Beyond the Abortion Wars by Charles C. Camosy

Author:Charles C. Camosy [Camosy, Charles C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Published: 2015-04-29T21:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

The difficult slog involved in moving from (1) conclusions about abstract moral claims to (2) enacting laws and public policy in a specific context is not discussed enough in our American abortion discourse. But as I think this chapter has shown, to the extent that it is discussed at all, it is often not discussed with honesty, clarity, and attention to complexity. The common arguments saying that religious principles have no place in the public policy of secular Western societies fail to understand that many different kinds of public policies — including the “pro-choice” public policy of the United States — are grounded in contested, abstract, faith-based claims about what a person is (and specific claims about why the fetus doesn’t count), the right to privacy, bodily autonomy, and more. Furthermore, given the limited amount of data available to us about public policies on abortion in the past, its interpretation is too easily skewed in the direction of the biases of the interpreter. Strong “pro-choice” claims like “if abortion were criminalized in the United States there wouldn’t be fewer abortions” are simply not supported by the data. Similarly, claims like “if abortion were criminalized, large numbers of women (who would otherwise live if abortion remained legal) will die from illegal abortions” are on weak ground. Abortion became the relatively safe procedure it is today well before it was legalized, primarily due to improved medical technology and the fact that well-trained physicians are the ones who do the overwhelming majority of illegal abortions.

Furthermore, the examples of Ireland and Poland show us not only that modern-day Western democracies can find a way to make restrictive abortion laws “work,” getting excellent health results for women, while also building a culture that comes to understand the value of prenatal child. Finally, a public policy that gives prenatal children equal protection under the law need not punish women as murderers. The complexity of the act involved in various kinds of abortion, coupled with circumstances where women are coerced, means that our nimble legal tradition can use already-existing resources to nuance the way those who violate abortion laws should be punished.

But there are important considerations of law and public policy, essential to the argument I want to make in this book, which this chapter did not consider. One involves how our society could legally determine certain sets of circumstances in which a good majority of Americans — including many pro-lifers — would agree count as a proportionately serious reason for doing an indirect abortion. Building on the argument of the last chapter, suppose we consider the fact that the mother did not consent to sex as an example of a proportionate reason for getting an indirect abortion. How does this play out in a public policy? Can we legally determine when a woman has had consensual sex? Especially in situations of date/marital rape or of a dramatic power imbalance in the relationship, there often isn’t much evidence to show that a particular pregnancy is the result of nonconsensual sex.

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