I recently participated in yet another discussion about abortion. Of course that is a frequent and dangerous topic of debate these days; last year a woman’s Constitutional right to abortion was overturned by the Supreme Court and states are now rolling out ever more extreme laws and policies. There were about 20 people in this particular group. All were older individuals past child bearing age. As I listened I was distressed at how extreme some people’s positions were, how naive others could be, and how intolerant people were of individuals with honest but differing opinions. That led me to express my thinking in that session and document my views again here.

I have written extensively about this subject before. I don’t plan to repeat all the details of my feelings, but just describe again the basic tenets of what I think individual rights should be and what role society in general should play. Maybe that makes sense since my earlier writing was before the Supreme Court made its landmark ruling. If anything I write here is in conflict with what I have written before, please consider this different view as progress in my thinking.

As a general proposition I consider the decision to have an abortion the exclusive right of the pregnant woman and her partner, but within some reasonably defined boundaries of a civilized society. I know there is no agreement among the American electorate on when life begins. So it is not up to me or any other American to dictate an extreme interpretation of that defining moment. What I do believe though is that sometime before a fetus is delivered as a healthy new born child, society has some rights (probably actual responsibility) to protect the sanctity of life. That right and responsibility likely should not be limited only to the abortion itself, but include other social as well as economic aspects of protecting new life.

As it relates to abortion, I don’t pretend to know or venture to dictate when an individual woman’s rights end and society’s right begins. But in my own mind a woman experiencing an otherwise normal pregnancy does not have an exclusive right to seek or expect to get an abortion the day, the week, or even the final month or two before delivery. Likewise in my view, society has no right to limit abortion in at least the first 3 or 4 months of a pregnancy. For me the middle ground between those two limits is where the individual rights of women and society’s right/responsibility to regulate ought to be negotiated. Further, society also has no right to limit the operations of women’s health care facilities (including abortion services) at less than the normal traffic demand.

I am not a person of faith and do not have a vested religious interest of any kind. But I do live by a rational moral code that believes civilized humans have a shared responsibility to protect life. I was perfectly happy with the 1973 Supreme Court decision that specified viability of the fetus as the point beyond which abortion was inappropriate, except for the health and safety of the woman. That made rational sense to me.

Viability is no longer the national standard though, and abortion is not a Constitutional right women have anymore. The USSC yielded to the religious community and now says it is up to the states to decide a woman’s right to abortion. From a purely technical perspective that well may be the right answer. Abortion is not identified in the Constitution as an area of authority reserved for the federal government.

The unfortunate part of the new Supreme Court position though is that it severely divides the electorate and weakens our democracy. It ignores the stabilizing influence of stare decisis (precedent); abortion has been a Constitutional right for 50 years. Most women of child bearing age have never known any other rules. And I believe it is the first time a previously granted Constitutional right has been revoked.

Sad but easily predictable, the same extreme zealots (especially evangelical Christian leaders) who insisted on and won the argument that abortion was a state issue, are now pushing politicians to pass new federal legislation to further restrict a woman’s right to the procedure at the national level in spite of state laws. Of course the women most affected are those who can least afford the cost of pregnancy, delivery, and raising a child.

Finally, outlawing abortion is impossible. Even the most ardent anti-abortionists know that. We already once outlawed alcohol with disastrous results. And sex is much more natural than getting drunk. Wealthy women will easily find ways around any burden. Only poor women will wind up delivering the children they don’t want and can’t afford. Or worse, desperation will lead many to pursue unsafe procedures that will inevitably result in deadly consequences for some.

So is the goal of the anti-abortionists to reduce abortion, or simply to exercise political power over others who may have a different religious or philosophical perspective on the subject? I think if polled all Americans would prefer fewer abortions, and no one would lobby for more. Most Americans just want the procedure available to all women under reasonable social regulation that reflects our secular society’s values.

In a liberal democracy like ours, if the objective really is to reduce abortions both sides of the idealogical divide could easily find ways to work together to reduce it if they wanted to. Serious sex education and access to contraceptives would be a great place to start, and could dramatically reduce the incidence of that procedure. Why don’t the stakeholders stop playing political games and move cooperatively to reduce abortions?