Thinking about abortion beyond “pro-life” and “pro-choice”

I have been seeing so much about the New York abortion law debate that I feel almost compelled to say a few words about it.

The law states that a physician “may perform an abortion when, according to the practitioner’s reasonable and good faith professional judgment based on the facts of the patient’s case: the patient is within twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.”

I understand that some people may believe the patient’s life is not worth as much as a fetus’ life or that God will work it out the way God sees fit and so on.

I understand that bioethicists can’t always agree on what the word “health” means. It frightens people to realize that physicians may define health in ways that they disagree with sometimes.

But I don’t understand the complete lack of empathy or compassion regarding some of these cases. How can people hate so hard and be comfortable with such sweeping generalizations?

I keep thinking about a family that desperately wanted a baby discovered after a 21-week anatomy scan that their daughter had bilateral multicystic dysplastic kidney disease. The mother writes,

Her kidneys were not functioning, she had no amniotic fluid and her lungs would never develop properly. Three doctors told us our daughter’s condition was 100 percent fatal due to the early onset of her disease. She would either be stillborn or would not survive long after birth. My own risk would increase sevenfold if I continued to carry her.” They made the decision to terminate the pregnancy. They had to wait 72 hours, private insurance wouldn’t pay for the abortion and the government regulations contributed to the deep trauma of this family.

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I think this is sad.

I think that thinking it is sad and trying to not have laws where people are more traumatized is not ridiculous and selfish.

You may disagree with my position but the memes and posts against the law don’t mention these cases, or the restrictions on these laws. This seems profoundly intellectually dishonest to me.

I wish we could stay away from language such as pro-choice or pro-life simply because these are values that most people cherish outside of the abortion debate. Are we really anti life or anti choice if we don’t hold a particular view? How many of you really believe that a large percentage of human beings are truly haters of life? How many of you really believe that a large percentage of human beings hate the concept of freedom and choice?

This doesn’t seem right and the words have so much emotive content that it doesn’t seem this type of language is likely to lead to a richer understanding of the topic.

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