Jill at TWA is asking pro-lifers for their perspective. Here are her questions and my answers, but please feel free to add your own.
1. Should abortion be made illegal in the United States?
yes
To what extent?
let the states decide that. I favor harsher penalties for providers than women however.
Should there be an exception for the pregnant woman’s health/life?
In Catholicism, a pregnant woman CAN receive medical treatment, even if it would endanger her baby. What she cannot do is deliberately kill her child. That is the approach I favor.
For severe fetal abnormalities (i.e., fetuses without brains that will die during or immediately after birth?)
No. That is too much like eugenics. I have a friend who gave birth to, cared for and then had to bury a Trisomy 18 child. Somewhere on my blog I have written about the experience and how that baby girl was a blessing to her family and the community.
For rape and incest survivors?
Babies conceived by rape and incest are still babies. Why should they die for the sins of their father’s?
2. What about contraception?
Probably too late to put the genie back in the bottle on that one. I would like to see blatant advertising cut back a la cigarettes. And I would like to see churches return to a stronger stance against them.
Legal or illegal? IVF and other fertility treatments?
Treatments that lead to the destruction of unused embryos – yes.
3. Other than illegalization — which, as I’ve pointed out before, has little effect on the abortion rate (see the country of Brazil as an example) — what would you suggest we do to decrease the number of abortions in this country?
I’d like to see more policies that support marriage and a return to the value of practicing sexuality within the confines of marriage. I’d also like to see more accountability from the entertainment industry on how sexuality and marriage are portrayed.
4. Do you think it is possible to have a society where there is no abortion, but there is sex?
I don’t think it’s possible to have a society where every single virtue is always practice and every single sin is avoided – ever. That’s just the nature of human beings. I do think it is possible to have a society where abortions are greatly reduced though, and a lot of that has to do with how children and motherhood are valued in the society.
I guess what I’m trying to get to is this: how do we decide who “deserves” access to abortion and who doesn’t? Most people agree that rape victims do, but someone whose condom broke doesn’t. This moves the discussion from an understanding of the pro-life position as interested in the rights of a fetus and into the realm of control over women’s bodies. If the woman gets pregnant “by no fault of her own” — if she is raped — then she doesn’t deserve to be “punished” by being forced to bear a child. But if a woman gets pregnant because she had consensual sex, then she needs to “take responsibility” for being a slut, and she deserves the punishment of pregnancy. Who decides which women are “innocent” enough to deserve access to abortion? What does this say about our cultural judgment on women’s sexual choices?
See Jill, to me, there is just something inherent in the way you structured that paragraph, that somehow conceiving a child is a punishment, something bad. As a Christian, I’m sure you are aware that the Holy Scriptures never ever refer to children or childbearing as a curse. It is always referred to as a great blessing. I think one of the things we need to change in the society is that attitude towards pregnancy and childbirth.
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