The Real Way to Address Abortion
Abortion rights are being challenged around the world; attempts are being made to eliminate access to abortion services. Here in the United States, a recent Texas law has set a precedent that threatens the right to abortion in other U.S. states.
The real way to end the need for most abortions is to eliminate sexism, rape, incest, coercion, inadequate access to birth control, and birth control failures. This is hard to achieve, but these problems are at the root of the need for abortion.
It is oppressive that the fight over abortion gets framed as a woman’s life versus a fetus’s life. To get around this, the movement for a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy has taken the position that life does not start at conception. But if we fight from that position, we do not have deep rationality on our side. We know that human life is precious at all stages. For people to not be forced into making an inhuman decision, we have to eliminate sexism and racism and achieve economic equity for women.
Please take time to discharge on this topic.
Freeport, Maine, USA
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of women
(Present Time 208, July 2022)