The Abortion question.

The ‘Abortion’ question.

Abortion; this topic seems to be in the media again.  This is something I posted elsewhere during the election period, thought I’d re-post it here now, partly because like I said………its back in the media again and partly because its far too long to stick  as a comment at the end of someone else post. :-)
 
Abortion epitomises the polarization of American opinion, possibly  at its most venomous. I’ve read a bit on the subject. I’ve read the religion led argument that says the sanctity of life is revered and protected from the nanosecond the sperm hits the egg. I’ve read the pro-choice argument that says government has no business in a womans body, EVER, and that abortion up to and including late term abortion with no time limit should be a right and a choice. Disability, the mothers health, viability of the pregnancy, pregnancy as a result of rape and/or incest, etc, etc, etc, have all become missiles in this war of opposing philosophies. Watching this unfold, it looks a bit like a couple of medieval armies facing each other across a muddy field, shields up, weapons at the ready and  everyone absolute in the knowledge that every thing they believe is 100% right and every thing the ‘enemy’ believes is 100% wrong. No one misses an opportunity to ridicule and exaggerate what the opponent says; the tiniest flaw in perceived logic or consistency is exaggerated and exploited and nit-picking has become an art form.
If all this sounds rather harsh I apologise, I guess I’m lucky, I live in a country where health care, including access to family planning and well woman clinics, is readily available but; this debate widens the gulf in an already polarized society and that DOES affect me. Unfortunately what happens in America inevitably has a knock on effect around the world. Personally I would prefer both sides found some sort of middle ground that every one could, if not actually agree with, accept and live by. Which is why, I thought I’d share my thoughts on the subject.

First I’d like to say to those people who find abortion, the morning after pill etc, etc all completely abhorrent on religious grounds that I totally respect your religious belief and you have every right to believe what ever it is you believe. And please rest assured you will never, under any circumstances, under any administration,  be forced into having an abortion against your will, and really, that’s the only assurance any one needs. Neither will any medical practitioner be forced into participating in abortion against their religious beliefs. In the UK there are many medical practitioners, doctors, nurses and therapists who all practice their faith AND work quite happily within the National Health Service. They just don’t work in areas that run into conflict with their beliefs.  It’s so simple I can’t understand why I read scare tactics claiming people would be sacked from their jobs for refusing to perform abortions or give out the morning after pill, it doesn’t happen here why should it happen there? BUT; that doesn’t mean any one has the right to dictate and enforce that religious code onto others. There are other medical practitioners who are happy to perform these duties so why involve those who are not?
I have empathy with the argument that says life begins at conception, it’s something I’ve thought about and once you start thinking,  it becomes impossible (for me)  to pin down the exact start of life any where other than conception. I know there are various debates about when ‘consciousness’ kicks in but that’s another issue. But that’s all it is, a definition of when life begins. It’s not some sort of insurmountable mountain blocking forever all abortions under all circumstances. The definition of exactly when life begins and the rights and wrongs of abortion don’t have to be inextricably linked and the earliest flicker of life doesn’t automatically cancel out all other arguments in favour of abortion.  That’s just a very easy opt out clause that saves some people the inconvenience of thinking.

And then there are those who proclaim as loudly, as often and as provocatively as possible that abortion is no concern of government, its a womans body and a womans choice to abort for what ever reason at what ever stage.
Well…………umm………no it isn’t. Every one needs to have some regard for the opinions of others and no one lives in complete isolation; living in a democracy means living by the wishes of the majority, which means looking for workable solutions which can at least be acceptable, if not agreeable,  to every one. And proclaiming that a baby is not a baby in the very final stages of pregnancy just because it’s a couple of weeks either side of the due date flies in the face of any sort of logic or reason.
Abortion is legal in the UK up to the 24th week of pregnancy. To comply with the 1967 Abortion Act, TWO doctors must give their consent, stating that to ‘’continue with the pregnancy would present a risk to the physical or mental health of the woman or her existing children’’. In reality this does often mean abortion on demand, but that was not the intent of the law. There is another clause that I’m not personally happy with and that is ‘’if there is a substantial risk to the woman's life or if there are foetal abnormalities there is no time limit’’. This is because the ‘foetal abnormalities’ are not defined and could be relatively minor, but  when you live in a democracy I guess you need to accept you don’t always get everything your own way.
At least we don’t allow the …UGH…..DNX method which as far as I can see is infanticide in another guise, I would get really upset if that were practiced here. I didn’t know what this entailed and so I made it my business to find out, seems it can and often does involve a full term baby or almost full term baby being delivered face down feet first up until the point where the head remains inside the mother. At this point the child is alive, often kicking and ready to enter the world. The ‘doctor’, inserts a sharp instrument up into the babies head via the neck and mashes the babies brains, at which point ( in most cases) the baby dies and can be delivered. This is too sick to contemplate, the fact that the head remains inside the mother is a technicality which I think that takes advantage of a peculiarity of law which doesn’t recognise a child as a child until the birthing process is complete. No amount of ….’it was rape’… ‘it was incest’… the baby will be disabled’….. etc etc justifies infanticide. 
But this method of ‘abortion’ is extreme and not the norm. I’ve known women who have had abortions; I’ve known women who have taken themselves off to the hospital to get the ‘morning after pill (just in case) and I personally know two little girls who were born at 23 and 24 weeks gestation. Both children are happy, healthy and have no brain damage or other disabilities. What I’ve learnt from this is that abortion is ALWAYS a tragedy, the woman will always grieve and mourn what may have been but at the same time they don’t regret their decision. No woman plans an abortion, women don’t think …’hey I’ll go get myself pregnant and then abort that sounds like a fun thing to do’’……….nope, no one does that. The decision to abort is always sad and always difficult, the women involved always need support, what they don’t need some bible bashing, fire and brimstone breathing, fundamentalist zealot condemning them to a life of eternal damnation. That’s not really helpful or particularly therapeutic.
 I suppose if I were asked I would have to say that abortion is often the least wrong thing to do. There is no point in arguing that abortion is somehow good, of course it isn’t but we are human, we live messy lives and sometimes in our lives there isn’t a ‘good’ option so we need to do the best we can, sometimes the ‘least bad’ is the best we can do.  There are so many reasons why women resort to abortion and although rape and/ or incest are the most often quoted, they make up a tiny proportion of real cases. If I were asked for a time limit I guess I would say about 20 weeks because up until that point there is no viable baby and 20 weeks is actually 5 months which seems like plenty of time to make arrangements. If I were asked about criteria, I guess I would say if a woman feels she wants an abortion there is usually a pretty sound reason and she needs to be listened too. Not that what I think maters, what does matter is that the people who make these decisions agree to talk openly and honestly about it.
What I would really like to see is genuine discussion on this, not extremists from either side, both entrenched and immovable in their belief, trotting out the same old well rehearsed rhetoric, but genuine discussion where those involved are willing to negotiate. Those who oppose abortion need to realise they don’t have the right to impose their morality onto others and those who advocate abortion on demand need to realise they don’t live in isolation, they are part of a community and for the sake of the community as a whole, they need to negotiate. They also need to recognise that at some point an unborn child becomes an actual child.  Everyone needs to want solutions more than they want victory. Every one needs to listen more and stop jumping down the throat of any one who says anything that doesn’t completely echo their own beliefs. Somehow some sort of workable negotiation needs to be found, cos the alternative is accelerated polarization of the whole dam country. And that’s scary.