Abortion Shouldn’t be a Presidential Issue

For decades now, pro-life and pro-choice forces have been trying to make abortion a key issue in Presidential elections. To date, there is no evidence that their posturing and vehemence has made any difference at all, either to the outcome of the election or the furthering of the issue. By wasting all their time, money and energy pinning all their hopes on a candidate that has little or no control over the debate (other than to appoint justices that never seem to vote the way they want anyway), both sides have missed many opportunities to progress this heated dialogue toward a practical and amenable solution.

The obvious yet unseen truth is that both the pro-life people and the pro-choice people want the same thing: for every pregnancy to be a planned and wanted one. But their horns have become so locked in anger, so inflamed at the insensitivity of the other side, that they are unable to step back and look at the big picture, and the many, many things they have in common, including the clear-cut steps necessary to achieve their mutual goal.

It is their stubbornness to see the other’s point of view that precludes them from coming together with solutions that would benefit everyone in a satisfactory way. By distracting themselves with the hunt for the perfect Presidential candidate to support their side, they have alleviated themselves from having to tackle the tough issues on the ground, where it counts. In the 1960’s vernacular, both sides have "copped out."

Yes, the arguments for pro-choice and pro-life are wide and deep. Yes, there are strong feelings on both sides. But the fact is, better solutions could be found, if only the leadership of the groups that hold this issue most dear would come together, rather than put all their eggs in an inconsequential presidential basket.

The fact is, abortion has been legal in this country for over thirty years now, and few people would want to give up a right they have had for more than a generation, any more than they would want to return to the days of Prohibition. For those of us who remember the reality of the pre-Roe v. Wade days, when abortion was as illegal as ultra-conservatives would like to make it again, women still had abortions, just as people still drank during Prohibition despite its illegality. The difference is that when you try to legislate behavior, rather than educate responsibility and accountability for that behavior, everyone, and our society as a whole, loses. We lose freedom, we lose rationality, we lose common sense.

Just as making alcohol illegal forced the making of moonshine and bathtub gin in unsanitary conditions the norm, thus posing a greater health risk to those who ingested it, women will once again be forced to give up the current safe and sanitary conditions with skilled medical personnel, and return to the days of sneaking into run-down flophouses, with abortions being performed by anyone with a coat-hanger and a modicum of greed, inviting infection and botched procedures that cost not just the lives of the embryo, but the lives of thousands of women as well. The Prohibition of abortion has never been successful, just as the Prohibition of alcohol, too, was a spectacular failure.

There is no question that a reversal of Roe v. Wade would force a return to that kind of butchery, because women in certain unfortunate circumstances have for millennia been making that choice, albeit a choice of last resort, and always will. These are lessons we Americans have already learned. Why must we have to learn them over and over again?

By the same token, the preservation of life is also an extremely important matter for all of us. Naturally we’d like every pregnancy to end in a healthy birth, every child born to grow up in a happy and well-balanced family, either natural or adopted, and to live up to his or her full potential as a benevolent human being. The problem is, reality gets in the way. Life has never been that easy, even under the best of circumstances, and never will be. Human nature, even with the best of intentions, won’t allow it.

Most importantly, it must be realized that the settlement of the pro-life v. pro-choice issue won’t come with either the repeal or the salvation of Roe v. Wade. Even were the decision to be overturned, the debate would continue. Solutions can only come when the two sides seek out and find their common ground, and settle it peacefully, and the sooner they stop wasting time and get on with it, the better. Unfortunately, that won’t happen as long as the issue erroneously remains a contentious presidential one to be fought over again and again every four years.