Sunday, August 2, 2020

Offering A New Choice (Abortion)


What's Next?


Let's say you win. By stacking the court you end a woman's right to a safe and legal abortion.

What is your intent? You've cut off the legal supply but not the demand. Are we back to those back room abortions?

This was recently covered in an article in the New York Times. In the comments section was something insightful. For me, It's a whole new approach to this issue. Instead of punishing people, how about going for the root cause driving demand?

The argument in the article centered around the idea of abortion and racism.

Anti-abortion writers argue that Planned Parenthood’s leaders have effectively acknowledged the connection between abortion and racism. “This does not excuse their continued perpetuation of her legacy (Margaret Sanger) through their insidious practice of targeting the most vulnerable, especially poor women and women of color (both of whose populations so often intersect), by locating the vast majority of Planned Parenthood clinics within walking distance of nonwhite neighborhoods,” Serrin Foster and Damian Geminder write in America, a Jesuit publication.

The reply below is right on target.

Cathy, a Times reader in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., responded in the Comments section:

“You can convince me that structural racism, poverty, lack of opportunity, expensive child care, wage inequality and any number of social ills make abortion more necessary, but the sin lies with our society, not Planned Parenthood. If we want to reduce abortion, and want to argue that racism is an inherent part of abortion, we need to reduce the demand, not the supply.”

Think about that. Reduce the demand by going after the root cause instead of choking off the supply. I'm thinking this compassionate approach would be loved by Jesus who wanted all of us to love one another.

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