We Americans cherish our rights. Since the Supreme Court's ruling in Row vs. Wade, a woman's right to have an abortion has become the law of the land. Once a right to do something has been established in this country, it becomes near impossible to take it away. Pro-choice advocates accuse their opponents, pro-life advocates, of wanting to take this right away from women. It is a strong argument, and no doubt true, but if the right to have an abortion is ever taken away in this country, it will come from the pro-choice left, and not from the pro-life right.
As effective as the pro-life movement is, it finds itself in a near hopeless situation. The pro-life movement is defending the rights of the unborn -- a constituency that has no lobby, no vote, no money, and no political power. This, plus the movement must now convince American women to give up a right -- a right that many women fought hard for. The pro-lifers will lose this fight because in this country, the list of individual rights only expands, never shrinks.
What, after all, does it mean to have a right? In various forms this question is asked every day. A fundamental element of possessing rights is that one may exercise a right to do something, as long as it doesn't interfere with another's rights. Personal motives and reasons for performing actions that are within one's rights to perform can't be questioned. To put it another way, the reason for exercising a right may be completely stupid, arbitrary, and senseless, and as long as it doesn't affect the rights of others, perfectly legal. For this reason, the pro-choice left, which has argued that a woman has the right to do with her body as she sees fit, and that a fetus is just fleshy tissue without rights, may find themselves in conflict. If the reason women want an abortion -- especially if this reason is politically incorrect -- ever follows a trend, the left may find themselves arguing that, on the one hand, women have the right to abort a fetus, and on the other, that not all women should be allowed to do it.
To visualize this argument, consider a hypothetical, but very possible situation. In a not-too-far-off future, through the study of genetics, it may be possible to determine the sexual orientation that an individual is pre-disposed to. If it becomes possible to determine the sexual orientation of a fetus in the womb, what would happen to the birth rate of homosexuals? The homosexual birth rate would obviously drop, maybe to nil. This is not because everybody in this country is homophobic, but because if given a choice, and abortion gives people the choice, most will opt to raise a child as close to "normal" as possible.
Homosexuals and feminists, two left-wing stalwarts, may find themselves at odds on this issue. What feminists might see as a simple medical procedure that a woman is free to have performed, homosexuals may see as extermination. Feminists may find themselves fighting pro-life conservatives on one side, and pro-life homosexuals on the other. Already, there are pro-life homosexual groups in existence, such as the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians, or PLAGAL, that has considered this eventuality.
This situation starts one's imagination to consider possible future conflicts. One possible scenario would have the left-wing leadership try to have homosexual abortions banned on the grounds that they are discriminatory. This situation is unlikely because it would lead to an avalanche of contradictions on previously held beliefs. For one, they would have to explain how one could discriminate against a fetus which, according to liberal dogma, isn't alive and has no rights. They might have to come up with a justification for giving a homosexual fetus more of a right to life than a heterosexual fetus. They would have to explain how a lifeless piece of tissue could have a sexual orientation. An Internet article published by PLAGAL puts it this way: "When sexual orientation becomes grounds for abortions, it is difficult to argue that a fetus is not human. If we exterminate a fetus because of his or her intrinsic nature, we are acknowledging that that fetus has the qualities of a unique human being" ("Abortion as Gay Bashing?"). Finally, the left would have to rationalize denying an abortion to a woman who wants one, which liberals acknowledge is her right, just because they don't agree with her reason for doing so.
Another possible scenario would be an attempt by liberals to have the procedure that determines sexual orientation of a fetus banned. This approach is more likely than the previous one, as it is an effective middle ground for feminists and homosexuals. Women would still be free to have abortions on demand, and there would be a chance that those who don't have abortions may give birth to homosexuals. This compromise, however, would again create contradictions and poke holes in current liberal ideology. For one, it seems muddled logic to say that a woman has the right to choose to have an abortion, but not the right to make an informed choice, based on as many facts that can be determined about the fetus she is deciding the fate of. And again, the left would have to acknowledge that this procedure is being banned in an effort to save homosexual fetuses, assigning a human characteristic to that which they say is without life. Also, once this pre-natal procedure is banned, what about other procedures that help determine the desirability of the not-yet-human, such as hair or eye color, a pre-disposition for obesity, deformity, or less than average intelligence? These procedures, theoretically, could also be banned; ensuring that unborn children are either aborted or born based on more "lofty" and liberal-approved considerations.
Of course, the problem with posing hypothetical problems as the case previously mentioned is that one winds up with hypothetical arguments. Discussing them is an interesting mental exercise at best, blue-in-the-face arguing over something that is not real, or not yet happened, at worst. However, a real-world situation similar to the one above is taking place at this moment in India.
In a land of abject poverty, overpopulation, and where women have few rights and are treated like second class citizens, abortion isn't just a right; it is almost a necessity. But because of various aspects of Indian culture, the abortions have taken an alarming and dangerous trend -- one which will have dire consequences for future generations to come if it continues unchecked: the mass abortion of females fetuses.
Having a daughter in India is a grave financial burden, without returns. Daughters don't share in family wealth, so it became customary for a bride's family to supply a dowry to her new husband. These dowries began as a way for Indian families to help their daughters start out married life, but instead dowries have become a large financial responsibility (Rao, Radhakrishna). If a groom and his family are not satisfied with the amount of the dowry, they sometimes torture and kill the new bride. Indian government figures show that at least 7,300 women were killed by their in-laws in the first nine months of 1995, but the actual number is probably higher ("Two Indian Men Sentenced to Death for Dowry Murder"). The practice of dowry payments was banned in India in 1961. But among Hindus, who account for roughly eighty percent of India's 900 million people, dowry payments are still quite common ("Two Indian Men...").
The solution for the Indian family expecting an unwanted baby girl has become abortion. Although numbers are hard to come by, it is estimated that 50,000 to 80,000 female fetuses are aborted every year in India (Basu, Soma). The effects of this holocaust are only now beginning to become apparent. In an editorial from 1994 in the Times of India, it was reported that there were 927 Indian women for every 1,000 Indian men, and the ratio was worsening ("A Necessary Ban"). This is an intolerable situation, which can't be allowed to continue -- but what is a society to do when the women are within their rights to have an abortion?
India's answer came in the form of passage of a Bill that would ban the use of pre-natal diagnostic techniques for determining the sex of the fetus. At this point, this Bill is probably all that can be done, but it is only a stopgap measure that will not accomplish what it sets out to achieve, and is filled with holes. First and foremost, the procedure continues because it is impossible to stop. The same equipment used to determine the sex of a child is also used for examining the health of that child, so must be used and can't be simply taken away. Also, just as is the case in any society, where there is a demand, there will be a supply. Families in India want this procedure, will pay for it, and so there will be people who provide it. Finally, and most horrendous, families that can't afford the sex determination procedure, or an abortion, simply perform an after-the-fact abortion themselves, killing their one-day-old daughters (Aravamudan, Gita).
Once it becomes apparent that banning the sex determination test has failed, and the man-to-woman ratio continues to slip, the only alternative, for the sake of India's society, will be to ban the abortion of female fetuses. This will become a necessity, obvious even to those who fervently believe in abortion rights, and after the ban is implemented, it can no longer be argued that a woman in India has the right to an abortion.
Both situations examined above -- one real, the other hypothetical -- show the fallacy and possible tragedy of the pro-choice argument that a woman has a right to abortion. To suggest that a fetus does not have the right to life opens a doorway to selection of only those children deemed fit to live by society's standards. As shown, trends in abortions may develop that endanger a certain group of people, or society itself. When this happens, the only apparent alternative, from a liberal point of view, is to ban some abortions based solely on the reason the woman has for choosing it. When that happens, the left will be forced to admit that, no, women don't always have the right to do with their bodies as they wish, and women will have lost the right to abortion.
By Matthew R. King
"Abortion as Gay Bashing?" Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians. On-line. Internet. October 27, 1997.
"A Necessary Ban". Times of India, August 6, 1994. On-line. Internet. October 27, 1997.
Aravamuden, Gita. "Whose Baby Is She Anyway". The Hindu, October 16, 1994. On-line. Internet. October 27, 1997.
Basu, Soma. "Blow To Yet-To-Be-Born Baby Bazar Lobby". The Hindu, July 28, 1994. On-line. Internet. October 27, 1997.
Rao, Radhakrishna. "Marriage at a Price". Asia Today. On-line. Internet. October 27, 1997.
"Two Indian Men Sentenced to Death for Dowry Murder". Reuters, January 23, 1997. On-line. Internet. October 27, 1997.
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