By Sid Schwab / Herald columnist
Overtly or co-, every one of the conservatives currently on the U.S. Supreme Court lied during their confirmation hearings. They knew it, senators knew it, those of us watching knew it. With big-money backing and, in the cases of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, by way of cosmic hypocrisy on the part of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., each was specifically selected to end legal abortion. Which, by all accounts, is about to happen.
So let’s talk about it. I can take it if you can.
First, some mostly non-controversial statements: 1. Polls show only 20 percent of Americans believe abortion should be banned under all circumstances, which is fewer than those who think it should be completely unrestricted; and far less than those who think it should be legal until some gestational point.
2. Establishing a universally agreed-upon point is impossible.
3. Where birth control and realistic sex education are available, abortions are much less common than where they aren’t.
4. It’s inconsistent to be “pro-life” yet unwilling to provide those things, or help for children forced to be born into poverty.
5. Late-term abortion is both disturbing and extremely rare.
6. Few, if any, women make the choice lightly. More often than not, it’s heart-rending.
7. Carrying an unwanted or fatally deformed pregnancy to term is likely to be life-long traumatic. The younger the mom, the more so.
8. If the Court effectively makes abortion illegal, it will contravene the wishes of 80 percent of the population, spurring countless illegal abortions, with attendant maternal death and disability.
9. Like congressional Republicans, holding minority views which prevail in our dysfunctional system, they don’t need to care.
The following is controversial, despite its obviousness: 10. Arguments against early abortion are 100 percent religious. And specifically religion-based opinions don’t belong in civil law.
OK. We’re off to a great start.
That there is no distinction between an embryo smaller than your pinkie – having no measurable brain function or sensory life — and a fully-formed, viable baby is a religious concept. To which people are most certainly entitled. But it’s not universally held, not even among the religious. To so believe, one must claim God knows us before we’re born and has a plan for us all. Again: perfectly fine. Commonly held. But not universal.
Nor consistent. Because if it’s true, God also pre-plans stillbirths and birth defects that kill postpartum. And, since we know that as many as a third of all conceptuses are expelled, often before women even know they’re pregnant, medically referred to as “spontaneous abortion,” He had to have planned those as well. There’s no logical middle ground. (In fact, doesn’t that mean anti-abortion laws are anti-God?)
Don’t take my word about the religious basis for banning abortion. Here’s North Carolina Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn, excessive Trumpist, incendiary liar, multi-alleged sexual harasser, performing an abortion speech last week on the floor of Congress, describing women as “eternal souls woven into earthen vessels sanctified by almighty God and endowed with the miracle of life.” His rhetoric echoes “pro-life” arguments made by all who make them. Not everyone, however, reveals so unambiguously the subservient role in which they view women.
At least until Republicans like Cawthorn are fully in charge (not far off), Americans are (theoretically) free to practice and express divergent religious views. People who see conspiracies to force Sharia law upon us have no problem doing so with their personal interpretations of Biblical law. Of which there are many. Interpretations. Some of which include being pro-choice. Respect for divergent religious views is maintained when public law remains out of it. There’s no reason “pro-life” and pro-choice can’t share space in our democracy. (What’s left of it.)
If your beliefs direct you, don’t use birth control, don’t have an abortion, don’t have sex outside marriage; and then, only for procreation. Banish from your houses of worship those who fail. It’s your right. What’s not, though, is compelling those religious prohibitions on others by force of law.
Everyone would prefer that there were no abortions. Not because they’re illegal, but because they’re no longer needed. Which would require Republicans ending their “pro-life” hypocrisy when it comes to birth control and sex education, and refusing to fund child-help programs. Even then, unwanted pregnancies are bound to occur. The force is strong. …
Those who disapprove of abortion don’t need to outlaw it. Their God will know where they stood. Leave the consequences of having an abortion, if such there be, to Him who’s so familiar with them. Having a plan for us all means the innocent embryos from medical abortions surely will have the same afterlife as those of His “spontaneous” ones.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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