The abortion debate has, to a large extent, become frozen. This writer would like to carve out a position that supports the legality of abortion while arguing that the morally best solution to an unwanted pregnancy is to have the baby and relinquish her or him for adoption.
Pro-choicers frequently find themselves tied up in knots in seeking to deny the life and/or the humanity of the fetus right up to the end of the sixth month of pregnancy. This can lead us to trip ourselves up in absurd ways as when Sen. Barbara Mikulski seemed to say human life begins when “you take your baby home.â€ÂÂ
While pro-choicers often seem obtuse regarding the humanity of the unborn, pro-lifers often talk about them as if they grow inside vases, ignoring the ordeal that they demand of females. Pregnancy has an enormous impact upon a girl or woman’s life. The intimacy and constancy of this ordeal has no parallel in human experience.
Thus, conceding human life to the unborn does not end the abortion debate. For under no other circumstance do we entitle one person to make use of another’s body. A human being is not legally entitled to a kidney or bone marrow transplant from another person even if not getting such a donation means that the first person will die. Indeed, one is not even entitled to a pint of someone else’s blood and having that amount of blood extracted pales in comparison to the demands of pregnancy and childbirth.
Of course, the analogy of carrying an unplanned pregnancy to term with giving up a body part so someone else can live is imperfect since the latter requires that one person actively make a sacrifice. The continuation of a pregnancy to birth requires only that the pregnant female do nothing. There is no perfect analogy with pregnancy because it is unique.
However, granting some validity to the organ transplant analogy, allows us to see aspects of the abortion controversy more clearly. As Donald P. Judges points out in his thoughtful book, Hard Choices, Lost Voices, many pro-lifers emphasize the weakest part of their case in arguing that abortion should be outlawed to protect pregnant females from its negative consequences. Studies of the psychological effects of abortion usually conclude that females who have had them suffer no more than those whose unplanned pregnancies were carried to term. While someone who has terminated a pregnancy will surely feel a certain amount of regret, as will a person who has refused to make a life-saving organ donation to a person who has died, both people have avoided an ordeal. The primary human reaction to a tribulation bypassed is relief.
While the organ transplant analogy leads us to support the legalized abortion, it also supports a moral conclusion that appears to make some pro-choicers uneasy. For that conclusion is that having the baby of an unwanted pregnancy is the most courageous and generous decision even as giving up the kidney or bone marrow is.
The trial of carrying an unplanned pregnancy to term is especially acute when the child is given up for adoption. During pregnancy, an emotional bond is normally formed in the pregnant female’s psyche as her body is prepared to deliver and nurse the young. It can be devastating to relinquish the infant. Thus, it ought to surprise no one that when abortion can be legally obtained – and having the baby and giving it up for adoption is culturally presented as just a choice with no particular moral resonance — few with unplanned pregnancies select this option.
However, if pro-choicers are both intellectually honest and morally sensitive, they should applaud efforts designed to persuade, rather than coerce, unhappily pregnant females to endure the tribulation. Bumper stickers like “Choose Life†and commercials applauding those who decided to “tough it out,†ending “Life – What A Beautiful Choice†are completely appropriate.
As is so often the case, the choices facing someone with an unplanned pregnancy are morally praiseworthy in inverse correlation to their ease. It is ethically better to have the baby that to abort it and ethically better to give it up for adoption that attempt to raise it if the mother is unprepared to do so.
It is not realistic to expect every female with a problem pregnancy to carry it to term. It is also unrealistic to expect every girl or woman who has such a baby to give it up for adoption. However, if we are to want a large group of such females to make this most difficult of choices, we must recognize that it is in fact the most moral.
