Abortion - to Be Equally Borne

To Be Equally Borne

"Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made," said American satirical poet John Godfrey Saxe ("John Godfrey Saxe"). Over a century later another American satirist, comedian Bill Hicks would say, in reference to the abortion debate, "You're not a person until you're in my phonebook." 'Person' is an ambiguous term, and its use is perhaps the central controversy in the abortion debate. The Constitution doesn't state when legal personhood--in this case meaning when an individual deserves the protection of the law--begins. Deciding that personhood begins at conception would mean that millions of women would see a reduction or loss of what are currently held to be their rights, such as choice in the matters of health and quality of life. And those who terminate a pregnancy would have to face consequences for murder. Government would also be required to enact measures to enforce pregnancies. As all pregnancies are borne by women, this would amount to legal gender bias. Rights are organic, growing and evolving like languages and species do; twenty-seven constitutional amendments are a testament to this notion. The Twenty-eighth Amendment should guarantee that the right to self-determination is protected for women who wish to terminate an unwanted pregnancy at any time during gestation.

Determining what happens to and within one's body is every individual's legal right, because the law of the land and spirit of democracy are grounded in autonomy. Pregnancy and childbirth have immediate and ongoing impact on pregnant women's lives. Abortions are sought for multiple reasons, among which three out of four aborting mothers cite reasons related to immediate and future plans such as work or school; twenty-five percent of women cite they choose abortion out of concern for their own physical or mental health (Finer 113). Pregnancies result in over six hundred maternal deaths every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("Pregnancy-Related Deaths"). With half of American women experiencing unintended pregnancy by the age of forty-five, millions must therefore consider risks to their health and life unexpectedly ("Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States"). Forcing women to take on this risk could result in the additional deaths of over one hundred women in the U.S. annually, given the current rate of mortality due to childbirth (Gordon 1). This maternal death rate is fourteen times higher than that resulting from legal abortion (1). Health of the fetus is a reason cited in thirteen percent of abortions (Finer 113), and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) statistics show congenital defects to be present in one out of every thirty-three births (Russo 1). These defects often result in infant death--127.7 per every 100,000 live births in the U.S.--and a life of suffering for the infant (United States 1). The decision to abort should not be assumed to be the act of an irresponsible, morally bankrupt woman. Indeed, she may regret her decision but deem it necessary to protect her and/or her family's quality of life. After all, thirty-two percent of women cite the inability to afford another child as a reason for aborting (Finer 113). Between 2000 and 2008, women with incomes below the poverty line accounted for forty-two percent of abortions, or 514,040 potential births (Jones and Kavanaugh 1362). This would have increased the number of children living in poverty for those years by nearly four percent, with the attendant challenges to future health and prospects for those children (Wright, Chau, and Aratani 1). Without legal abortion, the right to determine the quality of life one enjoys would be temporarily suspended in a way that could only ever apply to women. This right must be protected so that women may share the same right as other individuals to determine their quality of life in the present and future.

Opponents may object that an unborn child has the potential for personhood in as much measure as does a newborn infant and therefore is entitled to the same right to life. The baby's right takes precedent over a woman's right of choice regarding her body. From the moment of conception there is an organism swiftly progressing along the path of human development. By day four the organism's gender is determined, in the first four weeks the heartbeat and beginnings of the nervous system are present, and by the sixth month the baby sleeps and wakes (Schwarz 10). The unborn child may not be able express its desire to live, but for that matter neither can a newborn or comatose patient. Like an infant, the unborn can claim the right to live despite this inability because, being human, it possesses the potential for autonomy in the future. Being dependent on her mother to survive is not the child's fault, and philosopher Francis Beckwith observes that the child's best interests should be treated by law the same way the law treats abusive or negligent parents "regardless of whether her parents 'wanted' her" (Beckwith 189). This potential deserves the same protection as does the right of a potentially sick child