It’s no surprise that Indiana legislators are talking about introducing a law similar to the recent one in Texas. Since Roe v. Wade became the law of the land back in 1973, I’ve watched in a mixture of confusion and concern as the pro- and the anti-groups lined up and fought to overturn or defend it.
I have no dog in this hunt, as I struggled with endometriosis-related infertility issues for several years before finally achieving motherhood. However, I have often wished that our politicians would cease using this issue as a political wedge to “gin up the base” and would instead address the underlying issue that drives this great divide: The principle of bodily integrity.
At what point does the state have the right to tell us what we can and cannot do with our bodies? And isn’t it ironic that we hear the same phase being used by those opposing mask-wearing — “My body, my choice” — as those who oppose abortion restrictions?
Are we really that far apart in wanting bodily integrity and the desire to — perhaps selfishly — put ourselves first?
I fully understood the decision of an acquaintance — whose wedding and (later) funeral I attended — who rejected doctors’ advice and successfully carried her pregnancy to term before her death. She sacrificed herself.
I also understood and sympathized with a story shared by someone who made a different decision: In the days before Roe v. Wade, his wife’s doctor handed him contact information for an abortionist and told him to have her get an abortion or find a different doctor because he didn’t want to sign her death certificate. The fact that they had pre-school-aged children weighed heavily in their decision to abort.
We seem to have forgotten what was driving many women’s demands for abortions back in the era of that second couple: our maternal death rate was 32 per 100,000 births in 1972 (according to Vital Statistics of the United States, CDC) and that rate dropped significantly the year after Roe v. Wade. Also, our abortion death rate was 6.3 in 1965 and less than 1 in 1973.
Unfortunately, that trend in maternal health has reversed. The maternal death rate was 17.4 in 2018 and rose to 20.1 in 2019. It’s also higher than that in about 50 other developed countries. Why, then, are we not focused on improving access to high-quality medical care for all pregnant women coupled with easily accessible quality care for birth and after care?
The health risk to women is still a major and reasonable concern that our politicians have consistently failed to adequately address at the same time that they are tightening restrictions on abortion. It’s one that, unfortunately, has attracted far too little attention and especially so when one considers that the battle for abortion rights was originally supported by many religious organizations who now oppose it.
In 1971, delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, passed a resolution encouraging “Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental and physical health of the mother.”
Can you imagine them taking that same stance today?
Some people say they had a “change of heart.” I think we had major advances in science and technology.
Ultrasounds alone had a huge impact on how many of us viewed the beginning of life. Fetal reconstructive surgery, antenatal surgery, and prenatal surgery have offered options we didn’t have back in the 1970s. We also developed new measures to address many disabilities that once limited not only one’s lifespan, but the quality of life that one would enjoy.
I believe that this has led us to be far less inclined to accept a situation as hopeless. We’re now less willing to accept bad news and insist upon a medical miracle.
One “medical miracle" has muddied the waters for many of us: 1.5% of all babies born in the U.S. are the result of in-vitro fertilization treatments.
The belief now held by many that life begins at conception should make the practice of IVF medicine just as illegal as abortion, but you don’t see protesters (at least I haven’t) at these centers complaining about the discarding of “medical waste.”
The Catholic Church forbids IVF and many other fertility options, as do some other Christian sects; yet most of us – largely because we know someone with fertility issues or have suffered this ourselves — are willing to make an exception in this one area.
Certainly, I am. My youngest grandchild is the result of IVF after multiple medical procedures and dashed hopes and dreams.
I believe and hope that the long range solution to this ideological divide lies in medical advancements and greater access to that technology. For now, however, we’re stuck in the middle with women rightly wanting and demanding bodily integrity while a minority are passing laws restricting this.
I predict the Texas law and those following it will be as successful in preserving the lives of the unborn as the 18th Amendment was in “reducing crime and corruption, solving social problems, reducing the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improving health and hygiene in America.”
There must be better way. We should set aside our differences and work together to find it.
A lifelong resident of Hancock County, Linda Dunn is an author and retired Department of Defense employee.
