By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
In an op-ed appearing in the Washington Post, Frances Kissling, a well-known abortion rights activist and former head of the now defunct Catholics for a Free Choice, said that if the pro-choice movement in America wants to survive, it has to stop pretending it’s 1970 by denying that a fetus is a human being and that abortion is more than just a “medical matter” between a woman and her doctor.
“The positions we have taken up to now are inadequate for the questions of the 21st century,” Kissling writes in the Feb. 18 piece. “We know more than we knew in 1973, and our positions should reflect that.”
For instance, “We can no longer pretend the fetus is invisible,” she says. “The fetus is more visible than ever before, and the abortion-rights movement needs to accept its existence and its value. It may not have a right to life, and its value may not be equal to that of the pregnant woman, but ending the life of a fetus is not a morally insignificant event.”
She goes on to say that abortion activists also need to be more vocal about the true nature of late term abortions.
“Very few people would argue that there is no difference between the decision to abort at six weeks and the decision to do so when the fetus would be viable outside of the womb, which today is generally at 24 to 26 weeks. Still, it is rare for mainstream movement leaders to say that publicly. Abortion is not merely a medical matter, and there is an unintended coarseness to claiming that it is,” she writes.
“We need to firmly and clearly reject post-viability abortions except in extreme cases. Exceptions include when the woman’s life is at immediate risk; when the fetus suffers from conditions that are incompatible with a good quality of life; or when the woman’s health is seriously threatened by a medical or psychological condition that continued pregnancy will exacerbate. We should regulate post-viability abortion to include the confirmation of those conditions by medical or psychiatric specialists. Those kinds of regulations are not anti-woman or unduly invasive. They rightly protect all of our interests in women’s health and fetal life.”
These positions aren’t compromises, she says, but are “a necessary evolution” in order to keep up with the times both culturally and scientifically.
As she correctly points out, the country has become much more pro-life in recent years which has caused the “pro-choice brand” to be eroded considerably.
“As recently as 1995 it was the preferred label of 56 percent of Americans; that dropped to 42 percent in 2009 and was 45 percent in 2010, according to Gallup polls,” she says.
While acknowledging that the “new ultra-conservative members of Congress are fighting to get rid of the legal right to choose abortion,” Kissling suggests that if the pro choice movement wants to regain popular support and maintain the legal right to abortion, it has to learn how to work with the state.
“Society and the state do have a stake in abortion policy,” she writes. “Reproduction is a private matter with public consequences. Women get to decide, but we all get to weigh in on what the policy should look like.”
However, she then goes on to tell the state what it should do.
“If the state wants to weigh in with advice and information on abortion, the least it can do is emulate the European system, which has some regulations but then pays for women’s abortions and offers good alternatives such as child care, parental leave and health care. We have been demanding that the state mind its own business. That lets government abdicate all responsibility for funding reproductive health care.”
Yes, we need more responsible and compassionate state policies, she says, but “respect for fetal life also requires that men and women take every step possible not to create fetuses they will have to abort.”
The moral high ground on abortion is not to be found in asserting an absolute right to choose, she cautions. “Instead, it is to be found in the movement’s historic understanding that when abortion is illegal, it is poor women who suffer. The abortion-rights movement needs to focus our work on restoring federal and state funds for abortion for women in the military and on Medicaid, a benefit that Congress cut off as early as 1976. We should also work to sensibly regulate abortion facilities – not to prohibit access, but to ensure safety.”
Kissling concludes by saying that she expects resistance from many in her own camp who will accuse her of compromising.
“These shifts I am suggesting are not about compromising or finding common ground with abortion opponents,” she argues. “Compromise assumes that there are two parties prepared to give up something in return for settling an issue. Neither opponents nor advocates of legal abortion are willing to do that. But, for pro-choice advocates, standing our ground will mean losing ground entirely.”
If the choice movement does not change, she writes, “control of policy on abortion will remain in the hands of those who want it criminalized. If we don’t suggest sensible balanced legislation and regulation of abortion, we will be left with far more draconian policies – and, eventually, no choices at all.”
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