Today's Talker: Abortion extremists on both sides help no one

Tuesday, May 28

Abortion extremists on both sides help no one

'If liberals want science to be respected on the climate issue, they must respect the science on abortion as well,' says columnist Saritha Prabhu.

The Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law Tuesday that requires the burial or cremation of fetal remains following an abortion, further fanning the flames in the abortion debate nationwide.

I'm still pro-choice, but the left worries me

By Saritha Prabhu

On abortion, extremism rules.

We're increasingly seeing the debate being dominated by the extremists on both sides. We've also seen, in the past few years, the debate shifting on many fronts. The political left has gone from at least paying lip service to the Bill Clinton standard of "safe, legal and rare" to increasing comfort with more abortion.

The zeitgeist trend on the liberal side is toward the almost-celebratory, in-your-face tone seen in "Shout your abortion," and also abortion-rights-expanding bills in Virginia, New York and elsewhere.

The right has met this with its own monstrous counterpart: The recent Alabama law is precisely designed to challenge the Supreme Court to take up the case — a ban on abortion except to protect the life of the mother and serious jail time for abortion providers.

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But there is another crucial front, and that is science — a science debate advancing to reveal ever more wondrous detail of burgeoning life in the womb.

The challenge is that advancing neonatal research and technology keeps throwing a monkey wrench into the debate. It denies us the luxury and self-delusion of thinking about the fetus as a clump of cells beyond the early weeks of pregnancy.

Which is not to say that abortion should be outlawed, only that we adjust our thinking on the issue.

What is happening here is what has been happening in other political issues: The silent majority of Americans, where the squishy middle resides, is held hostage to the intractable extremities.

As we all know, extremists of any kind are fixated on principle and purity and political victory at all costs, not on pragmatism, compromise and real-world concerns. For purists on both sides, it is about righteousness and condemnation of the other side.

It is also a position where there is none of the conflicted, moral trade-offs that are often present in everyday life. And it is often undeniably about simplification of the issue.

One extreme goes with extreme autonomy to the woman, to the extent that it allows late-term abortion; the other extreme sees personhood in a fertilized embryo and is so pro-life that it'll endanger the lives of legions of women.

But for the moderates, where I count myself, the issue solves itself in simpler terms: Banning abortion is out of the question because it will only drive it underground, but most of us can manage our moral discomfort enough to be OK with abortion early on in the pregnancy; abortion in the cases of rape, incest and for the life of the mother; and in the rare, wrenching cases, later-term abortion to protect the life of the mother.

"The life of the mother." That's a phrase with meaning. When that is supplemented with "the health of the mother," as in the New York law, pro-lifers, understandably, worry about the abuse of the exception.

Meanwhile, a few loose ends: If liberals want science to be respected on the climate issue, they must respect the science on abortion as well. They should realize that as gestation advances, a fetus comes closer to being a baby, and elective abortion up to the time of delivery essentially means terminating a human who deserves dignity and has rights.

Likewise, the pro-life community should be more supportive of more freely available birth control, and more support for pregnant women especially from impoverished backgrounds.

Personally, I'm still pro-choice, but in recent years I went from hard pro-choice to soft pro-choice. To me, the pill and Roe v. Wade were powerful for women's self-actualization, bodily autonomy and economic freedom.

But I've become increasingly discomfited by the left's brave new world of abortion triumphalism and abortion-whenever-during-pregnancy.

In an age of abortion extremism, let's be clear: Either side winning completely is to enter a realm of dystopia.

Saritha Prabhu is a columnist at the Tennesseean, where this column first appeared.

Alabama abortion ban

Dave Granlund/PoliticalCartoons.com

What others are saying

Gracy Olmstead, The New York Times : "The anti-abortion movement has always been passionately devoted to defending the rights of the unborn. If you believe that unborn children have rights and dignity, as I and other pro-lifers do, then ending abortion is more important than virtually any other issue we deal with as a society and has to remain the focus of our cause. ... A consistent life ethic would urge pro-lifers to defend the vulnerable and voiceless, regardless of partisanship or ease."

Elly Lonon, The Washington Post : "I had an abortion. I'm not going to tell you how old I was or what my circumstances were at the time. I won't mention whether birth control was used or whether it wasn't. I'm not going to tell you whether the guy is or is not still a part of my life, whether it was a one-night stand or a long-term relationship. I'm not going to discuss the health of either party involved in the consensual or nonconsensual sex, nor the viability of the embryo. None of those details are pertinent. I got pregnant. I didn't want to be pregnant. I had a medical procedure to remedy the situation. Full stop. I am not my abortion. Everything I am, however, is because of that abortion."

Charles Dern, The (Pennsylvania) Intelligencer : "First, pro-abortion organizations have been at the forefront of suppressing medical evidence by consistently opposing laws that would mandate that a woman be shown an ultrasound of her unborn child as well as being given the facts of fetal development. Second, many secular ethicists presently stretch their credibility in that they currently are, with all sobriety, debating the morality of 'after-birth abortion,' aka, infanticide."

Abortion caveman

Nate Beeler/The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch/PoliticalCartoons.com

What our readers are saying

This is how we do it, folks. Thanks to the Supreme Court upholding part of the Indiana law, we keep chipping away at these pro-abortion laws bit by bit. Eventually, we will prevail in saving human lives from destruction out of inconvenience.

— Larry Hubble

We are relieved that Indiana at least dropped the part of the original bill that required the family to keep the fetus at home, take it on family vacations, and send it to college ... whew. In other words, the government of Indiana did not yet entirely take over all decisions for individuals; not yet.

— Mary Melcher

The Supreme Court delivered a small victory in establishing that an unborn baby is a person who has dignity and autonomy, and deserves a respectful burial.

— @USReading

This is sickening! This is just pushing religious beliefs onto others. God does not judge us; he loves us and understands the decisions we make. Who's making money from the Supreme Court upholding this part of the Indiana law?

— @YvonneGenochio

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