Poll after poll is screaming “Americans split over abortion issue” — 50 percent for, 50 percent against. The issue is not nearly as simple, nor as divisive, as statistics and rhetoric suggest.
Here is my suggestion for a different way of looking at and tackling this problem that could bring the pros and antis to common ground and put us on a constructive path to dealing with the difficult subject of abortion.
Let's talk about the damage rhetoric does, and how it unnecessarily divides people into different camps. The moniker on one side is “anti-abortion” or “pro-life,” and on the other it's “pro-abortion” or “pro-choice.” I posit that you can be pro-choice and dislike abortion, and pro-life but still want choice.
The key — and I also believe this could work on a lot of other divisive issues we are facing — is to cut through the rhetoric, the partisanship, the right-wrong dichotomy, dig down deep to the core where there is common ground, then build up from there in areas of agreement.
On abortion, I think that deep core truth is that almost everyone believes in the sanctity of life and that there should be as few abortions as possible. I have never met anyone who likes abortion nor anyone who is against life. I do know women who have reluctantly chosen abortion, as well as people who are vehemently against it.
So let’s try stipulating that we are all “pro-life,” nobody is “pro-abortion,” but we all want to limit abortions. What do we need to do to achieve this common-ground goal? We should start by doing everything possible to avoid unwanted pregnancies. This means emphasizing sex education and birth control. Naïveté about sex and “Just Say No” don’t work. Religious dogma on this issue should be relegated to those denominations, and not to the broader culture. We have fewer unwanted pregnancies when both girls and boys, women and men, are better educated and when means of birth control are available to all.
Now, if, in spite of all the education and control, women accidentally get pregnant, what course meets the pro-life, abortion-limiting goal? Well, you probably have to start with giving the woman a choice. Either convince her that she “wants” the baby and give her the support she needs, or, if she truly does not want the baby, then the next-best alternative is adoption.
Let’s make it an OK moral choice for a woman to give her unwanted baby to someone who does want a child. There are so many of those “wanters” out there, but adoption can be so difficult and so expensive. It ought to be easier, and perhaps sometimes the birth mother can still have a role. We don’t need to be so rigid. Like-minded and well-meaning people can find new and life-affirming ways to do the best we can for mothers and their hopefully-wanted children.
It is a very small percentage of people who think the best way to deal with abortion is to outlaw it. Let's cross that one off the list, as we did Prohibition lo those many years ago. Some people think doing away with Roe vs. Wade, and leaving it up to the individual states is the best way. This seems to me a real cop-out. This is an issue that involves basic human (American) rights about life and liberty, and we need a common solution for the whole nation, not a patchwork.
So how about from now on, we discard the polarizing labels, and say we’re all Pros – pro-life, pro-choice, pro-abortion limiting – and support policies that help us reach these moderate goals, which I feel sure a majority of us can get behind.
Jeanette Rusk Sefcik
Jeanette Rusk Sefcik, Glendale, is a retired newspaper reporter and editor, having worked at newspapers including the Tucson Citizen, Daily Spectrum in St. George, Southern Utah News in Kanab and Lake Powell Chronicle in Page, Ariz. She has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Arizona.