Don’t speak the word “abortion!”

It’s often an unstated assumption that many of us on the left make. We are afraid to talk about abortion and morality in the same sentence. Indeed, we are often so intimidated we don’t even use the word abortion itself, referring to the debate as one between those who are “pro-choice” vs. those who oppose choice. It’s become a dirty word, a word we have become ashamed to use, even among those who are most committed to providing women the opportunity to chooses an abortion, as this post by Grayson Dempsey at RH Reality Check demonstrates:

As an activist who has worked in the abortion rights movement for almost ten years, I know well the hesitation that comes when I am seated comfortably on a cross-country flight and the person next to me asks, “So what do you do?” I am proud of myself when I march for choice or counsel a woman through a difficult decision, and then wonder why I can’t say the word abortion during a dinner party. I struggle to talk to the media and elected officials in ways that are on-message and yet embrace the complexity of women’s lives and the nuanced positions on abortion that exist outside of sound bytes and talking points.

She’s hardly alone. AlterNet has an article on their website today, “The Loneliness and Shame of the Abortion Patient” by researchers Carole Joffe and Kate Cosby, which explores the often conflicted feelings about the mortality of abortion among women who have chosen to have abortions themselves:

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[W]e are conducting [an interview study among abortion patients] to understand the impact of state-imposed regulations on women having abortions in two highly regulated states. In our talks [these] women, we uncovered a striking sense of isolation among many abortion patients. Rather than expressing solidarity with others experiencing unwanted pregnancies, nearly all our respondents took pains to distinguish themselves as different from other women getting abortions.

Though there were some expressions of sympathy, we also heard disparaging remarks about women who were too careless about contraception and were obtaining abortions too “easily.” “I am a Christian,” one woman said, “I am not doing this casually” — with the clear suggestion that others in the waiting room were not so thoughtful or moral. Perhaps the starkest example of isolation came in one woman’s response to the question of whether she would “ever consider being part of a group that supports people who get abortions?” Her answer was an emphatic “no!” As she put it, “I wouldn’t support them [other abortion recipients] because … it [might become] a habit for everyone.” The speaker is a 20 year old mother of one, who was about to have her second abortion.

Joffe and Cosby go on to note that this generalized antipathy toward abortion and abortion rights among women who choose not to carry a pregnancy to full term was not always so pervasive. They claim that at the time abortion was first legalized many women felt empowered by the right to choose an abortion. Many women saw the legalization of abortion as a powerful step in society’s recognition of women as fully realized human beings, equal to men in all respects, and just as competent to make decisions regarding their own lives (in this case specifically regarding their reproductive health options) as men.

So what happened? How did abortion become a dirty, shameful word? A word for which clumsy and awkward euphemisms were constructed, like “the right to choose,” were adopted by abortion rights activists to conceal the reality that given the opportunity, women often will make decisions to terminate their pregnancies through the procedure known as abortion?

The answer, in my opinion is a simple one. Abortion rights activists became intimidated by the relentless and organized campaign by their opponents which used rhetoric designed to paint abortion providers and the women who choose to have abortions as “murderers” and “baby killers.” In essence they abandoned the “moral” high ground to their adversaries in this struggle, allowing themselves to be demonized as immoral and ungodly people who hate life, and specifically the life of “young children,” “infants” and the “unborn.”

Through carefully crafted media campaigns abortion foes attempted, often successfully, to compare those in favor of abortion rights as morally equivalent to the Nazis and others who carried out the Holocaust against the Jews in WWII. In effect, abortion rights advocates and activists allowed themselves to be intimidated by this “demonizing” rhetoric by conservative Christians and others who sought to label them as evil and immoral people.

They “chose” to fight the battle for abortion in an ever smaller public arena in which they argued for such ambiguous and amorphous ideas as “a woman’s right to choose” or “reproductive freedom,” while all too often shying away from addressing the moral dimension of the debate over abortion which their right wing opponents were more than happy to dominate with their pictures of fetuses in the womb and their assertions that life begins at conception.

It’s hard not to blame them, considering the blistering attacks made against them by an ever more hostile anti-abortion movement, whose views and opinions have been allowed to go unchallenged by much of what passes for our print and television news media in America. Slowly, more and more space and broadcast time has been alloted to conveying the message of the anti-abortion movement and its message of hatred and bigotry toward ordinary women, while the media has glossed over or ignored the terroristic tactics and extreme inflammatory language employed by the anti-abortion crowd to intimidate anyone who would dare to publicly stand up for women and their right to choose abortions to end unwanted pregnancies.

However, that failure by abortion supporters to consistently address the moral dimension of the abortion debate has had severe consequences for the future of women in America. It has led to the de facto loss of abortion rights for many women across America, especially among lower middle class, poor and minority women. The anti-abortion movement has been able to fundamentally alter the landscape on which the issue is discussed in our media, our legislatures and even in our courts. This has led to laws which actively punish abortion providers, and the women to who they provide their services, exacerbating the sense of shame and guilt from which many women who choose to have an abortion suffer, as Joffe and Cosby so eloquently state in their article at AlterNet.org:

[I]n many of today’s clinics, staff are so busy complying with state-imposed “informed consent” requirements, which often involve telling patients downright lies — for example, the supposed link between abortion and breast cancer and other distortions of risks of the procedure — that there is rarely the opportunity to impart a positive political message about reproductive justice. […]

The women we encountered in the waiting rooms of three abortion clinics, located in the South and Midwest, have little experience with the contemporary reproductive justice movement, or indeed of politics in general. But they are highly aware of the shame and stigma surrounding abortion. Some spoke of their fears of being recognized in the waiting room by acquaintances. {…]

None of the women interviewed said they thought abortion should be illegal. But many expressed ambivalence about their decision to have one. An unmistakable sense of sadness hovered around our conversations. Ultimately, these women made the decision to have an abortion for the same reasons women always have: their recognition that they could not adequately care for a child at this moment in their lives. This seemed especially true for the more than half of our interviewees who already have children.

The problem is that we have allowed anti-abortion supporters to focus on the moral questions that unwanted pregnancies create only up until the moment of birth. What we, as progressives who support the right to an abortion, have failed to do is broaden that moral argument beyond the moment of conception. The so-called “right to life” crowd is all for imposing an absolute value of the rights of fetuses to be born, but they seem to have little interest in the lives these children lead after birth.

The reason most women chose abortion is to prevent a life of misery for themselves and the children that they would otherwise bear. Indeed, the addition of a child to an otherwise overburdened family, often consisting of a single parent with several already existing children for which she is already having difficulty providing adequate food, security and shelter, is the dirty little secret the anti-abortionists don’t wish to address.

In fact, they are not so much a “Pro-life” movement, as they are a “Pro-Punishment” one. The people they would punish are women who have children “out of wedlock” and the children born to families who do not have the resources to meet their needs, whether financial, emotional, educational or nutritional. This is the moral issue which they actively seek to avoid discussing, and one which we as abortion supporters have all to often failed to raise.

The Republican politicians and conservative gadflies who proclaim their fealty to “life” are often the same people who refuse to provide the funds necessary to provide adequate day care for children. Or sufficient health care. Or educational opportunities on par with those available to the children of upper middle class and wealthy white suburban families. Or safe, secure communities free from the crime, drugs, violence and despair that often accompany the lives of poor and lower middle class children in America.

The value they assign to life often stops the moment a child exits his or her mother’s womb. Indeed, as the rising infant mortality rates across broad swaths of our nation’s population indicates, it doesn’t necessarily extend even that far. Indeed, Texas, a state in the heart of conservative, anti-abortion country, has a law on its books which allow hospitals to terminate the lives of children and adults on life support, even when they are fully conscious and they or their families oppose the termination of life support services which are keeping them alive.

For far too long, we as supporters of abortion rights have failed to point out the moral inconsistencies in the positions taken by people who call themselves “pro-life.” And to be fair, the Democratic party has often been more of a hindrance, rather than a help to abortion proponents. Despite the fact that voters in even so-called conservative states such has South Dakota have rejected legislative attempts to limit or ban abortion, and that public opinion polls show the majority of Americans support the right to an abortion, Democratic leaders continue to promote (and finance) anti-abortion candidates over more progressive candidates who favor abortion rights. Some examples include, without limitation:

Robert Casey, the “pro-life” Democratic senatorial candidate in 2006 in Pennsylvania chosen by DSCC Chairman Chuck Schumer, a state in which even a dead dog could have defeated incumbent Senator Rick Santorum.

Joe Lieberman, who won against the Democratic senatorial nominee in Connecticut, Ned Lamont, when the Democratic party failed to fully support Lamont’s campaign.

Congressman Heath Shuler, in North Carolina’s 11th District.

Congressman Charlie Wilson who won Ohio 6th’s District with 62% of the votes.

Congressman Joe Donnelly in Indiana’s 2nd District (54% of the vote).

Congressman Brad Ellsworth in Indiana’s 8th District (61% of the vote).

This speaks volumes, does it not. Many Democrats are running away from a winning political issue (i.e., failing to fully support abortion rights), because of their fear of being tainted as an immoral pro-abortion politician. They could have filibustered Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts in the Senate last year, but failed to do so, out of fear of this issue. The question you have to ask is why? Part of the answer is that no one is effectively presenting the moral argument in favor of abortion. The argument that considers all of the moral issues implicit in the abortion debate, not just the few chosen by phony “pro-lifers” to harangue us with.

The moral issue of freedom, for women as well as men, in all areas of our private lives. The moral issue of equality of treatment under the law for women when they make their reproductive decisions. The moral issue of caring for the lives of children after they are born and not merely when they are blastocysts or fetuses, unable to survive outside the womb.

And the greatest moral issue of all for Americans: allowing all people, regardless of gender, to make their own moral judgments about when life begins, rather than have them dictated by some outside authority, whether a government, a church or a law. These are all moral arguments that need to be raised in the abortion debate. Isn’t it about time someone started talking about them?

And the first thing we need to do is stop running away from the word abortion. It makes us look weak. It makes us look like we secretly agree with the moral condemnations of right wingers, but are afraid to say so. It makes us appear to be “immoral” ourselves, when we fail to address these issues of “morality” head on, but instead choose to hide behind euphemistic “frames” such as “reproductive freedom” or “pro-choice”. It makes us appear to be legalistic and lacking in passion for our cause.

It’s time to stop running. I’ve deliberately chosen to use the terms abortion and abortion rights throughout this essay. I’ve been as guilty as anyone of ducking the issue of abortion and its moral dimension. No more, however. I hope you’ll join me.