So Much Food For Thought...

As I wrestle with the implications of Amendment 48, so too do I wrestle with my views on abortion in general.

I had always considered myself pro-choice, but felt that I could well understand where the other side was coming from. My biggest struggle was, and perhaps still is, with late term abortions. Should the state be able to force a woman to go to term after viability, especially if she discovers that the child will be severely disabled, or even die?

My first thought was that this was a form of eugenics, and was morally, and perhaps should even be legally, wrong. But then the thought of a mother having to carry a baby to term, knowing that she would lose that child within the year, was heart-breaking, and I felt that no one should, against their will, be forced to undergo that stress and trauma. Then, of course, I found myself facing my questions all over again while talking to a friend of mine who, when born, had many physical problems that were supposed to, but didn't, manifest themselves in a permanent disability. And I think from this that the chord that anti-abortion activists always try to hit us is a reasonable one--we wouldn't be here if we were aborted.

But then, we also wouldn't be here if we happened to have been miscarried, stillborn, etc, or any number of other factors. Can we really force people to carry a pregnancy to term on what might be?

Lynn Paltrow's talk made me see the subject in a whole new light. It seems so wrong that any woman would have to legally give up her own autonomy and personhood for the sake of someone else's. And perhaps her best point was the fact that fetal life does have value--moral, emotional, etc.--to many people, but that giving it legal value can have devastating effects. For women to be locked away for fetal death and still births, for women to be denied the right to control their own bodies and healthcare, is a travesty. And yet, because there can be so much value that we, as individuals or a society, see in the potential life of a fetus, especially as it grows nearer to term, it is difficult not to wrestle with this issue.

I believe that Amendment 48 is a nightmare waiting to happen--and hopefully it won't. But are there any circumstances in which it is okay to ban abortion, or limit it to preserving the life and health of the mother? When it comes to late term abortions, I'm not always sure. Every time I think I have an answer, I realize that I don't. And maybe that really is the reason it should be left up to the individual. If I cannot answer even for myself, what gives me the right to answer for someone else?