The battle lines are drawn again. South Dakota’s legislature has voted to make abortion illegal in all circumstances. No exceptions.
A direct attack on Roe v. Wade is coming from the South Dakota legislature. The new bill, which outlaws abortion, makes no exceptions, not for a pregnancy caused by incest or rape. It would only be legal — the only exception if it would save the pregnant woman’s life.
Doctors who perform abortions could face up to five years in prison. The bill passed the State Senate 23-12. It’s expected to pass the House again and then go to Governor Mike Rounds’ desk. The bill’s sponsor says he thinks the antiabortion movement has momentum on its side and a — quote — “change in national policy on abortion is going to come in the not-too-distant future.” (MSNBC)
With Alito and Roberts now on the Supreme Court, the intention couldn’t be any clearer: a full-scale assault on Roe v. Wade.
There’s a good piece in the Village Voice about South Dakota’s strategy.
Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, just after I was born. As an adoptee, I have wondered many times about what would have happened had Roe been a year earlier. Knowing next to nothing about my birth mother, it’s a question that will never have an answer. If I had the opportunity to ask my birth mother, it might still go unanswered. Thirty-three years of introspection would produce a very different response, I’m sure.
This fact alone serves as the foundation for my very mixed feelings about legalized abortion. On the one hand, I walk lock-step with other bleeding-hearts in saying that a woman’s body is just that — not mine, but hers. And yet, thinking about the possible abortion of what became my body, I think, “Hey, wait — I have something to say in this too.”
“What became my body?” What was it before? Abortion opponents have a point that if the fetus is human, there is very little to talk about, and very few instances when abortion can be ethically defensible. Is it human? I don’t know. And the purpose of this post is not to ruminate over the slippery slope of when a fetus becomes a human.
All that being said, I remain pro-choice, but with a lump in my throat. I remain nervously pro-choice. Like many, I would like to live in a world in which abortion is a woman’s legal right, but never, ever necessary. A utopia, in other words.
Anti-abortion activists should be working to make that utopia a reality, but I don’t see much happening in that way. Indeed, this is what bothers me most about the various camps that make up the anti-abortion movement: their unwillingness to help provide a viable alternative, namely adoption. How many children has the average women’s health clinic picketer adopted? How many protest by example? It seems to me that if these individuals feel so strongly about the issue, they would literally put their money where their angry, raised voices are and adopt, adopt, adopt.
How would you like to be the child of a rape or incest victim? Well that is exactly what this proposed law would have thousands of children facing. You are right about none of the pro-lifers getting in line to adopt all the unwanted children this law will put on this Earth. The pro-life movement is so quick to judge those that choose abortion but are no where to be found when it comes to doing anything with what would occur if the law were to change
You know, it’s hard to tell how I’d feel to be the child of a rape or incest, but assuming the rest of my upbringing was reasonable I’d probably be happy to be around to ponder the issue. But that’s really beside the point.
The decision whether or not to carry a child to term can be very complex. We tend to think in terms of accidental, unwanted pregnancies, but there are lots of other reasons as well. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a decision that needs to be made by the mother and whoever she asks to help her with it—physicians, clergy, or family—and not by a state or federal official that will never meet her, does not know her situation, and will never have to face the consequences of the choice he made for her.
I think this Mahablog post on the issue is particularly illuminating; it is a moral issue, but it’s one that needs to be made outside of the legal framework.
Bob, I wonder about your claim that SD’s abortion law would have “thousands of children facing” the realization that they’re the product of rape. Are there that many rapes in South Dakota? I’m just wondering about the source of the “thousands” term, that’s all.
As to whether it would bother me or not, I’d have to go with what John said. For all I know, I very well could be the result of rape. But as with the issue of whether my species evolved from apes or was created, I wouldn’t let it determine my sense of self-worth.
The Mahablog post reminds me of Steven Pinker’s thoughts on the issue in The Blank Slate.