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Abortion: is it a Moral Question or a Political One?

Bill Tope

    What is the nature of the issue of abortion; is it a moral one or is it a political one? I believe that, in the final analysis, it is political.
    Some persons — evangelicals, ardent Roman Catholics, others — contend that the question underlying surgical abortion is moral, that it is “wrong to murder babies,” that is evil to “rip the fetus”— the so-called unborn child — “from a woman’s uterus.”
    In point of scientific fact, viability occurs at a gestational age varying from 22 to 28 weeks. To call the fetus prior to this point an “unborn baby” is a callous misnomer. It’s like calling an acorn an oak tree.
    Inserting the element of politics into the conversation, some states, since Dobbs, have decreed that six weeks is the maximum gestational age at which abortion is permitted. This is a cynical stricture, as 2/3 of women don’t realize they are pregnant until after this date. One state even decreed that abortion after implantation — which occurs just a handful of days following sex — is illegal.
    Next some governmental entity — hello, Supreme Court - will declare abortion illegal immediately after coitus; beware the Ejaculation Police.
    Some states provide exceptions for such incidentals as rape, incest, the health of the prospective mother; others, not so much. If you look at abortion as a strictly moral issue, why would one permit abortion at any time, if it is evil and wrong? Again, is it a cynical move on the part of benighted politicians seeking to have it both ways? Sure it is.
    SCOTUS bases many of its decisions on original theory — is the issue contained in the U.S. Constitution? Clarence Thomas cited originalist theory when he inveighed against the prohibition of bump stocks, devices which convert AR - 15s and other assault rifles into automatic weapons. Bump stocks, he said smugly, are not contained in the original document. Neither was an air force, COVID vaccines or a million other things. This doesn’t mean that such items must never been addressed by the Courta.
    Others cite scripture as a basis for decisions regarding abortion and women’s health. Bear in mind, however, that scripture was written by a patriarchal society which held that women were, at best, “help mates” and at worse baby-making vessels.
    Does anyone with an eye to history and patriarchy doubt that, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be fully and completely legal?
    Men would decry the negative effects of pregnancy on their ability to succeed at their careers; their capacity for continued earning power; their desire, for whatever reason to forestall the birth of additional children; concerns for their personal health; their right to self-determination. Does this sound familiar? These are all the reasons cited by women today.
    New action is being taken to overturn the availability of the so-called chemical abortion; Mifepristone may soon have a limited shelf life in what has long been a preferred alternative to surgical abortion.
    Why is this? I believe that it is part of an effort to limit women’s choices; to relegate them to baby-making devices; and to maintain the preeminence of men in our culture. It is a political, not a moral issue.

 

    Previously published in the Alton Telegraph.

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