Being pro-life extends itself to being for legalized abortions.
Before we start, let's get this straight: I am pro-life, in all regards. I'm not for abortion. It's a euphemism that hides the reality of what the procedure accomplishes. I don't understand why it seems to define the women's health movement, and I don't understand why abortion is considered feminist (read: by "I don't understand," I mean it makes no sense and should not be linked to those two things). Despite this, it should not be made illegal or more difficult to obtain, we shouldn't stigmatize the women who receive one, and we shouldn't protest when it becomes legal. Not if we're pro-life.
Legalized abortion aligns with Catholic, pro-life ideology for three main reasons.
1. Unsafe abortions, in areas where abortion remains illegal or many obstacles are in place against receiving one, increase maternal deaths and the risk of complications.
The World Health Organization reports that almost 21.6 million unsafe abortions took place worldwide in 2008, with 98 percent of those occurring in *developing nations. Making abortion illegal does not reduce the amount of women seeking an abortion. It increases the number of those who will seek out an unqualified person or will perform one themselves, in either unsanitary conditions or by dangerous methods. For example, a fact-heavy article by Susan A. Cohen describes some methods of unsafe abortions- not limited to, but including "a variety of traditional and often dangerous methods...inserting sticks into the vagina, drinking bleach, or applying extreme pressure to the abdomen, which often [results] in severe complications, such as a hemorrhage."
According to the WHO, unsafe abortion is the cause of 70,000 maternal deaths. To put that into more perspective, they also note that 70,000 maternal deaths means one in every eight women. Also, out of eight million women who have post-abortion complications, three million do not receive treatment for the sometimes life-threatening or infertility inducing complications.
In a review of "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days," a film set in 1980's Romania, Richard Carliss discusses the issue present in the film of illegal abortion. He also mentions that half a million women perished as the result of botched unsafe abortions.
2. The more restrictive the abortion laws, the less likely the abortion rate is to decrease.
Where abortion is illegal, that does not stop women from terminating their pregnancies. It just causes them to do so with more dangerous means. Western and northern Europe, where abortion has been legal for decades, receives the crown for having the lowest abortion rates in the world. The fear of legalizing abortion and having it result in a greater number of abortions is relatively unfounded in this modern world. Where abortion is legalized, the rate of mortality among women and their post-abortion complications decreases.
However, legalizing abortion is not enough. If there are laws that muddy the access to receiving an abortion, the rate of unsafe abortions does not decrease. The laws need to be clear and services nearby.
3. Women who receive abortions are not monsters.
As human beings, they deserve the dignity and respect that they were born having. Perhaps the abortion was an easy decision, perhaps it was difficult, or maybe there was pressure to get one. Regardless, making abortion illegal criminalizes the act without knowing the multi-faceted story. It erases the humanity of the person by labeling them as a criminal. Harassing women who have opted to have an abortion does not promote a culture of life, not if someone is making that woman feel terrible about herself or about living.
However,
What needs to go hand in hand with lax abortion laws is contraception. Quoting Cohen once more, "the surest way to actually reduce the incidence of abortion is to reduce the incidences of unintended pregnancy." In 2014, the United States experienced a large drop nationwide in the number of abortions performed. The Guttemacher Institute attributed this to "...[improved contraceptive use] during this period, as more women and couples were using highly effective long-acting reversible contraceptive methods, such as the IUD." This can easily be done by making contraceptives readily available to women and removing the existing barriers to obtaining them. Better sex education would also help with this. Again, Western and northern Europe are the reigning champs, as they have widespread access to contraception.
However 2.0,
Abortion is still not something that needs to be touted as part of a feminist agenda.
Feminism needs to be intersectional, and if abortion does not further the rights of every woman, it is not feminist.
With sex-selective abortion so prevalent in India and China and girls/women being disproportionately affected by that, there is nothing feminist about it.
In addition, I agree with many of Sidney Callahan's points that the pro-choice argument misrepresents itself as feminist.
These quotes sums up the best parts of "Abortion and the Sexual Agenda: A Case for Pro-Life Feminism" pretty well:
"In our male dominated world, what men don't do, doesn't count."
"For women to get what they need in order to combine childbearing, education, and careers, society has to recognize that female bodies come with wombs."
"...[they] adopt the male perspective when they cite the 'basic injustice that women have to bear the babies' instead of seeing the injustice in the fact that men cannot."
We are powerful, ladies. And we have wombs. You are more than your womb, but it's still part of you and you regardless. This isn't to say that you ever need to have or raise a child, but there is nothing feminist in deriding the unique ability that women have to do so.
"Human life from the beginning to the end of development has intrinsic value, which does not depend on meeting the selective criteria or test set up by powerful others."
And above, the script is flipped. The women becomes the powerful other, who then does not stand up for the rights of the being who is now part of her and who is dependent on her. There is a powerful and a less powerful. In her essay, Callahan also reminds readers that there was a time in which women were examined by the patriarchal structure with the criteria that pro-choice feminists now place on fetuses.
So, as concerns abortion:
1. It is not feminist. At all.
2. Legalized abortion is not opposed to pro-life beliefs. It can and does work in tandem with them.
3. It should be legal.
