During every election season pollsters seek to discover the issues driving voters’ candidate selection. What issues do people feel most passionate about and base their votes upon. For so many in certain political circles within which I grew up firmly ensconced, the straw to potentially break the camel’s back is abortion. Many choose their candidate solely based on their record, verbal or voting, on abortion bills.
As I started learning more about the US government, the voting process and history in general, I also began to question this particular perspective. I took, and still take, my vote as a solemn responsibility, taking care to understand the duties of the position to be filled and the beliefs, promises, and record of the candidates hoping to fill the position.
Having looked forward to the day I could first vote since I read about the 1992 election as a 7 year old, I wanted to do it well. I focused on the issues I believed in, initially sticking to the dealbreaker issue, the candidate’s stance on abortion. Gradually, however, I realized that not every elected official could make decisions that would have any effect on abortion policies. Most importantly, I realized two important facts regarding the seminal Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade. One, the case set a precedent cemented by the following decision in Casey v Planned Parenthood. This precedent makes it significantly improbably that a jurist of the caliber of a potential Supreme Court nominee would vote for an outright reversal. Two, Supreme Court nominees, jurists once confirmed, hold no political allegiance to the party of the president who appointed them. Voting for a president who holds the same values does not guarantee the appointment of a likeminded justice although it does make it more likely. Thus, a candidate’s position on abortion rights moved down in my priority list each election cycle.
Time and experience have opened my eyes to a whole range of issues and perspectives I knew nothing of while young, inexperienced, and nearly trapped within a conservative bubble. I started to see that more exists in the world once I left that environment and removed the restrictive blinders under which I had already begun to chafe. I never too a blanket statement for granted but now I acquired the tools with which to lift up the blanket and discover the underlying supports.
As I did so, I became uncomfortable with things like Sanctity of Life Sundays and abstinence only sex-education. For years, I could not pinpoint why I felt that way, especially as I remained (and still remain) staunchly pro-life and a believer in the fool proof nature of abstinence for preventing pregnancies and STIs. (If something is transmitted sexually, not having sex definitely prevents infection.)
Gradually, all the evidence around began to convince me that we cannot legislate morality. We can, however, build relationships with those in need and by so doing get at the heart of the issue, the hurt, pain, and/or trauma that brought them to the point of seeking an abortion. Thus, if done right, I fully support the mission of crisis pregnancy centers.
When I look at the situation today, after continuing to learn and grow, I think I may have figured out what caused the discomfort on those Sanctity of Life Sundays and underlying sense of inadequacy regarding abstinence only sex-ed programs.
Pregnancy is an effect of sex, just like STIs. If one seeks to preserve life by decreasing the number of abortions, one must look at the cause that brought these women to that point, not just the immediate cause of having sex but the long term underlying causes. Just like a historian who says that preventing the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand could have prevented WWI and its devastating consequences would craft a completely inaccurate picture of the war, someone who limits the prevention of abortion to maintaining the pregnancy to full term misses the long term causes that led to the pregnancy’s conception.
I believe that a fundamental way to decrease abortions is to fund contraceptives. Admittedly, this does not solve everything but it does come much closer to addressing the heart problem, the root problem. Providing affordably contraceptives can help a number of different women. They, if easily accessible, can provide a resource for women. and girls in abusive relationships, unable to leave but who also desire to avoid bringing a new life into this terrible situation. I think of a former student, abused by the boyfriend of her adult sister, pregnant in 8th grade. Contraceptives could help women who go to work in dangerous areas with groups such as Doctors without Borders. Contraceptives could also help women who face or have faced serious medical issues with pregnancy like placental abruption. Granted, they do not solve all of the problems; we live in a sinful, fallen world. However, they do address needs and provide opportunity to get to the root of the problem.
Before I continue, I wish to address a common response I have seen to the idea of making contraceptives more affordable and accessible. Christians have made this argument since the invention and marketing of “the pill.” They say that removing pregnancy as a consequence to the sin of sex before marriage actually gives license to have sex as often as wanted with whomever one wants whenever one wants. Will some people take advantage of this “freedom?” Yes. Humans have done this and continue to do this. However, just because some may take advantage does not mean that we should avoid something that provides so much benefit to so many. On a different level, speaking as a Christian, I disagree fundamentally with the idea that I should legally impose morality upon those who God has opened their eyes to the truth. I do not advocate anarchy. Rather, I speak to the perspective with which Christians look on those who do not know God’s truth.
In conclusion, I view the pro-life issue as so much more than actions concerning the unborn. They play a highly visible role, yes, but respect for human life does not end with the birth of the child. Respect for human life, life which bears the image of God, lasts from conception until death.