Abortion: Intention and Impact

An open letter to my conservative friends, family, and colleagues who support a ban on abortion.

The most important thing I want you to take away from this letter is the difference between intention and impact. Indeed, we have heard it said that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The impacts of abortion bans are many, and I will only be able to cover a few of them here.

I completely understand that you aim to protect innocent lives, and it’s a worthy intention. We liberals also endeavor to protect the wellbeing of those who don’t yet have the means to shepherd their own. In this, we share common values.

For the next few minutes I challenge you to think past your intent, toward the impact your desired policies will have in the long term. As you read this I ask you to consider the monumental differences between a life lived in a small community struggling to survive and the modern lives we lead now, rich in the abundance of interdependence, opportunity, care, and purpose. These differences require new ways of thinking about child bearing and self-determination.

Perhaps you do the math in your head and conclude that if abortion were illegal, then there’d be fewer abortions. In the few years after the law takes effect, you’re probably right. But the impact of this policy is only beginning to land.

Much as alcohol didn’t go away during Prohibition, and as narcotics didn’t go away during the War on Drugs, and (we liberals must admit) as guns would not go away in the presence of strict gun laws, abortion will never go away. It’s now among the safest of out-patient procedures, and women will (come Hell or high water) endeavor to maintain control of their own destinies. Surrounded by an abundance of opportunity and care, who would not take steps to realize their own purpose and contribution? This is what we call self-determination.

So who will keep having abortions? Women of means who can afford to travel to where it’s legal or pay out of pocket to a doctor who works in secrecy. And who will suffer through the pains and child rearing of an unplanned pregnancy? Poor women who have no choice but to carry their pregnancy to term and abandon their dreams of a career and a life of productive contribution to their world, consigned to raise a child she did not plan to have in an environment that is not prepared to nurture either of them.

By way of impact, abortion laws predispose that the women least prepared to care for children will be the most likely to have them. What are the long-term impacts of this predisposition? Seen through the lens of impact, it is not surprising that areas that restrict abortion see a rise in criminal behavior. Viewed for their impact, it is clear that abortion laws deepen the cycle of poverty and impel women into a struggle for survival, even while surrounded by the abundance afforded to others.

In all of the personal accounts that I’ve read, and from all of the women to whom I’ve spoken about their abortions, not a single one of them regrets having an abortion. They may regret their role in the circumstances that got them pregnant, and they may grieve the loss of a child that might have been. But not once have I heard from a woman who regrets the abortion itself. Abortion was their clear option in a world abundant in opportunity and care.

Now, how to have the impact we, liberals and conservatives alike, both want: to reduce the number of abortions. We know the answer to this, and it’s not rocket science. Don’t punish abortion when it’s too late. Head abortion off at the pass. Offer girls and boys comprehensive, fact-based sex education programs, in age-appropriate iterations, that help them understand both their own emerging impulses and ways of keeping themselves safe. Make contraception readily available and normal as a part of maturation. The ability to conceive a child and the impulse to be sexually active both arrive much earlier than the capacity to nurture a family in our modern world, and we all must help young women and men bridge that gap in a way that honors their goals and desire to contribute back to us.

We no longer live in a struggle to survive where our plans are for naught and we must accept our fate. Over thousands of years we have developed the means to shepherd our own self-determination, and women see this truth as well as anyone else. Who can blame them for taking this opportunity?

Yes, my conservative friends, family, and colleagues, these ideas may seem to conflict with your own. Perhaps self-determination and equal opportunity don’t rise to the level of national policy goals for you. But consider that among your core values are generosity and care. To deny opportunity (whether by intention or impact) to women who simply can’t afford it reveals a sinful lack of generosity. To press their unwanted children into a circumstance that can’t guide them toward fulfilling lives of contribution is an abdication of the duty of care.

And so I ask you to join us in the quest to have the right impact. To reduce abortion rates, not to rail against those who have them. To offer guidance in how to contribute to those around you, not to punish lapses in contribution. To foster a world that benefits fully from the abundance of interdependence, opportunity, care, and purpose that our ancestors have painstakingly built for us. We are the caretakes now of this world. Let us not punish those who would benefit from it. Let us all lift up the lives of young women and offer them the opportunity for self-determination that is their historical right.