The Right to Choose – the Briefing Book

The Right to Choose – The Briefing Book

In every political campaign (at least the good ones) there is a “book,” outlining the issues the candidate will face, and the arguments and positions the candidate takes.  It is so everyone on the campaign is literally on “the same page” when it comes to that issue. I’m not running for office, but over the next several weeks, I will be presenting a series of issues for my “briefing book.”

It is the most divisive issues of our time.  For single-issue voters on either side, it is the determining factor.  It is how folks who believed they were taking a “moral” stand, voted for a demonstrably immoral President.  It is the question of the legality of abortion in the United States. 

No one is in “favor” of abortion.  Abortion is a “last chance” act; everyone should be in favor of education and contraception, both of which lead to fewer abortions.  All Americans should be in favor of fewer abortions.  And all Americans should be in favor of effective sex education in the schools, education that actually deals with the issues of sex and contraception rather than continuing the myth of “abstinence education.”  The “just say no” mantra of abstinence has been about as effective as it was in drug education; not effective at all.  It is sad but not surprising, that many of the same people who want to ban abortion, also want to ban school’s abilities to teach children how to avoid the situation that requires abortions.

And no one is “against life.”  Americans need to be more than just “pro-choice” or “pro-birth;” we need to have as much concern for how a child will live, and eat, and grow, as we do that the baby exists.  This includes the life of the young women who often seek abortions; recognizing their needs and concerns.  Like being a parent, “life” is more than just birth, it is a lifetime commitment. 

The right to choose to have an abortion should not be an issue where men dominate the conversation. Men are not having abortions, and legally, should have little or no say in what happens.  This is a woman’s decision; the picture of “old men” telling women what they can or can’t do with their own bodies is a vision from days before women had the right to vote, or work, or stand as equal citizens. 

Prior to the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973, access to legal abortion was on a state-by-state basis.  Thirty states absolutely banned abortions, sixteen allowed for some abortions based on the health of the mother, rape, incest, or fetal damage; and four allowed for abortions upon request, up to the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy.  

This did not mean that there weren’t abortions in the thirty states where it was banned, it meant is that those abortions were performed illegally, often unsafely, and with a much higher risk of infections, complications, and death.  It also meant that if a woman wanted a safer legal abortion, they had to have the finances to travel to one of the four states that allowed them.  Safe abortion was about having money, not “right or wrong.”

In 1973 the US Supreme Court weighed the right of the woman to control what happened to her body against the right of the fetus.  The Court reached a difficult decision, ruling that the fetus had limited “rights” until it reached a stage in development where it could survive outside of the womb.  That was around the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, and the Court in a series of rulings established a pattern:  abortion on request for the first twelve weeks, abortion for reason the second twelve weeks, limited or no abortions the third trimester to birth.

The Court ruled that the fetus had limited “civil rights” under the 14^thAmendment definition, and that those rights increased with the increasing viability of the fetus. The civil rights of the mother were not limited, and therefore her 4^thand 14^thAmendment right to privacy outweighed that of the fetus, before it could survive outside the womb.

A new Court might take a different look at the Roe decision, perhaps denying the “privacy right” the 1973 Court found in the 4^thAmendment.  But currently, the law is established.

As women see it, the law was established by nine old men (1973) making women’s decision for them. Should the current Court take a different view, it would be led by the five conservative Federalist Society men who now hold the majority on the Court, with the women of the court, three of them, in the minority.

The ability of a woman to have an abortion is a personal question, one that needs to be answered by the woman herself; not others, and particularly not men.  The decision to have an abortion is a matter of personal morality, akin to choosing one’s own religion, and is one that should be decided individually rather than societally.  In that mode, men need to defend the “right to choose.”  Like other moral and religious decisions made in the United States, this may be a matter of discussion and debate, but not a decision made for everyone by “old men.”  It is a personal decision to be made by individual women, and America needs to respect that right, and the right to have safe access to the procedures that protects women’s health.