Do you agree with me that each abortion is a moral tragedy? Then let’s attack the conditions that lead to abortion, using all of our resources. The pro-life movement has thus far rejected this path, unfortunately. They are only consumed with one issue: making sure that someone else bears the moral weight. Because, after all, if abortion is made illegal, and a girl has an abortion, then she and her doctor are the guilty ones. For those of us who are truly want to decrease the abortion rate, we need to get busy figuring out how to do this. One way to proceed is to look at countries that have already been successful in lowering the abortion rate. Western Europe makes a good example, since almost all of its countries have the lowest abortion rates in the world, and much lower than in our own country.
What have they got that we haven’t? I mentioned one thing last week, and that is the generous maternity leave. Germany, for instance, has a national law that gives women over two years of paid leave. This is a fantastic way to respond to the fact that most women who have experienced abortion cite the need to continue work or school as their reason for having an abortion. It just can’t be a coincidence that women who live in countries that celebrate pregnancy by giving women special opportunities to continue their career and/or education after having a baby don’t get as many abortions.
Western European women also have a much easier time getting contraception, and it’s not weird for teenage girls to be on birth control. GASP - I know, I know, the most horrible word that evangelical Christians can think of is “condoms.” James Dobson, for instance, has decided that sex education in public schools is one of the three great moral evils of our time (with abortion and homosexuality, of course). The common line is that giving teenagers condoms send ‘mixed messages.’ But this is refuted by statistics published by the Center for Disease Control that show that there is a reliable year-to-year decline in the number of teens who are sexually active and a simultaneous rise in the rate of condom use. The moral of the story is that making contraception available does not sexually liberate teenagers.
If you care about abortion, you must seek practical solutions. If you don’t want to look at those solutions, well, I think that betrays that your concern about abortion is merely about the question of moral responsibility. The distinction between pro-life is pro-choice is not helpful. The morally significant distinction is between those who desire to stop abortions from happening and those who don’t really care, and there are plenty who care deeply from both sides of the pro-life/choice debate, and there are plenty who don’t really care on both sides.
