Safe, legal, and rare

OK... let me begin with a couple of facts.

I am pro-choice.  I have no idea why or how that gets conflated with "pro-abortion."  I don't know anyone who is "pro-abortion."  Indeed even the abortion providers with whom I'm familiar would like nothing better than to see the procedure disappear.

Being pro-choice is a stance based in my understanding of my faith.  It is by no means in conflict with my commitment to following Jesus.

Given that lots of folk are writing about safe and legal these days given the current situation, I want to write a little about "rare."  Again, let me been with the assertion that everyone I know who is pro-choice wants abortion to become rare.  I'm less sure that is the case with many of those who call themselves "pro-life" but who I would rather call "anti-choice."

So what are the conditions that allow that to happen... Women who get pregnant want to be pregnant.  They see a way forward that truly involves life.

So how do we get there... first the easy steps.

We make birth control easily available to all.  I remember being shocked when one of my young church members reported going off to college and being confronted by bowls of condoms in his dorm common areas.  I now think it was a wonderful idea.  Perhaps such a bowl should be in every high school rest room.  But condoms must not be the only method freely and easily available.  Make other methods freely and easily available to young girls.

We make sex ed a requirement for ALL youth beginning before they reach puberty. No parental op out.  Get rid of the stupid abstinence only programs.  One of my clergy friends used to say "abstinence works... until it doesn't."  There is clearly a reason why there are large numbers of young girls from evangelical families seeking abortions.  They have been indoctrinated with the idea that abstinence is the only option... so they don't understand or have birth control available.  Too often they end up with a pregnancy for which they are unprepared and for which they certainly have not planned.

Work to teach boys that they are responsible for unplanned pregnancies and put teeth in that responsibility.

Now the more difficult ones...

Provide supports for mothers and young children.  This would involve free day care, support for the mother so that a pregnancy does not derail her entire future, food, shelter, housing supports where needed, enhanced supports for special needs children.  We see again and again that economic pressure, poor education, and reduced options lead to higher abortion rates while societal supports for women inevitably pushes the abortion rate down.  There are reasons that poor women have more abortions.  We can remedy that.

Some time ago I read an article written by an anti-choice mother of a child with Down's Syndrome.  She remarked that one sees fewer and fewer children with Down's Syndrome and that the vast majority of parents ho learn of that marker in a pregnancy seek an abortion.  She cited both the loss that entails to society and the difficulties one faces as a parent of a child with those issues.  She was especially articulate regarding the fears she had as a parent, worrying about her child's future should something happen to her and her husband.  She then talked of a trip she made to Northern Europe - an area where abortion is less stigmatized than in the US and much more available.  She was surprised to see what she perceived as significantly more people with Down's Syndrome.  As she enquired, she quickly saw that the parents there had much less anxiety than parents of Down's Syndrome children in the US.  They felt sure that should something happen to them, the general society would be there to make sure the child was not abandoned.  She described what she saw as a clear method to lessen abortions of fetuses with Down's Syndrome markers - have strong societal and governmental support for the children and their parents.  That gave the parents the luxury of saying "yes," knowing they would not be forced to deal with all of the pressures on their own.

We can make abortion more rare.  It involves political choices that we can make if we are really interested in making abortion more rare as opposed to exerting control over women's bodies and autonomy.