The eternally complicated abortion debate

Pat Bagley

Yay! A new Supreme Court Justice and a murder of a doctor who did late-term abortions! I love listening to people bicker passionately and self-righteously about complicated issues!

Anyway, here's my take on the abortion issue as of 3. June 2009 (dated to remind that I'm allowed to change my opinion and it's not cool to hold anything on this blog against me in the future . . . yes, I am so vain as to think that anyone will care).

I'm basically "pro-life," but I avoid that label because of the negative baggage surrounding that term and because I differ very much in degree with much of the "pro-life" movement. I do not, for starters, think that abortion is murder.

If abortion is murder, then not only are those who shoot abortionists completely justified morally (except maybe on some public order grounds), but those who continually try to conceive knowing full well that they are extremely likely to miscarry are guilty of child endangerment. Both of these conclusions seem to be idiotic (especially the second).

Abortion doesn't have to be murder for us to put legal restrictions on it – we enforce laws against a lot of things that are not murder. I also think that there are cases (probably relatively rare . . . I have no idea) where intervening to end a pregnancy is completely justified, such as cases of rape, incest, and where the health of the mother is threatened. Basically it boils down to respect for life and procreation in general.

I have no idea when a "fetus" should become a "human" with civil rights. But I have a real problem with those who through their own negligence/immorality serially cause pregnancies and abort because they don't want to deal with them. Abortion should not be "birth control."

I think that the most realistic compromise would be make abortion legal in some period called "early pregnancy," (I have no idea when that would be. I'm not a doctor, I'm an Econ major.) and thereafter to allow abortion in some well-defined cases (such as those discussed above).

Under this framework abortion should be available and safe to avoid the spectacle of people driving for hours across state borders to get an abortion. I would also be interested in seeing what can be done to decrease the expense and hassle of adoption (such as making them final, without exception).

It may even be worth giving young single parents financial incentives (education grants?) to give their baby up for adoption. These should be large enough to "sweeten the deal" as it were, and make them feel as though they had a future to look forward to and work towards, but not large enough to encourage people on the margin to get pregnant so they can get the incentive.

Input (of the kind that comes from someone who is not offended when no offense was intended) would be welcome.