The Abortion Thing
Lately I’ve been seeing a good amount of stories about what amounts to women’s reproductive rights. More often than not reading about this kind of thing gets me at least a little irritated. However, I’m of the opinion that my opinions on the matter, like those of people of the male persuasion in general, shouldn’t count for much here. If I were a woman, I might go beyond irritation and be sorely tempted to start writing hatemail to, say, the guys saying that a woman shouldn’t be able to get an abortion even if she’s been raped. So, while I think anyone reading this should be listening to the opinions of women instead, I’ll write a bit more anyway.
I wouldn’t call an abortion a “good” thing by any means, but it’s asking an awful lot of a woman to tell her to take an unwanted pregnancy to term. Nine months is a long time, and from what I remember of my mother being pregnant with my youngest sister, a big chunk of that 2/3 of a year is hell. And there are considerable after-effects even after the baby is born to boot. Needless to say I think no one should be so stupid as to think of abortions as a form of birth control — I figure women should have the choice, but if they’re smart they’ll consider it a last resort — but the idea that the child’s life begins at conception is a bit much to swallow.
The thing that really gets my goat (yeah, I used it) is the whole thing about pharmacists — and doctors — refusing to provide certain kinds of medication or treatment on “religious” grounds. As others have pointed out in Reddit’s comments multiple times, if your religion is going to interfere with your line of work, then you shouldn’t be in that line of work. If you can’t handle the idea of women having access to birth control or the morning after pill, don’t become a doctor, or if you do, become say a pediatrician, podiatrist, surgeon, endocrinologist, or any of the zillions of specialties that aren’t gynecology and don’t involve being put into that kind of situation. Instances of this kind of thing are fortunately pretty rare from what I’ve heard, but a doctor who refuses to prescribe the morning-after pill to a rape victim has, for that moment at least, failed as a doctor in my opinion. Pharmacists are even worse since they’re specifically not supposed to have that kind of oversight. They get to double-check prescriptions in case, say, the doctor accidentally wrote the wrong number of zeroes, but anything more than that is overstepping their authority. All of this is doubly true when it takes place in a small town, where refusing treatment can mean that you’re in effect not only telling the patient that you’re putting your religion ahead of their health and free will, but can mean forcing them to drive 3+ hours to get any kind of alternative.
It gets twice as idiotic when doctors use their authority to find ways to prevent people from adopting. One woman went in for what amounted to a routine physical in order to be certified to adopt a child. When it turned out that she was single, the doctor refused to sign the paper. Never mind that she was indeed physically sound in all the ways the adoption people wanted, as would ultimately be proven when she went to another less bigoted doctor. As I’ve said before, it may well be that having a mother and father is the best route to a healthy child, but these days kids can and often do have much worse than a loving single parent or a lesbian couple. This doesn’t even have a basis in religion as far as I can tell; it appears to be just a mixture of 1950s Leave It To Beaver ideals of family life backed up with a smattering of pop psychology. Not that discriminating against someone on the basis of your own religion is okay.
Ultimately, a lot of this seems to stem from the Christian notion that sex outside of wedlock is sinful. People want sinners to face consequences for their actions (as though being tortured in hell forever after death would somehow not be enough), even when we have the means to remove those consequences, or when the sin never had any tangible consequences to begin with. All of this ignores the basic fact that human biology, like that of animals, doesn’t line up with anyone’s religious ideals. Even in the animal kingdom, where it would seem to serve no purpose, there are instances of recreational sex (dolphins), and homosexual activity (too many to count). The Bush administration was very, very quiet about the study showing that the abstinance education programs they were so proud of had zero impact on whether teens were having sex and whether or not they did so with protection. To paraphrase a stand-up comedian whose name I can’t remember, people view contraception as a license to have sex, but if people are going to be driving anyway I’d much rather they did so with a license.
How much of this is sexism, religious dogma, or legitimate concern for human life is hard to say. As usual, it’s a complex question for which people are demanding simple answers. Personally, I think that a living breathing woman should get priority over a collection of cells that could become a human being some day, but my opinion shouldn’t count for all that much. If a bunch of women went around saying that men must or shouldn’t get vasectomies, I’m betting men would be every bit as offended, but that isn’t going to happen.
Finally, here’s a thought (from someone else): Why aren’t the people who bomb abortion clinics called terrorists? As far as I know they fit the bill in every way possible. They’re thankfully far fewer in number than the Islamic extremists we hear so much about in the news, but the fact remains they’re using cowardly methods to murder people on the basis of ideology.
