Questions about “abortion and the law” are usually seen as matters of constitutional law. Constitutional law, however, seems ill-suited. This is not only because the U.S. Supreme Court discovered a “constitutional right” for something that had been banned by most states for most of the nation’s history. It is also because the “privacy” right encompassing abortion frames the issue as a struggle between the state and the woman over her right to define her life, her future, or even her “concept …of the universe,” in the famous words of the Casey Court. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that abortion is about family relationships, not simply a contest between the state and a woman who happens to be pregnant. Scientific discoveries about human development and the testimonies of women who have had or have considered an abortion suggest that it is family law rather than constitutional law that provides the best means of understanding the issue of abortion.
This past semester... the class spent considerable time reading women’s stories about their abortions, focusing particularly on a website called www.afterabortion.com. This website was founded by a pro-choice woman and on it no mention of politics, religion, or morality is allowed. The website contains thousands of women’s stories about their abortions—and about their post-abortion feelings. And many of these women are in acute pain; some are almost totally incapacitated. ....
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What is particularly striking is that most of the women who have these powerful emotional reactions to their abortion are stunned by them. They were not opposed to abortion; many were actively pro-choice. They were blind-sided by their own reaction. One woman lamented—and thousands of others echo her mystified anguish—“If this was the right decision, why do I feel so terrible?”
Writing in the Washington Post a few years ago, Katrina Clark reported that she envied friends who had both a mother and a father. "That was when the emptiness came over me. I realized that I am, in a sense, a freak. I really, truly would never have a dad. I finally understood what it meant to be donor-conceived, and I hated it."
Question: Should women be encouraged to abort children conceived through AI because they'll likely suffer this distress?
There are rumblings in San Francisco that a measure to ban the circumcision of any child under the age of 18 could end up on the ballot in November 2011 when the city elects its next mayor.
The article quotes Lloyd Schofield, the author of the initiative: "People can practice whatever religion they want, but your religious practice ends with someone else’s body."
How about when your "religion" says it's okay to destroy somebody else's body via abortion? I wonder where Mr. Schofiled stands on that.
Smoking CAN result in this:
Abortion ALWAYS results in this:
2 comments:
I'll never understand those who will fight tooth-and-nail to oppose circumcision, in the name of human rights, and the right of bodily autonomy for the baby boy, while in the next breath they'll fight tooth-and-nail to prevent the slightest thing that might impinge on abortion, without regard to how abortion strips the unborn baby of his (or her) human rights and bodily autonomy. They'll fight to keep it legal to dismember a baby boy prior to birth, while gasping in horror at those who would remove one small part of his anatomy after birth. [And I say this as someone who opposes routine infant circumcision.]
I totally agree with you Kathy. Removing a small part of a person's body is a lot less egregious than killing a person entirely.
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