Do you think abortion is tragic and terrible and wrong, that Roe v. Wade went too far and that the prochoice movement is elitist, unfeeling, overbearing, overreaching and quite possibly dead? In the current debate over abortion, that makes you a prochoicer. As the nation passes the thirty-third anniversary of Roe, it is hard to find anyone who will say a good word in public for abortion rights, let alone for abortion itself. Abortion has become a bit like flag-burning--something that offends all right-thinking people but needs to be legal for reasons of abstract principle ("choice"). Unwanted pregnancy has become like, I don't know, smoking crack: the mark of a weak, undisciplined person of the lower orders.
Fact is, there will never be zero abortions. Half the women who abort are using birth control already--there are no perfect methods or perfect people, except maybe Laurie Gigliotti. Even in small, tidy, prosperous Sweden and the Netherlands, there are abortions. So how can there be zero abortions in America, with our ramshackle healthcare system, our millions of poor people, our high school graduates who can't even read a prescription information sheet?
In 1989 a number of polls asked respondents whether abortion should be legal or not depending on the reason for seeking it. After life/health, rape/incest and fetal deformity, majorities of Americans disapproved of every reason on the list: can't afford a child (40 percent approval), too many children (40 percent), emotional strain (35 percent), to finish school (28 percent), not married (25 percent). Assuming opinion hasn't drastically changed, most Americans think women should be denied abortions for the reasons the vast majority of procedures are performed. They think women should carry unwanted children to term, even if they can't support them, have no partner, have to drop out of school, shortchange their other children or can't cope emotionally. Now, maybe those respondents don't really want abortion to be illegal so much as they want to express their disapproval.
Either way, these answers don't suggest to me that injecting more antiabortion moralism into the debate will help keep abortion legal and accessible. I'd say it is too moralistic already.
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Reproductive Rights Abortion Rights Roe Feminism
