I grew up in a very rural town in Michigan. There were more churches than grocery stores or gas stations. In my county, it was considered pretty much a given that it was meaningless to run for a local office with a "D" pinned next to your name. What's more, the vast majority of my family is Catholic. So, based on those indicators, it would be pretty easy to assume that my stance is pretty firmly anti-abortion... and, to some extent, you would be right. On a personal level, I find abortion to be at the very least cruel and at the very worst damning. Unless I was literally carrying an already completely inviable child, I would very likely do everything I could to avoid an abortion. Like most Christians, I consider human life sacred. My Sunday mornings growing up consisted of waking up early, walking to church with my Dad, then going home to eat breakfast while watching the Sunday Morning political circuit and having lively discussions with both my parents. I was part of a very small group of political nerds at my high school, and I had the pleasure of studying under teachers who represented a broad spectrum of social and political beliefs, ranging from free-range hippies to thinly-veiled neo-fascists and theocrats. Now, of course none of these teachers really "forced" their views on their students, but I genuinely believe that it is impossible to discuss most of the "core" subjects taught in public schools without betraying at least a little of whatever political views one holds. All this is to say that, considering my provincial background up until college, I have the pleasure of saying I have benefited from having a lot of different ideas about a lot of different issues flung at me over my childhood.
As a college student, I've taken many classes specifically because I wanted more of those ideas flung at me. I like being challenged, and I like having my existing beliefs challenged. I've never been especially dogmatic, and even at my most rigidly religious (in the sense of daily practice) I've always had the opinion that proselytizing my personal beliefs 24/7 by scolding other people for their lack of righteousness is not going to get me any more inner peace or bring my God any more joy than diagramming every sentence in the Bible would help me understand its core messages. (Surely, there must be someone out there who has already done it anyway) One key course in both challenging, forming, and reforming my views on many issues, was a class I took on Medical Ethics from a Religious viewpoint. We studied and discussed the views held by certain religions (nearly always included were what I like to call the "Big 5": Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism) related to a variety of serious questions in medical ethics. We discussed issues ranging from euthanasia to life support (and the removal thereof) to organ donation (and selling) to, yes, abortion, and lots of places in-between. My main takeaway from the course: whatever your beliefs are, if there is a legal channel to make sure they are known and which will reduce liability on the part of the doctors, hospital, and your next-of-kin, by all means, make sure it is squared away, no matter how young and itinerant you may be. Living wills are for everybody. I was surprised, in many cases, by how many different perspectives can exist on a single ethical question.
Onto the meat of the day: abortion. The primary question that defines, for most religions, is when "ensoulment" occurs. In other words, when does a fetus go from being a blob of cells which can barely be distinguished from any other mammal, to being a "person?" For Buddhists, for instance, ensoulment occurs at conception. This makes the Buddhist stance on abortion pretty firm: abortion is equivalent to murder, and murder of a human being is the worst thing anybody can do because a human rebirth is incredibly precious. It is only in human form that a person can strive for, and theoretically achieve, Nirvana. To cheat anybody, even a fetus conceived during rape or incest, at the chance for Nirvana, is just plain wrong. For nearly every other religious group, though, there are varying levels of consideration for abortion. Most Western traditions, until the 20th century, generally had fluid notions of when ensoulment occurred, although the key indicator was usually when a pregnant woman first felt the child move in her womb.
My personal view actually became more conservative as a result of this course. Before the course, I was pretty radically pro-choice, not in the least because of a lot of angst I had over seeing girls I'd grown up with, a few of whom I consider close friends, get pregnant and have children waaaaaaaay before most people my age would be comfortable with even the idea of parental responsibility. Had I gotten pregnant before taking that course, there's a very real possibility that I would not have "chosen life," as so many of my pro-life friends, family, neighbors, and random people driving minivans with too many bumper stickers advertising their righteousness, would say. However, since this course, my views of my own ethical conduct regarding abortion have evolved. Odds are, as long as my partner and I remain unmarried, I would probably, in discussion with him, elect an open adoption, preferably with somebody I already know and trust. (I actually have a mental list of the first five couples I would go to) Would I have a shotgun wedding in a maternity gown? No. I don't feel like "whoops! We got knocked up!" is a wise foundation for a marriage, and I believe that the longer a couple stays together before starting a family, the better able they are to adjust to and recognize the changes and challenges of parenting. Personally, I would rather err on the side of caution when it comes to ensoulment.
My political alignment regarding abortion has evolved since that course, albeit with more subtlety than my personal views. Largely, this is where my parents' influence comes in... I've always had more pragmatic views on a lot of issues, because my father, an engineer, raised me to do my very best to remove my emotions as much as possible from major decisions... to let numbers and research and a very careful, methodical weighing of options guide me to the most effective, reasonable conclusion. Therefore, the whole "pro-life" versus "pro-choice" argument as it presently exists does very little for me. Technically, I still consider myself "pro-choice" because I don't believe in foisting my religious beliefs on others as a matter of policy, and there are many serious ethical concerns with banning abortion (ie, doctors being unable, through red tape and bureaucratic nonsense, to perform medically necessary abortions on women whose lives are immediately threatened as a result of their pregnancy, resulting in the deaths of people's mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters) however, because I do have ethical concerns about abortion itself (and, in some cases, abortion providers), I don't really believe in not making an effort to reduce abortion rates.
Therefore, my number-one political issue, at least attached to abortion, doesn't deal directly with the performance of abortions or the banning thereof. Rather, I support a varied approach at reducing the many elements that result in a woman seeking abortion. I see abortion as a symptom of other social ills: lack of social support for parents, especially mothers; rape; lack of access to contraception; lack of varied, scientifically-founded sex-ed; social and economic factors that lead young people to wait longer to marry; lack of a culture of strong marriages; and especially, lack of economic opportunity for young people. Studies have shown that access to contraception can reduce abortion rates. Makes sense to me, based on personal experience. A very dear, very close friend of mine, became pregnant in high school. She was sexually active, although had only ever had one partner, her first serious boyfriend, and she wanted to go on birth control. However, she didn't have a car to personally drive the 30 minutes to the nearest public health office, and she knew there was no way she could talk to her parents about going on birth control. So, I offered to take her to the public health office myself, and promised to go through the exam too, so that she would feel more comfortable. Because there was only one OB-GYN serving basically twenty different health centers within a hundred miles, (due to lack of funding) the vast majority in Detroit and Flint, we had to make our appointments several months in advance. When the day came, a blizzard hit, making the roads impassable. My friend assured me that she would suck it up and try talking to her mom. She got pregnant less than six months after that. Now, the resulting little boy has indeed been a blessing, and she has since married the father of her son and had a daughter with him as well, but, especially for the first couple of years after that happened, I had some serious guilt.
In terms of fiscal policy, a lot of conservatives shy away from providing public funding for contraceptives. As it was often said during arguments over Obamacare, "Why should we pay for young women to have sex?" Put simply: young people are not going to stop having sex just because they lack access to contraceptives. Instead, they're either going to have to spend their own money on contraceptives, or, as is often the case, just not use them. The result would likely be increases in instances of STDs and unwanted pregnancies. If young people become parents before they're more established in their careers, or even before they have jobs in the first place, they face serious logistical obstacles to getting jobs and establishing careers in the first place, due to their parental obligations, they are not going to be as economically productive. That lack of economic productivity results in both decreased revenues at all levels of government, as well as an increase on how much they end up costing the government in entitlements. The solution isn't to decrease funding for public health and education programs to force those young parents to either somehow make it with the cards stacked against them or become second-class citizens. Rather, if we pay for those young people to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place (and make sure they know how to use those resources and where to get them), the government can increase the odds of avoiding having to spend money on entitlements down the road, and potentially increase potential revenue, eventually evening-out or even profiting-from that initial expense.
From a cultural standpoint, we have a real problem with marriage. As a young person, most of the messages I received from outside my immediate family was that marriage is a drag. The only cool thing about marriage, according to the media, was having a wedding... a big, extravagant soiree well worth tens of thousands of dollars. May as well throw a party, because from the moment you return from your honeymoon, if not sooner, your marriage will be pure misery. You will fight nonstop. The sex will be awful. You will have all these completely ridiculous expectations and responsibilities, and odds are, within five years, your wedded bliss will conclude in a nasty, messy divorce in which at least one member of the family will be completely screwed. Lucky for me, I had a pretty good marriage to serve as a model for what it can be. Were my parents perfect spouses for each other? Not always. They fought sometimes, usually cyclically, and whenever my mother's thyroid levels fluctuated. Was their marriage something out of a tv show? Nope. Not at all. However, they did both grow as individuals as a result of their relationship, and they made it work, even when folks around them believed they were on a slippery slope, and at the bottom was divorce court. I saw how being together healed them as individuals. I, therefore, see marriage as a natural, highly beneficial state of being. Is it for everybody? No. Does it have a serious image problem with most young people? Definitely. The biggest obstacle, in my mind, to entering into and maintaining a solid marriage is one of finances: There's a ridiculous amount of pressure to spend ridiculous amounts of money on a wedding. If the whole shebang is paid for by parents, that's a different story, but that doesn't happen very often anymore. So, that leaves the burden of a very, very expensive party on the couple... money that could be better allocated to saving for a home.... speaking of which...
We Americans have a real issue with housing. Yeah, it burst our bubble good and screwed the economy over, but we also just have a problem with having housing that really does not fit our needs nor our budget. In the basically suburban town I live in with my partner, finding an affordable single bedroom apartment (which we see as being all we really need or would use) is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Quick. Go look at Craigslist. Select any random US City. How many single bedroom apartments can you find that cost less than $500 per month? (I still follow the guideline my late maternal grandmother told me she was taught growing up during the depression: Never pay more than 1/4 of your income on housing. If a couple makes a combined $2000, roughly full-time minimum wage, that puts the cap for rent at $500) How many of those have access to public transportation? See what I mean? When a young married couple has to strain to pay rent, there will almost certainly be more strain on the marriage.
What does all this have to do with abortion? The lack of stable relationships and high financial stress on young people contributes to a young woman's sense of hopelessness when confronted with an unwanted pregnancy. Marriage, in a sense, provides more security for that young woman. If she's in a legal union with the father of her child, she stands a far dimmer chance of being abandoned by that man simply because he is afraid of fatherhood. They can better pool their resources. If that marriage isn't already strained by undue financial stress, the extra expenses of parenthood can be better managed. All in all, strong marriages make strong individuals, and that makes parenthood less frightening... or at least makes it more of a team sport.
Of course, a larger pool of better paid jobs, and access to education and training to prepare for those jobs (especially if it doesn't come with a hefty pricetag and house-level debt) can also reduce abortion rates. A woman who can provide for herself and her child regardless of her marital status is less fearful of an unwanted pregnancy, especially if she has access to quality healthcare services and paid maternity leave. Moreover, she is likely to have better health care access in the first place, allowing her greater access to contraception and reproductive healthcare.
I see all of these various efforts as much, much more productive in terms of reducing abortion rates than waving around gruesome images of stillborn fetuses or partial-birth abortions. However, their biggest impediment, in terms of promoting, is that they don't really appeal to people's emotions, and really, that's probably 90% of the abortion debate. Every. Single. Day. when I log onto facebook, somewhere in my newsfeed is an outraged post about abortion. Conservatives are pissed off about baby-killing sluts killing babies. Liberals are pissed-off about anti-scientific, slut-shaming theocrats imposing their archaic rules upon their precious uteri. Libertarians are just plain pissed-off about everything. My biggest frustration? Try to have a reasonable discussion with any of those groups about the serious ethical and policy issues presented by their view, and possible alternatives that still maintain the core of their cause without necessarily alienating the other side, and it turns into a bloodbath. I piss off the liberals in my life, albeit nowhere near as much as the conservatives in my life. Do I sometimes overstep? Oh hell yeah. It comes with being opinionated and having limited time to flesh out a real, substantive argument when I'm checking facebook during my twenty-minute break at work. However, this ideology of the question of abortion being a zero-sum, black and white debate is bullocks. It prevents everybody from being able to move forward, in a meaningful way, so that everybody receives the maximum benefit while reducing overall pain, suffering, and loss of life. We need to stop existing in echo chambers and learn to listen, really, listen to each other. At the core of each side's arguments is a nugget of truth... and we can all benefit from being challenged a little. It makes us better. It makes us stronger. And isn't that really what America is all about?
As a college student, I've taken many classes specifically because I wanted more of those ideas flung at me. I like being challenged, and I like having my existing beliefs challenged. I've never been especially dogmatic, and even at my most rigidly religious (in the sense of daily practice) I've always had the opinion that proselytizing my personal beliefs 24/7 by scolding other people for their lack of righteousness is not going to get me any more inner peace or bring my God any more joy than diagramming every sentence in the Bible would help me understand its core messages. (Surely, there must be someone out there who has already done it anyway) One key course in both challenging, forming, and reforming my views on many issues, was a class I took on Medical Ethics from a Religious viewpoint. We studied and discussed the views held by certain religions (nearly always included were what I like to call the "Big 5": Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism) related to a variety of serious questions in medical ethics. We discussed issues ranging from euthanasia to life support (and the removal thereof) to organ donation (and selling) to, yes, abortion, and lots of places in-between. My main takeaway from the course: whatever your beliefs are, if there is a legal channel to make sure they are known and which will reduce liability on the part of the doctors, hospital, and your next-of-kin, by all means, make sure it is squared away, no matter how young and itinerant you may be. Living wills are for everybody. I was surprised, in many cases, by how many different perspectives can exist on a single ethical question.
Onto the meat of the day: abortion. The primary question that defines, for most religions, is when "ensoulment" occurs. In other words, when does a fetus go from being a blob of cells which can barely be distinguished from any other mammal, to being a "person?" For Buddhists, for instance, ensoulment occurs at conception. This makes the Buddhist stance on abortion pretty firm: abortion is equivalent to murder, and murder of a human being is the worst thing anybody can do because a human rebirth is incredibly precious. It is only in human form that a person can strive for, and theoretically achieve, Nirvana. To cheat anybody, even a fetus conceived during rape or incest, at the chance for Nirvana, is just plain wrong. For nearly every other religious group, though, there are varying levels of consideration for abortion. Most Western traditions, until the 20th century, generally had fluid notions of when ensoulment occurred, although the key indicator was usually when a pregnant woman first felt the child move in her womb.
My personal view actually became more conservative as a result of this course. Before the course, I was pretty radically pro-choice, not in the least because of a lot of angst I had over seeing girls I'd grown up with, a few of whom I consider close friends, get pregnant and have children waaaaaaaay before most people my age would be comfortable with even the idea of parental responsibility. Had I gotten pregnant before taking that course, there's a very real possibility that I would not have "chosen life," as so many of my pro-life friends, family, neighbors, and random people driving minivans with too many bumper stickers advertising their righteousness, would say. However, since this course, my views of my own ethical conduct regarding abortion have evolved. Odds are, as long as my partner and I remain unmarried, I would probably, in discussion with him, elect an open adoption, preferably with somebody I already know and trust. (I actually have a mental list of the first five couples I would go to) Would I have a shotgun wedding in a maternity gown? No. I don't feel like "whoops! We got knocked up!" is a wise foundation for a marriage, and I believe that the longer a couple stays together before starting a family, the better able they are to adjust to and recognize the changes and challenges of parenting. Personally, I would rather err on the side of caution when it comes to ensoulment.
My political alignment regarding abortion has evolved since that course, albeit with more subtlety than my personal views. Largely, this is where my parents' influence comes in... I've always had more pragmatic views on a lot of issues, because my father, an engineer, raised me to do my very best to remove my emotions as much as possible from major decisions... to let numbers and research and a very careful, methodical weighing of options guide me to the most effective, reasonable conclusion. Therefore, the whole "pro-life" versus "pro-choice" argument as it presently exists does very little for me. Technically, I still consider myself "pro-choice" because I don't believe in foisting my religious beliefs on others as a matter of policy, and there are many serious ethical concerns with banning abortion (ie, doctors being unable, through red tape and bureaucratic nonsense, to perform medically necessary abortions on women whose lives are immediately threatened as a result of their pregnancy, resulting in the deaths of people's mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters) however, because I do have ethical concerns about abortion itself (and, in some cases, abortion providers), I don't really believe in not making an effort to reduce abortion rates.
Therefore, my number-one political issue, at least attached to abortion, doesn't deal directly with the performance of abortions or the banning thereof. Rather, I support a varied approach at reducing the many elements that result in a woman seeking abortion. I see abortion as a symptom of other social ills: lack of social support for parents, especially mothers; rape; lack of access to contraception; lack of varied, scientifically-founded sex-ed; social and economic factors that lead young people to wait longer to marry; lack of a culture of strong marriages; and especially, lack of economic opportunity for young people. Studies have shown that access to contraception can reduce abortion rates. Makes sense to me, based on personal experience. A very dear, very close friend of mine, became pregnant in high school. She was sexually active, although had only ever had one partner, her first serious boyfriend, and she wanted to go on birth control. However, she didn't have a car to personally drive the 30 minutes to the nearest public health office, and she knew there was no way she could talk to her parents about going on birth control. So, I offered to take her to the public health office myself, and promised to go through the exam too, so that she would feel more comfortable. Because there was only one OB-GYN serving basically twenty different health centers within a hundred miles, (due to lack of funding) the vast majority in Detroit and Flint, we had to make our appointments several months in advance. When the day came, a blizzard hit, making the roads impassable. My friend assured me that she would suck it up and try talking to her mom. She got pregnant less than six months after that. Now, the resulting little boy has indeed been a blessing, and she has since married the father of her son and had a daughter with him as well, but, especially for the first couple of years after that happened, I had some serious guilt.
In terms of fiscal policy, a lot of conservatives shy away from providing public funding for contraceptives. As it was often said during arguments over Obamacare, "Why should we pay for young women to have sex?" Put simply: young people are not going to stop having sex just because they lack access to contraceptives. Instead, they're either going to have to spend their own money on contraceptives, or, as is often the case, just not use them. The result would likely be increases in instances of STDs and unwanted pregnancies. If young people become parents before they're more established in their careers, or even before they have jobs in the first place, they face serious logistical obstacles to getting jobs and establishing careers in the first place, due to their parental obligations, they are not going to be as economically productive. That lack of economic productivity results in both decreased revenues at all levels of government, as well as an increase on how much they end up costing the government in entitlements. The solution isn't to decrease funding for public health and education programs to force those young parents to either somehow make it with the cards stacked against them or become second-class citizens. Rather, if we pay for those young people to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place (and make sure they know how to use those resources and where to get them), the government can increase the odds of avoiding having to spend money on entitlements down the road, and potentially increase potential revenue, eventually evening-out or even profiting-from that initial expense.
From a cultural standpoint, we have a real problem with marriage. As a young person, most of the messages I received from outside my immediate family was that marriage is a drag. The only cool thing about marriage, according to the media, was having a wedding... a big, extravagant soiree well worth tens of thousands of dollars. May as well throw a party, because from the moment you return from your honeymoon, if not sooner, your marriage will be pure misery. You will fight nonstop. The sex will be awful. You will have all these completely ridiculous expectations and responsibilities, and odds are, within five years, your wedded bliss will conclude in a nasty, messy divorce in which at least one member of the family will be completely screwed. Lucky for me, I had a pretty good marriage to serve as a model for what it can be. Were my parents perfect spouses for each other? Not always. They fought sometimes, usually cyclically, and whenever my mother's thyroid levels fluctuated. Was their marriage something out of a tv show? Nope. Not at all. However, they did both grow as individuals as a result of their relationship, and they made it work, even when folks around them believed they were on a slippery slope, and at the bottom was divorce court. I saw how being together healed them as individuals. I, therefore, see marriage as a natural, highly beneficial state of being. Is it for everybody? No. Does it have a serious image problem with most young people? Definitely. The biggest obstacle, in my mind, to entering into and maintaining a solid marriage is one of finances: There's a ridiculous amount of pressure to spend ridiculous amounts of money on a wedding. If the whole shebang is paid for by parents, that's a different story, but that doesn't happen very often anymore. So, that leaves the burden of a very, very expensive party on the couple... money that could be better allocated to saving for a home.... speaking of which...
We Americans have a real issue with housing. Yeah, it burst our bubble good and screwed the economy over, but we also just have a problem with having housing that really does not fit our needs nor our budget. In the basically suburban town I live in with my partner, finding an affordable single bedroom apartment (which we see as being all we really need or would use) is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Quick. Go look at Craigslist. Select any random US City. How many single bedroom apartments can you find that cost less than $500 per month? (I still follow the guideline my late maternal grandmother told me she was taught growing up during the depression: Never pay more than 1/4 of your income on housing. If a couple makes a combined $2000, roughly full-time minimum wage, that puts the cap for rent at $500) How many of those have access to public transportation? See what I mean? When a young married couple has to strain to pay rent, there will almost certainly be more strain on the marriage.
What does all this have to do with abortion? The lack of stable relationships and high financial stress on young people contributes to a young woman's sense of hopelessness when confronted with an unwanted pregnancy. Marriage, in a sense, provides more security for that young woman. If she's in a legal union with the father of her child, she stands a far dimmer chance of being abandoned by that man simply because he is afraid of fatherhood. They can better pool their resources. If that marriage isn't already strained by undue financial stress, the extra expenses of parenthood can be better managed. All in all, strong marriages make strong individuals, and that makes parenthood less frightening... or at least makes it more of a team sport.
Of course, a larger pool of better paid jobs, and access to education and training to prepare for those jobs (especially if it doesn't come with a hefty pricetag and house-level debt) can also reduce abortion rates. A woman who can provide for herself and her child regardless of her marital status is less fearful of an unwanted pregnancy, especially if she has access to quality healthcare services and paid maternity leave. Moreover, she is likely to have better health care access in the first place, allowing her greater access to contraception and reproductive healthcare.
I see all of these various efforts as much, much more productive in terms of reducing abortion rates than waving around gruesome images of stillborn fetuses or partial-birth abortions. However, their biggest impediment, in terms of promoting, is that they don't really appeal to people's emotions, and really, that's probably 90% of the abortion debate. Every. Single. Day. when I log onto facebook, somewhere in my newsfeed is an outraged post about abortion. Conservatives are pissed off about baby-killing sluts killing babies. Liberals are pissed-off about anti-scientific, slut-shaming theocrats imposing their archaic rules upon their precious uteri. Libertarians are just plain pissed-off about everything. My biggest frustration? Try to have a reasonable discussion with any of those groups about the serious ethical and policy issues presented by their view, and possible alternatives that still maintain the core of their cause without necessarily alienating the other side, and it turns into a bloodbath. I piss off the liberals in my life, albeit nowhere near as much as the conservatives in my life. Do I sometimes overstep? Oh hell yeah. It comes with being opinionated and having limited time to flesh out a real, substantive argument when I'm checking facebook during my twenty-minute break at work. However, this ideology of the question of abortion being a zero-sum, black and white debate is bullocks. It prevents everybody from being able to move forward, in a meaningful way, so that everybody receives the maximum benefit while reducing overall pain, suffering, and loss of life. We need to stop existing in echo chambers and learn to listen, really, listen to each other. At the core of each side's arguments is a nugget of truth... and we can all benefit from being challenged a little. It makes us better. It makes us stronger. And isn't that really what America is all about?
