Preaching to the Choir

With a little less than half of the U.S. self-identifying as Pro-Choice, it's easy for us to stick together.  When you're young, hip, sexy, and buying quinoa from Trader Joe's, it's even easier.  Sex and Choice are natural conversation points at parties.  Supporting Planned Parenthood is taken as a given.  Some of us may even blog for an intended audience already in agreement.  For people like us, there are rallying points like this great video:

Wesleyan University - "I Have Sex"

And this more cloying one:

Second City - For Those With Vaginas

But preaching to the choir only goes so far to effect actual change.  Eventually, we actually need to mobilize our fervent energy and bring our concerns and our message to the other side, to those who don't already agree with us, to those who are uncomfortable with our position.  Accordingly, today I performed my most futile of civic duties:  I wrote a letter to my Senator, ultra pro-life Saxby Chambliss (R - GA Douchebag).  Note how I pretended that "budget cuts" are really the issue at hand:

"Dear Senator Chambliss,

I am writing to express my concerns about measures currently under consideration regarding reproductive health.  In the ongoing Congressional debates on FY2011 budget cuts, you have voted to defund both the United Nations Population Fund and Planned Parenthood.  I ask that you reconsider your stance on these issues, and lend your support to these vital organizations.  I am one of your constituents, and a citizen concerned both with the nation’s growing deficit, as well as with the impact of unintended pregnancies both at home and worldwide.  I believe not only that these two causes are related, but that they are intricately and inextricably linked.

First, I urge you to vote in support of providing funding to the United Nations Population Fund.  This organization does not fund abortions, but rather provides desperately-needed access to family planning resources and education to millions of young women and men around the world.   In addition, the UNFPA also provides medical care to pregnant women in an effort to decrease the enormous number of maternal deaths and injuries that occur each day.  These measures, which allow women in the developing world to determine the size and spacing of their families, have proven their positive impact.  Nations with fewer unintended pregnancies, smaller family size, and fewer maternal deaths are more stable socially, economically, and politically.  Such improvements would spell positive changes for our global community.

Second, I ask that you support federal funding for Planned Parenthood, an organization which provides family planning and health services to millions of Americans.  The mission of Planned Parenthood is to prevent unwanted pregnancy, allowing women and girls to complete their educations and further their careers, and saving millions of dollars each year in Medicaid and Welfare costs.

I understand the severity of the nation’s current financial situation, but I firmly believe that cutting funding from family planning programs is not the way to save money.  I am sure that you have heard the saying that every dollar spent on family planning measures saves four down the road.  Thus, in this time of economic crisis, it would behoove us as citizens of Georgia, the United States, and the world to invest in women’s future and in fiscally-sound family planning measures.

Thank you."

Naturally, my letter is going to end up being ignored.  Actually, it's not even going to be ignored by Saxby Chambliss; it's going to be ignored by Saxby Chambliss' secretary's intern.  But I'm glad that I finally voiced my dissident opinion to someone who is supposed to be representing me.  And maybe a hundred such letters would be harder to ignore.

Happily, Planned Parenthood is safe for now, but the failure of H.R. 1 bought only about three weeks of time.  The threat of budget cuts is not going anywhere.  So I'm going to go all PSA on ya'll and beg you 1) To donate to Planned Parenthood, and 2) to write to your Senators and Representatives.  Feel free to copy and paste my letter, emend it, or ignore it and write your own.  If you give a shit about this cause, please tell someone.  And don't let me be that someone.  Make it someone who doesn't already know.

The Utility of Choice

As a matter of reason, good taste, and, well, the entire principle of separation of church and state, Bible verses have no place in political discourse.  However, it's unsurprisingly difficult, if not impossible, to disentangle the abortion debate from religion.  The Bible apparently has a lot to say on the matter, since most pro-life websites are headed with quotes from the Book of Proverbs, images of a pained and sorrowful-looking Virgin Mary, and (the ultimate trump card) the question "What if Jesus had been aborted?"

What you don't hear much of are utilitarian arguments against abortion.  In a nation faced with a growing deficit and heinous unemployment, the far right still doesn't seem interested in forming logical social and economic justifications for its endless effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.  Now, I am fully on board with decreasing the national deficit and bettering overall quality of life, so I think we would do well to transfer the abortion debate from the religious to the practical sphere.  From a small-government, fiscally-responsible standpoint, are there any positive external effects of legally requiring a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term?

http://intenseproductions.blogspot.com/2010/08/practicing-your-scales-effectively.html

Weighing pro-life against pro-quality of life.

The term "utilitarianism" scares us, or at least makes us uncomfortable.  We like to fancy ourselves ethical, to think that we don't "cut our losses" when it comes to issues of morality.  Yet we make a utilitarian bargain every time we eat meat or wage war.  So how do we apply these calculations to issues of reproductive choice?

First, there is the issue of population.  In a matter of months, the world's population will hit 7 billion; by 2030, it will be over 8 billion.  Needless to say, this "population bomb" will have far-reaching implications on the environment, politics, economics, and general quality of life.  Basically, everything.

http://www.blogiseverything.com/general/worlds-population-graphs/

This graph should scare the shit out of you, and if it doesn't, you probably lack basic abilities of projection.  Now add to this stunning rate of growth the fact that even in the United States, where contraception is readily available, half of pregnancies are unintended or unwanted.  This leaves us with a rapidly exploding world population of 7 billion people, at least one half of whom were born to parents who didn't want them, or didn't have the maturity or resources necessary to raise them.  Would illegalizing abortion impact these statistics positively?

Then there are the social effects of abortion.  As we learned from Freakonomics, the legalization of abortion in America corresponded with a decrease in the crime rate.  Similarly, there are indications that abortion lowers the incidence of child abuse.  Correlation doesn't imply causation, of course, and both these claims are surrounded with controversy based on statistical approachs to the questions.  Nevertheless, we can imagine how unwilling parents would be more likely to lash out at an unwanted child, and unwanted children more likely to last out at society.  And then there is the fact that abortion actually saves money:  by conservative estimates, each dollar spent on family planning saves us almost four down the road, in Medicaid and welfare costs.  Would defunding Planned Parenthood or overturning Roe v. Wade better financial stability and quality of life?

Finally, there are the effects of abortion on women themselves.  The pro-life side loves this argument, because it is a perfect opportunity for them to rail against abortion while pretending to care about women's rights and health.  From this ostensible concern has arisen the concept of "Post Abortion Syndrome," a mental-health condition which supposedly causes flashbacks, depression, and suicidal thoughts in 50% of women who have abortions.  

But alas, as much as the pro-life camp wishes that it existed, it turns out that studies which supported "PAS" were fraught with statistical errors, and it's actually just a load of shit.  When compared to women of similar socio-economic backgrounds who decided to carry their pregnancies to term, women who have had abortions actually fare the same, and often better, in terms of mental health.  Not surprisingly, being able to finish an education or further a career, remaining financially stable, and not having to bear and raise an unwanted child actually has positive effects on a woman's well-being.  And this isn't even touching the fact that Roe v. Wade ended the bloody era of coat-hanger abortions.

I haven't said a single thing here that hasn't been regurgitated time and time again.  That doesn't, however, dilute its significance.  Allowing women to take charge of their own reproduction has far-reaching positive implications, and I know not of any non-religious, practical justifications for the other side.

A fetus does not have a fully developed nervous system, lacks self-awareness, and cannot feel pain until at least 24 weeks of gestation.  In these regards, it ranks somewhere between a jellyfish and a salamander.  Thus, any concern felt for a fetus in another person's body can only be for its nebulous "soul," and thus can only be religious.  Naturally, this realization isn't likely to send shockwaves through a country of which 90% self-identifies as religious, and I would have to be fairly naive to pretend that the barrier between church and state is impermeable.  But let's make that barrier a latex barrier, and keep the pro-life separate from the pro-quality of life.