Blog for Choice Day 2011

Given the anti-choicegains in the states and Congress, are you concerned about choice in 2011?

Yes in particular as a woman who had a “later” abortion, and the moves by “moderate” abortion advocates to ‘compromise” I’m quite concerned about CHOICE in 2011.

The most likely outcome of the anti-CHOICE gains is not an outright repeal of Roe, which would no doubt galvanize pro-CHOICE people the way the Webster decision did in the late eighties, but rather a gradual restriction to the right to abortion. The most likely moves regard second trimester abortions. With the frontiers of medical intervention pushing viability ever earlier, although often without regard for consequence or quality of life, seemingly reasonable people find it difficult to argue to with parsing the semantics of abortion. i.e. abortion in the first trimester but not in the second. This criteria, is of course, imbedded in Roe’s vague language about viability. However, reasonable people may differ in their criteria of “viability,” i.e. breathing independently v ventilator, eating alone v nasal gastric tube. The logistics and logic are never as clear as “reasonable” people may believe. And until you face the CHOICE yourself, you have no idea what CHOICE you would make.

CHOICE is a relative term of course. One can only make a CHOICE for example, if aware that there is a CHOICE to be made. I made my CHOICE with all due speed, within a few weeks of becoming aware of my pregnancy, but given the present climate of “compromise” I am all too aware that a woman in a similar situation in the very near future may face NO CHOICE at all.

Or rather the only CHOICE many women may face is where to obtain their illegal abortion, because if the past is any guide to the future, we can be assured that women will still CHOOSE to pursue abortions. The CHOICE we face is whether we return to illegal abortion, killing women in the process.

Because ONE OUT OF THREE women of reproductive age in the United States has had an abortion, I encourage them all to raise their voices, and their vote, to ensure that their CHOICE is still available for women in the future.