is a life, not because I want to control anyone.
2
@Jennifer And many women believe just as strongly that a fetus is not a life. No one will force you to give up your belief; just don't impose it on others.
2
Those who are the loudest anti-abortionists - Evangelical Christians and the conservative far right - have always had difficulty with nuanced and complicated issues. So we should not be surprised that they take the position they do. Neither of those groups are known for supporting the autonomy of women in many other ways besides abortion. But until, a Kamala Harris so succinctly referenced it, we pass laws governing what men may do with their bodies, an anti-abortion stance is weighted with hypocrisy.
And as to opinions against government funding of abortions, I call foul. I do not like my tax dollars funding wars and corn subsidies, but I accept that in a democracy, one's own desires are not always going to be perfectly aligned with the majority
5