RE: Of Babies & Beans - Adam Gopnik (New Yorker)

I just read this piece on the recap of the 2012 VP debate, talking about Paul Ryan's unfortunate stance on abortion, or more accurately, his stance on secularism. Religion and state unequivocally should be separate, it  is unthinkable to even argue otherwise in this day.

Mr. Ryan is toeing a pretty serious line when he says, "I don’t see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do.”

Here's what I have to say about this: It is absolutely essential for politicians to remove themselves from their own privately held values and opinions in order to represent thousands of people in their ridings. You must do your best to represent your constituents, and if you are the president or vice-president of the country, you must represent EVERYONE. Not just the people who voted for you. That is why as president, you must compromise and give in every so often, because it isn't just you or the people who voted for you that you are making decisions for - it is the entire country.

This is why when people criticize President Obama for doing "nothing" during his four years, I roll my eyes. First off, it is glaringly obvious that without majorities in the House and Senate, any bills and legislation are going to struggle. This is why it is imperative to create policy that is acceptable to both Democrats and Republicans, or it will never survive. Also, even if some controversial piece of leg broke through, what will stop the future Republican president (it will happen eventually) from striking it down and reversing it? Good policy benefits all, not just right or left, and that is what Obama is doing. Instead he could be a giant bulldozer like Harper, jamming in all sorts of nonsense legislation with omnibus bills and refuse to let it spend time under debate in the House. Good policy needs compromise, debate and it must not be based on the religious dogma that Paul Ryan insists on dispersing with every word.

Back to abortion. I have been having ever-increasingly complex views on this. I am staunchly pro-choice; I believe every woman can decide for herself whether she should have a baby or not. Science has not told us indisputably where life begins yet, and as defined by current laws, you are not recognized as a person until you are born. And as one commenter on the story above put it so well, since a fetus' life is intrinsically linked to its mother's, its rights are intermingled with the mother's rights. And no person's rights should interfere with another person's rights.

But at the same time, I know that if I were pregnant accidentally, no matter when it happened, I could not have an abortion. My own personal spirituality is based on no accepted religion, but instead on an idea of positive and negative energy, and that things happen for a reason. While I don't necessarily believe in a higher power, I believe their is a rough map to the universe and that the things we do set other things in motion: "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." So I am of the personal belief that if I am pregnant, it was for a reason. And if I choose an abortion, how do I know I am not putting something in motion that could change the world for the worse. (See: Looper). I suppose you could argue how could I know that by choosing abortion I could change the world for the better (again see: Looper), but this is why I am more inclined to leave it up to "Fate."

Now this is where it gets complicated for me. If a woman is pregnant, and she is assaulted - let's say she's raped or bludgeoned savagely within an inch of her life - and she loses the baby... do we consider this an extra insult to injury? In the eyes of the law, does the fact that a woman lost her baby as a result of the assault add extra aggravation to the crime? In some states it is punishable to kill an unborn baby, it would count as two murders if you killed a mother and an unborn child. And I think for the most part, society feels this isn't so bad. If I were trying to have a baby with my partner, and we worked hard for that baby, let's say we had to take several fertility treatments (that can cost 10's of thousands of dollars) and you assaulted me and killed my baby. I would be doubly devastated than if you just assaulted me alone.

So, if we as a society, accept that it is a greater crime to kill a pregnant woman than it is to kill another person, then shouldn't the same values be applied to abortion? I'm not saying that I would LIKE this to happen, but I have recognized that their are a lot of double-standards when it comes to the law in this case. The law needs to protect vulnerable members of society, and this includes pregnant women - they are given job security on maternity leave, they are given closer parking spaces and seats on the bus, and if they are a victim of a physical crime, often their aggressors are given greater retribution. Many argue that the law also needs to protect unborn fetuses from abortion, and if these current laws are protecting pregnant women at a higher standard than other citizens, then I can't legally argue against that.

But every once in awhile  the law does something funny. It allows for context. Obviously there is a moral and ethical difference between a wanted and unwanted fetus. An unwanted baby, as pointed out in the story, is more often than not subject to a life of cruelty - foster care, abuse, and their own struggles with rejection. Whereas the loss of a wanted baby can devastate the family, mentally, physically and financially (as in the example above). I don't think this contextual exception is necessarily bad; it is more intuitive and relevant than the alternative.

However, it leaves room for this constant debate and gives the rightwingnuts a foot in the door to disseminate their religious nonsense, and it lends credence and legitimizes their opinions. But, overall, I think as long as our society strives to create contextual and constantly relevant policies in general, including on this matter, that's all we can ask for. I would hate to see this become an issue that flip flops every time a new president is elected, which is why it is essential we create lasting and complex policy around it.