McChurch - Is Abortion a "Woman's Health Issue?"

You have to help me here. I am wallowing in a certain miasma of contradiction and ignorance – my own, of course, inasmuch as I shall never be faced with the choice of whether or not to carry a fetus to term.

A dear, dear friend who is on the cutting edge of social activism in my home state sent an email soliciting my support with something called “An Act to Provide Equity in Funding for Women’s Health.

It seems that women on low-income health care plans are being shortchanged on access to the full range of coverage. If pregnant, prenatal care and delivery are offered “with no questions asked.” But if a woman decides that ending her pregnancy is her best choice, abortion will not be provided except in cases of rape, incest or where the safety of the mother is at stake.

Apparently, seventeen other states have ended what is referred to in the email as a discriminatory policy. My dear friend sees this as a social and economic justice issue.

Four descriptive words and phrases stand out – equity, social justice, economic justice and choice.

As for equity, it seems illogical to me to plead equity unless there is discrimination – that others are unfairly receiving abortion coverage. If that is so (and I have no idea one way or another), this has to be under private plans that are costing the insured or her employer hundreds of dollars a month. In contrast, government plans are supported with taxpayer funds and are necessarily limited in what they can offer, as they are funded by the very people who have or offer the commercial health care plans.

The equity argument, it seems to me, has limited appeal, as it is comparing apples to oranges. Private health plans run the gamut from Volkswagens to Cadillacs, and the costs are commensurate, extending the equity argument to all those who do not have Cadillac plans.

The social justice argument is equally puzzling. Social injustice occurs when a class of people is prohibited from access to certain benefits or services. Abortion services are available to everyone; no social group is denied abortion services. The cost of those services does not cut to the issue of social justice.

The economic justice argument is even more puzzling. To suggest that everyone ought to have equal access to all benefits and services regardless of ability to pay is not an economic justice argument but a form-of-government argument that might play better in Sweden than it would in America. Once we start down that slippery slope, there are hundreds of benefits and services that are beyond the financial reach of 95% of Americans.

The Democratic Party doesn’t seem to get it sometimes. It has been marginalized by the Christian Right on matters of faith. Abortion has played a key role in painting the Democratic Party into the “evil and faithless” corner. Yet, here we go again advocating for the extremes.

What happened to the mantra, “Abortion ought to be safe, legal and rare”? Government does not make abortion rare by expanding funding to cover abortions. It makes them rare by, among other things, refusing to fund them.

As for a woman’s right to choose, it seems to me that the right to choose, having been extended to the act of conception, ought to carry with it some degree of restraint when it comes to the likely impact of that choice. The rule of cause and effect would insist that choices made require of us certain obligations and responsibilities, regardless of what kind of health care plan you have. The cost of an abortion offers such a restraint on choice.

It is one thing to view the act of sex as an unencumbered choice. It is quite another to view as a health issue the likely outcome of that choice, except in extreme circumstances.

I recall a bill that was before our legislature that made it a crime to kill a fetus in an assault against a pregnant woman. Those on the right focused on the fetus. Those on the left focused on the woman. As a legislator, I wondered why we all didn’t focus on the larger social context – the health not only of the woman and fetus but of the community of citizens and the balance of nature.

A pro-life position that protects a fertilized egg in a Petri dish while advocating for the bombing of pregnant women in far-off places like Iraq is bogus.

On the other hand, a pro-choice position that treats a fully-formed, about-to-become citizen of the United States as a women’s health issue in other than extreme circumstances is morally and ethically repugnant, however legal it may be.

Are we never going to get beyond this hypocrisy?

Stan Moody, author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry."