The Abortion “Debate” Continues
In the interests of full-disclosure, let me preface this by making something clear. I’m not “pro-abortion.” My wife and I have had this conversation and she made it clear that if we ever found out she were pregnant, we would have the child. That is my wife’s choice, and I totally support it. But neither of us would presume to tell other people what to do with their bodies and their lives.
The very fact that this even needs to be explained strikes me as asinine. But that says a lot about this “debate” doesn’t it? In much the same way as feminists need to explain that they “don’t hate men” or civil rights activists “don’t hate White people,” this demonstrates the unfortunate truth about how the rights of women and non-white people are perceived. If you challenge the status quo, you’re accused of hate.
In that respect, people who support a woman’s right to choose are accused of being “baby killers.” Hence why I put the word “debate” in quotes, the same way I would say that this topic is “controversial.” For some reason, people arguing the pro-choice position have to preempt everything by making it clear they are not extremists. This symbolizes how poisonous the “debate” is, and it’s not people who want their choices respected who made it that way.
To begin, allow me to address the arguments put forth by the pro-life crowd and how they make no sense.
“Choose Life”
This is a slogan that has been crafted by the pro-life side to appeal to people who are faced with the toughest choice imaginable — whether or not to have a child. But here’s the thing… how exactly do you “choose life” if you are deprived of a choice in the first place? This one is simple, you can’t! If abortion is illegal, regardless of the circumstances, people are completely deprived of any choice.
Worse, you are the ones who made it that way. No one can ever “choose life” in a state where access to safe and legal abortion is unavailable. In such an environment, this appeal you’ve crafted becomes entirely meaningless. Worse, it exposes you as total hypocrites. If people don’t make the choice you want, you deprive them of the right to make one?
Restrictions Don’t Work!
Second, criminalizing abortion does not prevent them from happening. It just ensures that desperate women who are not prepared to have children (or don’t want to raise the child of their rapists!) have to resort to extreme measures. Those girls who throw themselves down the stairs, use coat-hangers, take drugs, and seek illegal surgery are forced to do this because of you.
According to multiple research studies, criminalizing abortions has no impact on whether or not women get the procedure. For example, there’s the “Abortion Worldwide 2017” report released by the Guttmacher Institute. According to their analysis, which examined access to abortion worldwide, restrictions do nothing to curb abortion and only ensure that it becomes far more dangerous.
As the study demonstrates, between 2010 and 2014:
- In countries with the fewest restrictions, only 1% of abortions performed were deemed “least safe.” The number jumped to 31% for countries with the most restrictions in this same period.
- In countries with the most restrictive laws, abortion rates were 37 for every 1,000 women (aged 15 to 44). In countries with the least restrictive laws, it was actually lower — 34 for every 1,000 women in the same age range.
According to data released in 2021 by the World Health Organization (WHO), 97% of induced abortions take place in developing countries, of which 45% were deemed unsafe — i.e., not performed by a trained health-care provider — and it is the leading preventable cause of maternal deaths and health complications. These facts illustrate how lack of access to safe, effective, and legal abortion is a critical public health and human rights issue.
Furthermore, the data illustrates that criminalizing abortion doesn’t prevent them from happening. It only ensures that abortions become less safe and even life-threatening to women. In fact, illegal and unsafe abortions are a leading cause of death in countries where the procedure is illegal. According to the World Health Organization:
“Each year, 4.7–13.2% of maternal deaths can be attributed to unsafe abortion. In developed regions, it is estimated that 30 women die for every 100 000 unsafe abortions. In developing regions, that number rises to 220 deaths per 100 000 unsafe abortions. Estimates from 2012 indicate that in developing countries alone, 7 million women per year were treated in hospital facilities for complications of unsafe abortion.”
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/abortion
The Biblical Angle
While not all people who oppose abortion are religion zealots, the religious right certainly makes up a predominant faction among this crowd. Common arguments made by such are that abortion is a sin, that God forbids it, and that life is sacred and begins at conception. What is the Biblical basis for this claim? Do you know what the Bible actually says about abortion? Here’s a sampling:
“If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” — Exodus 21:22–25
“But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband” — here the priest is to put the woman under this curse — “may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell.” — Numbers 5: 19–22
“Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you.” — Deuteronomy 28:53
“Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb, nor will they look with compassion on children. Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the pride and glory of the Babylonians, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.” — Isaiah 13:18
“Now this is what the Lord God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Why bring such great disaster on yourselves by cutting off from Judah the men and women, the children and infants, and so leave yourselves without a remnant? Why arouse my anger with what your hands have made, burning incense to other gods in Egypt, where you have come to live? You will destroy yourselves and make yourselves a curse and an object of reproach among all the nations on earth.” — Jeremiah 44:7–8
“The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.” — Hosea 13:16
“How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!” — Matthew 24:19
Get the picture? The Bible is loaded with passages in which the killing of babies that are still in their mothers’ wombs is entirely justified. Exodus claims that killing a baby should result in a fine, abortion is demanded wherein a bride is not a virgin, and Deuteronomy even instructs people to eat their children! And do I really need to get into the passages where God massacres entire populations and instructs the Hebrews to do the same? Life is sacred? Not in the Bible, people!
Slavery
One of the most repetitive I’ve encountered from right-wing anti-abortionists is the false equivalence between abortion law and slavery. According to the “pro-lifers,” abortion is a simple case of morality vs. the state of law that is identical to the law regarding the right to keep human beings in a state of chattel slavery. Putting aside the fact that this is a pathetic attempt at virtue signalling, there’s the way its baseless.
The state of the law in the American south certainly did allow white land owners to keep and own slaves. Whenever southerners (especially their representatives in Washington, D.C.) felt the need to justify this institution, they would turn to the Bible! A perfect example is what Confederate president Jefferson Davies said about the institution:
“[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God … it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation … it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.”
The evangelic cleric George Whitefield, for example, who was intrinsic to the “Great Awakening,” claimed that slavery was necessary on economic grounds and owned several himself. Richard Furman, the leader of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, stated “the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.”
And the Bible has plenty to say about slavery, in both the Old and New Testaments. For example, Deuteronomy instructs the Children of Israel to sell the women and children of their enemies into slavery and allowed for their participation in the slave trade.
“And when the LORD thy God delivereth it into thy hand, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword; but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take for a prey unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.” — Deuteronomy 20:13–14
“And as for thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, whom thou mayest have: of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them may ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they have begotten in your land; and they may be your possession. And ye may make them an inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a possession: of them may ye take your bondmen for ever; but over your brethren the children of Israel ye shall not rule, one over another, with rigour.” — Deuteronomy 20:44–46
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.” — Matthew 18:23–25
Again, do you get the picture? The Bible not only condones slavery, it features it repeatedly. Much like baby-killing, it does not shy away from keeping and trading people as property.
Once again, I feel the need to iterate that I’m not “pro-abortion.” But then again, no one is! Those of us who think women should have control over their own reproduction, who think that women should have access to safe and affordable abortions — we believe in freedom of choice. If you don’t want to get an abortion, don’t get one! But don’t pretend that denying 52% of the global population the right to choose is somehow “pro-life.”
You’re doing nothing but condemning women to die or to raise children they cannot support. And considering that those who want to criminalize abortion (even where incest, rape, and a woman’s life is at risk) oppose any and all means of social welfare or support for single mothers or impoverished families, they are complete hypocrites for claiming that they think life is sacred.
They are even bigger hypocrites considering that “pro-lifers” are statistically more likely to oppose gun control in any form. And this is in spite of the fact that the leading cause of death for children right now is mass shootings! If you’re attitude is “my gun rights trump your dead kids,” you’re worse than a hypocrite, you’re a despicable person!
Drop the pretense, people! Join the 20th century (we’ll talk about joining the 21st later) and embrace the fact that developed nations take the rights of women seriously. Otherwise, you run the risk of turning your country into an undeveloped nation where women have no voice, no rights, and die prematurely. Meanwhile, the children (who you claim are sacred) will endure poverty, misery, dying while young, and being shot. You will be the ones who condemns them to that, all because you refuse to take responsibility for the children you have forced other women to have.
For people who tell women “take responsibility for getting pregnant,” and claim to be “pro-life,” this should horrify you.
