Life begins at conception. The unborn child is a living human being, completely innocent and utterly defenseless. If we believe that every human life has inherent value, then we cannot make size, age, dependence, or location a reason to deny that life protection. The weakest among us deserve protection precisely because they cannot protect themselves.
From this perspective, there is no option for compromise. There is no way to condone abortion—any abortion at any point during pregnancy. Acquiescing to abortions at any age defeats the moral argument against abortion. A child does not become more human as he or she develops. The child simply becomes more developed. It is no more right to intentionally kill that child at 8 days or 8 weeks than at 8 months.
No one likes abortions or wants abortions. But there are situations involving crisis pregnancies where abortion is not the worst alternative. Consider a 30-year-old Black woman in Louisiana. She has two children, a 6-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son. There is no man involved in helping raise the children or providing financial support. The woman is on her own. She makes $3 more than minimum wage—$10.15/hr—and works 40 hours a week, which yields $1,600/month in take-home pay.
She is savvy enough to use government benefits such as SNAP, CHIP, and Medicaid. So somehow, she is getting by. She is feeding, clothing, and meeting the health care needs of her children. She is managing to get them to school and find aftercare until she comes home from work. She is doing an effective job parenting her two children. She spends time with them, reading with, loving and nurturing them. Her son is well behaved. He not out running the streets. Though just barely, she is making it work.
And then, she gets pregnant.
Consider all the additional costs in time and money that come with carrying this new child to term. And then consider how much this gets magnified after the child is born. This will totally disrupt everything she is doing. Do you really want the government to force this woman to carry this child to term? It will undermine her ability to give time and attention to the two children she has been raising. Their lives will be diminished. Considering the alternative consequences, having an abortion is not the worst option.
And, looking at the statistics, the number of abortions in the U.S. has been falling since 1990. They have fallen during every president’s term since then, except one, and they have fallen much more when a Democrat was in the White House than when a Republican was. The only time abortions increased over a president’s term since 1990 was during President Trump’s first term.
If electing “pro-life” politicians does not translate into significantly reducing abortions, then it is irrelevant to vote for or against a politician based on his or her position on abortion.
There is no more contentious issue that divides us than abortion. There is no moral high ground to approving abortion at one stage of pregnancy but allowing it at another. There is no viable solution for abortion. So why fight over it?
If we are to find consensus, then we must agree to take abortion off the table as an issue.
And for that matter, let’s avoid all the other unsolvable culture war issues that politicians use to divide us over and to raise $billion in campaign contributions. Let’s focus on those major problems that can be resolved or at least mitigated if we do the hard work of seeking and finding common ground.
Can we reach consensus on this?