Is There Life after Roe?

FRANCES KISSLING'S ARTIcle, "Is There Life after Roe? How to think about the fetus" (Winter 2004-5), fails to convince that an accommodation with antiabortionist positions is either feasible or acceptable.

Firstly, the lack of information about the fetal images facing the first page of the article was an important omission. If we are to discuss "how to think about the fetus," then we need to be told what we are looking at, in this case fetuses at a late stage of development. In the great majority of abortions, what is aborted is still an embryo or a far less developed fetus. As disembodied images of fetuses in late pregnancy are used to influence the outcome of the discussion, such distinctions matter.

Secondly, how is protection of fetal life achievable, and in what way to be valued? I perceive only two possible forms of protection. The first is the prevention of unwanted pregnancy, so that abortion need not be an option. Yet the "prolife" movement does not provide or promote contraception or sterilization. They do not campaign against rape or sexual violence so that women are not made pregnant against their will. They do not support improvements in women's health so that pregnant women do not need abortions to save their health or lives, or prevention of preventable fetal abnormalities.

The second is to ensure that every pregnant woman can give her soon-to-be-born baby a healthy life. Does the "prolife" movement promote or provide good health care for pregnant women, good antenatal care, safe delivery and post-partum care, universal health insurance, social welfare policies to give all children a decent life, good nurseries and schools and a decent income for parents to care for their children, including for the poorest women? No, no and no.

Lastly, and most importantly, does the "prolife" movement offer to take care of or find good homes for all of the fetuses of all the pregnant women who seek an abortion across the world every day? No. Yet if they want to be taken seriously in their own terms, they ought to try.

Women consider fetuses to be soon-to-be-born babies from the minute they know they are pregnant. There is nothing more important to a woman with a wanted pregnancy than that she has a healthy baby. This is the ultimate statement of how much babies are valued, which the "prolife" movement has no monopoly on. Rather, the question of fetal value arises when the pregnancy--the embryo, the fetus, the soon-to-be-born baby, the child--is not wanted. Is it possible to terminate a pregnancy and claim to value the potential life that was not allowed to develop? Many women greatly regret that they became pregnant and even apologize to the not-to-be-born baby for what they are about to do when they seek abortion, but they pro-foundly do not wish to be pregnant. No one pretends that a woman who needs an abortion is not putting herself and her own life and needs first. Thus, value becomes relative. The bottom line remains: to accept the need for abortion--or not--and to make it available safely and legally--or not.

I believe the "prolife" movement accepts the need for abortion as much as the prochoice movement does. If not, women in the "prolife" movement would not have abortions themselves, which they do, and not infrequently.

Nor would they be fighting to make abortions illegal, but rather to make them not happen. The real aims of the "prolife" movement are more to do with imposing control on women by controlling women's bodies. A woman who is not allowed to have an abortion is not free; she is a slave to biology through sex.

It is clear that many people are feeling uncomfortable about abortion because of 3-D images and cleverly concocted antiabortion messages. To counter this, we must not try to be all things to all people, which I think Frances' article tries and fails to do. We must make the experience and needs of the woman who is seeking an abortion visible again. At the same time, 3-D images must not be allowed to romanticize the fetus nor allow us to forget that until a baby is born, it is not yet a person but a part of its mother and does not have rights. Rights belong only to living persons, including the right to life.

Forcing motherhood on an unwilling woman is always morally reprehensible; hence, I would never claim to value fetal life over women's lives. I fight for safe pregnancy and delivery for women with wanted pregnancies and for all children to be valued. The profound silence of the "prolife" movement on preventing unwanted pregnancy and valuing children deserves attention, because it discredits them in their own terms.

MARGE BERER Editor, Reproductive Health Matters Co-Chair, International Consortium for Medical Abortion London, UK