Friday, February 10, 2012

Why I Support Abortion Rights

Before Roe was decided, there was a clear moral case, that overpowered the learned moralities of a deeply religious country. It was the morality of girls getting “in trouble” and they and sometimes their parents doing desperate things to fix that trouble. In a country still up to it eyeballs in Victorian era mores over sex and marriage.
It was the morality of the cold bite of reality, from reading too many accounts in the local paper of all sorts of half assed often dangerous efforts to abort fetuses from the unmarried pregnant female. I can remember reading accounts as a teenager, of death from botched abortion attempts, or back alley bootleg abortionists, ending in young girl bleeding out as a result.
So Roe was decided, even if by legal scholars claims of poorly decided, by legal norms of constitutional law. It didn’t matter, as the bulk of the citizens quietly and loudly demanded relief to make abortions legal. And many of them pretty religious, but also with a keen sense for social problems that are self inflicted.
There were those in the minority, a distinct minority who would not under any circumstances relent in their objections to legal abortions. They are still around today, and most all are evangelical Christians, or politicians seeking electoral favor with these people.
I doubt any moral argument would change the minds of these absolutist moralists, and they will continue to undermine abortion rights. And even though it’s been 4 decades, a majority of the public can recall, or learn second hand, of the lack of morality involved with forcing young women into taking actions that too often killed of mangled their bodies and minds. This is all I need to know to support abortion rights, that and the fact I don’t have a uterus, and if I did, it wouldn’t belong to the state.