Life
Ayelet Waldman and Elizabeth Weil: When Is Abortion Not OK?
A discussion of whether you can try again for a better-formed baby.
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This is part three of a dialogue about having a late-term abortion between Ayelet Waldman, author of Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace, and Elizabeth Weil, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and the co-author, with Dara Torres, of Age is Just a Number: Achieve Your Dreams At Any Stage In Your Life.You can read part one here and part two here.
Ah, the line, deciding when it's OK to stop a pregnancy and when doing so is tantamount to killing a baby. That is the truly difficult part of this debate. When I'm really honest with myself, I'm not sure where that line is. The imagined woman you summon—the one who terminates at 36 weeks on a whim—that woman goes too far for me. But, two things: She forces me to acknowledge, for the thousandth time, that I went too far for somebody else, and she also makes me wonder if she's really OK. I mean, what sane woman, especially what sane woman who's had any prenatal care at all, carries a baby for eight months and then gives up on a whim? Ayelet, you've had five pregnancies. Can you even imagine a non-whacked woman who would do such a thing? So perhaps when she arrives at the clinic, we could catch that straw woman in a net of psychological care and screening, which seems the least we can offer to any woman who chooses to abort.
Still, the line, the limitations. Like most of the left I'm hesitant to pull out a pen and a ruler and draw. I can form a nebulous cloud around where I think it should be (if one can form a cloud around a line). The outer contours of that cloud are easiest to sketch in, of course—first-trimester abortions, abortions for victims of abuse. The next level is straightforward for me, too—women carrying babies with known and serious fetal anomolies, babies that can't live outside the womb, no matter how late in the pregnancy such problems are detected. The tough zone starts for me with the horrible question of which babies—not to mince words—are too fucked up, which babies have defects so serious we think it's OK to decide they can't live? What do you think about a baby with cystic fibrosis? What about a blind or a deaf one? We all know great people born in horrible bodies. Should we be allowed to say, no thanks, I'd rather try again for a better-formed kid?
Elizabeth Weil is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and the co-author, with Dara Torres, of Age is Just a Number: Achieve Your Dreams At Any Stage In Your Life
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Comments
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I hate abortion Antwablog |
By: antwa | Sun, 09/20/2009 - 11:23
I hate abortion
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pro-life organizations
By: Davidsmith7 | Fri, 09/11/2009 - 11:42
Are you seriously trying to compare racist white supremecy groups with pro-life organizations? So you think it is ok to sue anybody who has a political difference than you? Do I sue the church down the street that is against gay marraige? The grocery store for accepting food vouchers? How about suing lobbying organizations for their support of health care reform...is that the America you want? cialis online
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I would start with Operation
By: bennyandhika | Fri, 09/04/2009 - 12:19
I would start with Operation Rescue, who made it their mission to shut down Tiller's clinic and would expand to any organization who explicitly stated that their mission is to make late term abortions unavailable.
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I don't know how this
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Fault?
By: leftrightmiddle | Wed, 06/17/2009 - 06:19
Phpeter: First of all, give credit where credit is due. Fancynancy wanted to sue pro-lifers, and a fine idea it is.
Second of all, the issue is not a woman getting pregnant and having health issues. The issue is a woman not having the ability to save her own life should unpredictable health issues arise.
So, your question is in question:
"Establish how a woman getting pregnant and having health issues would be the problem of a third party, let alone all the parties in all of society who are against abortion. Who would you actually sue?"
I say, sue the groups outside the abortion clinics threatening anyone who enters them. Sue the murderers who have taken it upon themselves to take the lives of the doctors who perform the abortions, leaving very few people left to the job no one wants to have to do in the first place. Sue the state for taking away the right to life.
"Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life,” as written in Article 6.1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Should a woman get pregnant, carry a child to 32 weeks and then discovers that should she carry the child to term she will die...what right does anyone else have to tell that mother and her husband, mother, father, and the rest of her family that her life is less important than a life that cannot at that point keeps itself alive outside of the womb? Who gets to decide that the child's life is so much more important than the mother who will no longer be there to raise it? Would you want to give her that death sentence?
The person who decides that is the person I sue.
Gallup Polls
By: phpeter | Wed, 06/10/2009 - 06:59
Since you refered to Gallup as a good source, here is some recent (May 2009) Gallup polling results. Now what?
PRINCETON, NJ -- A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" on the issue of abortion and 42% "pro-choice." This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/more-americans-pro-life-than-pro-choic...
The May 2009 survey documents comparable changes in public views about the legality of abortion. In answer to a question providing three options for the extent to which abortion should be legal, about as many Americans now say the procedure should be illegal in all circumstances (23%) as say it should be legal under any circumstances (22%). This contrasts with the last four years, when Gallup found a strong tilt of public attitudes in favor of unrestricted abortion.
Gallup also found public preferences for the extreme views on abortion about even -- as they are today -- in 2005 and 2002, as well as during much of the first decade of polling on this question from 1975 to 1985. Still, the dominant position on this question remains the middle option, as it has continuously since 1975: 53% currently say abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances.
Americans' recent shift toward the pro-life position is confirmed in two other surveys. The same three abortion questions asked on the Gallup Values and Beliefs survey were included in Gallup Poll Daily tracking from May 12-13, with nearly identical results, including a 50% to 43% pro-life versus pro-choice split on the self-identification question.