I will vote “yes” on Missouri Constitutional Amendment 3 on Nov. 5. It gives women the right to own the decisions about their reproductive medical care, and allows regulation of abortion after the fetus is viable.
Having Facebook friends who plan to vote “no” got me wondering how I can explain my decision.
I start with three assumptions:
One, abortion is any medical intervention to terminate a pregnancy — ectopic, incomplete miscarriage, non-viable fetus, a pregnancy that creates risks to the woman or her family. This definition includes a choice that the woman is unwilling to take a pregnancy to full term.
Two, women are capable of making moral judgments, and some of those choices are ones I would make differently.
Three, women will consult with a medical professional in the process of obtaining an abortion. The consultation assesses the woman’s health and the risks of pregnancy.
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Abortion arguments tend to focus on the drama and emotion of the extremes — no abortion, ever, for any reason, or “abortion on demand” at any time. Life is more complex than this simplified approach.
If we went with “no abortion ever,” most would still allow abortion when the woman’s life is in immediate and extreme danger. And that means that sometimes the call will be made too late, and the procedure will not work to save the woman’s life.
Such a philosophy would not allow abortion for young girls or rape victims. At the extreme, it also would not permit IUDs or morning-after pills, both of which operate by preventing implantation of a viable embryo in the uterus.
But in poll after poll, most Americans believe there are times when the mother’s complete life circumstances (her age, the traumatic reasons she is pregnant, etc.) have more value than the potential life of a fetus.
The other end of the spectrum is allowing abortion at any time, for any reason. That’s not even on the table with Amendment 3, which allows regulation of abortion any time after the fetus is viable. This is an appropriate limitation. There are good and moral reasons when an abortion is performed for the health of the mother or the expected life of the fetus, and this allows guardrails around that decision.
I am a moral person who can make difficult judgments, and when I do, I may choose differently than someone else — and one of my assumptions is that the woman making the choice is also a moral person.
Abortion decisions are informed by very private information about a woman’s health and her life circumstances. Two people can both be morally sound and come to different conclusions. We are human. And, yes, sometimes the choice will be an abortion.
I think the conundrum at the heart of the debate is whether we can agree that people can both be moral and make different choices about abortion within the guardrails that are in Amendment 3.
If there is only one correct choice to be made, then someone has to be the decider. Is that a legislator? I hope not. Is that a pastor? That’s a non-starter in a country that demands separation of church and state.
The only person who lives with the outcome of that decision is the woman. There’s no law that can encompass the nuance in each case. Our legislators have so far proven themselves unable to navigate the medical implications or resist the political gamesmanship. And I don’t want essential reproductive rights in the hands of people who are, frankly, often mean-spirited.
Religious leaders can offer advice and counsel to their followers, but they have no place in this decision for other women. Such a regime conjures up images of Taliban rule. If we can’t agree on a set of rules when a woman can terminate a pregnancy, then we must trust women to make the moral choice themselves.
If it were possible to navigate this topic carefully and respectfully, I’d love to engage with my Facebook friends who would vote “no” on Amendment 3: Should a 10-year-old girl or a rape victim carry a fetus to term? What about fetuses with un-survivable birth defects?
These are such difficult questions, but if explored with respect and care, maybe we could identify deeper agreement. Focusing on emotionally charged extremes distracts us from important work. We need to spend our energy on the hard part — improving the things that we all agree need to change for our children, parents, and families.