Dear Barbara,
As with most of the interesting articles you pass along to me, I appreciated the recent piece entitled “Leeches, Lye and Spanish Fly,” an horrific describing of so many different dangerous ways women through the years have sought to perform self-abortions before appropriate medical procedures were legalized by Roe v. Wade. It strikes me that, in most instances, those pregnancies involved women who had been exploited or compromised in some way or other.
I also appreciated your sharing the email response from your sister-in-law, and my friend as well, Mary.
You expressed an interest in my thinking on this matter, the current 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade having surely sparked, even more than usual, the kind of reaction across the political spectrum we have come to expect. So here goes . . .
The point of the article being–at least by implication, and I would agree–that abortion is not something that can, by law, be eliminated. Despite such zealous efforts on the part of those who seem to believe otherwise. Not unlike the attempt by comparable zealots, in another era of our nation’s history, to also prohibit by law alcohol consumption.
That may be a strained analogy, despite the scourge of alcoholism, certainly to anyone personally affected by the disease. Nevertheless, I can’t imagine a more emotionally-charged and polarizing subject in our common life these days, here in America, than when the legalizing of abortion is the topic.
Unfortunately, the divisive politics surrounding this controversy tends to be driven by extremists, most notably on the “political/religious right” of the so-called “pro-life/pro-choice” conflict. Even if I believe–or at least hope–that there are those, perhaps many among us (certainly on the distaff side of the human family, even among the most self-proclaimed “conservative” of women), who understand the moral ambiguity involved in this precarious matter. Not to mention, the kind of ethical reasoning necessary when facing such a moral dilemma.
This ethical perspective recognizes that the hardest decisions any of us will ever face involve circumstances, the ostensible “solutions” to which hardly lead to simplistic right or wrong conclusions. Rather, in such circumstances, our limited choices are, tragically, often reduced to, at best, “less bad” consequences.
That is, of course, what the “Leeches, Lye and Spanish Fly” article so graphically depicts. If you think legalized abortion is “bad” or “wrong,” abortion otherwise is even “worse.”
Or as Martin Luther famously put it, at least from a Christian ethics perspective, “Trust God and sin bravely.” Not that I would claim that only the religious–much less so-called Christians in particular–have a corner on the kind of ethical reasoning so necessary when confronting something as morally daunting as abortion.
Which leads to how too easy it is to caricature the motives of anyone where abortion is concerned. Obviously, there are those among us who would seem to be too casual, even care-less with respect to human life and values. But to conclude that anyone who would, given certain circumstances, consider abortion an option–that such persons necessarily reflect moral care-less-ness with respect to human life and values–this reveals a reductionism that is itself morally questionable.
As Mary so passionately expresses in her email, it is one thing–and frankly, much easier–to espouse human life and values in the abstract, but quite another and much harder moral claim to embrace on more personal terms. Yet another implication of the “Leeches, Lye and Spanish Fly” article: an indictment of those who would assert, “We don’t care how many women’s lives are possibly imperiled as long as Roe v. Wade is abolished.”
To righteously declare one’s opposition to legalized abortion in the abstract is substantially different from your wife or daughter, sister, other relative or friend facing a life-threatening pregnancy or having conceived from being raped. [With respect to which, my shifting from third to second person in that sentence is hardly an example of poor grammar; the latter reflects, rather, a far more personal perspective than the former.]
The conflict so polarizing in our nation these days, surrounding the subject of legalized abortion, also reveals two very different ways of thinking–on almost any subject–but certainly where moral reasoning is involved.
“Dualistic thinking” operates in either/or ways; whereas “non-dualistic thinking” allows for both/and interpretations, even conclusions. With respect to the legalizing of abortion, “dualistic thinkers” reason that one is either “pro-life” or “pro-choice.” Yet another example of a reductionism that is just as morally questionable: to consign anyone to such a discreet category defined by the consigner, but not necessarily embraced by the person being consigned. Since a “non-dualistic thinker,” such as myself, would counter: just because I am “pro-choice,” that doesn’t mean that I am not also “pro-life.”
Such a both/and perspective on this subject involves, of course, the kind of ethical reasoning, Christian or otherwise, which I have just explained. That the subject of legalized abortion is so polarizing in our culture suggests, however, that an apparent majority of folk among us tend to be primarily “dualistic” in their thinking and subsequent moral reasoning.
There are those, in fact, who have pointed out that such glib “pro-life/pro-choice” labeling tends to undermine substantive moral reasoning where legalized abortion is concerned. With, of course, the “pro-life” label representing an apparent less pejorative political advantage in the conflict, however superficial such politicizing may be.
Also, the purpose of the First Amendment to our nation’s Constitution provides, I believe, an important perspective on the legalizing of abortion controversy. The purpose of which is to keep religion as far as possible from government and government just as far from religion, since, as history so substantially confirms, confusing the two usually makes most matters worse than they might even be otherwise.
The legalizing of abortion allows persons–religious or not–to freely exercise whatever their moral reasoning where abortion is concerned, while hardly compelling the act if one is opposed to such an option.
In this respect, it is ironic that those most opposed to the legalizing of abortion tend to also be just as opposed to government/legal involvement in other areas of yours or mine or anyone’s life, dimensions of our living which also involve moral considerations. As in, for example, those who don’t want any government restrictions on their freedom to make money–however questionably legal or moral–yet want to restrict the personal freedom and responsibility the legalizing of abortion allows.
