Pro-Death Vs. Anti-Choice

January 24th, 2009 – Newly elected president Barack Obama has cancelled a law that prevented the financing of Abortion Funds. These funds are actually non-profit organisations that provide money and information about safe abortion clinics to the less-fortunate. They do a certain amount of work directly in the United States where there is no national healthcare and where private insurance rarely covers the services of an abortion clinic. More importantly, they provide funding to maintain information networks and safe abortion clinics internationally in the Third World. Almost instantaneously, the self-designated ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ interest groups released statements.

Firstly on the pro-choice or ‘the people not against abortion’, we have the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). They greatly applauded president Obama for loosening the « stranglehold of women’s health accross the globe ». Also, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was overjoyed to once again receive funding from America. This UN program assists Third-World nations that have crippling overpopulation problems and where many women die from self-abortion related injuries and infections.

In the opposite corner, the pro-life or ‘people against abortions’, we have the National Right to Life Commitee (NRLC). They also rapidly voiced their opinion by affirming that this new White House policy is ‘effectively guaranteeing more abortions by funding groups that promote abortion as a method of population control’. Further still in the depths of exaggeration we have the Vatican. A Spokesperson from St. Peter’s basilica accused Mr. Obama for his arrongance in thinking that he ‘can decide who lives or dies’. They reiterated that, unlike president Obama, the Pope, Catholics and baby Jesus are against the « slaughter of the innocents ».

As for me, I think both of these groups are tremendous wastes of time and space in a world where « black or white » has never truly existed. I personally abhor abortion and really think there are always viable alternatives to the medical procedure. Furthermore, I think that NOTHING should infringe on personal liberties and thus cannot condone the legal repression of groups that diffuse information about safe abortions. When a gouvernment chooses to eliminate public information services, that gouvernment is guilty of treason towards its people. They are telling their electors that the opinion of the elected elite is much more important than those of the masses of lesser people. They are saving the citizens from themselves because they know what is better for them. You may think I am being ironic (you would be right) but this is basically the justification of fascism that Benito Mussolini gave in the 20s when he invented the concept. Gross exaggerations of ‘stranglehold’, ‘population control’ and ‘slaughter aside’, the legal controversy in America really began a few decades ago…

In 1973, the famed ‘Roe Vs. Wade’ trial found that a woman could abort her child for any reason before the pregnancy reached the 28th week. Anti-abortion legislation having become illegal, pro-life groups could only pressure the gouvernment into cutting funding to anyone that provided any services or information concerning abortion. This led to the Mexico City Policy of 1984.

President Ronald Reagan signed this law that, to receive any form of federal funding, organisations had to sign a contract guaranteeing that they would ‘neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations’. It is my contention that, with more information, women who chose to abort could have opted for another solution yet the this regulation possibly left women to the only option they knew : abortion (ironic isn’t it?). With the signing of the policy in Mexico, groups such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation lost 20% of their funding and abortion information programs and clinics ceased to exist in Zambia and Ethiopia where rape is rampant.

Later on with the advent of a procreation friendly president Clinton, the Mexico City Policy was cancelled. Clinton said that it infringed personal freedoms of choice and information and that it ‘undermined efforts to promote safe and efficacious family planning programs in foreign nations’. This stood for eight years until…

…there came a man named Double-U who resumed the dictatorial undertones of the policy in 2001. As always, Mr. Bush truly believed in his convictions, stating that ‘taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion, either here or abroad’. Although I strongly agree with the spirit of this statement, there are three major problems with the phrasing and wording. Firstly, the use of the word ‘should’ implies that he knows and is the ultimate decider (sic) of what is right and wrong. Secondly, these abortion funds were providing information about abortion, they were not handing out 2 for 1 coupons and airing sales clearance commercials on network television. Finally, although former president Bush’s morality tells him clearly that tax dollars should not go to abortion funds, it also has seemingly told him that the tax dollars SHOULD fund druglords in Afghanistan, the indefinite occupation of Iraq, bankrupt car companies, the Saudi royal family, a gigantic wall between the US and Mexico as well as teenage abstinence programs that continue to be complete failures (as shown by every polling firm in North America).

We loop back to President Obama’s renewal of Clinton’s policy. Abortion funds will once again be financed internationally and this fits perfectly into Obama’s announced promises. That being said, I have to apply the ‘I know what’s best’ probem to all four of them because there has never been a national referendum on the question, the president’s simply assume their opinion is in the best national interest. Although, a poll conducted in 2008 by Gallup showed that 54% of Americans think abortion should be allowed under certain circumstances and 28% believe that it should be legal under any circumstances. This has effectively left the aformentioned Vatican, NRLF, former presidents Reagan and Bush to impose the will of 17% of the american population on the other 83%.

In conclusion, I admit that anti-abortion sentiment is philosophical; mine certainly is. I believe in the right for any fetus to his or her potential life because it feels right for me and I truly believe in the concept. As such, I encourage information about the alternatives to abortion for women faced with the unfortunate prospect. On the other hand, the pro-choice sentiment is also philosophical and no more valid than the other concept. I think that a person’s personal rights should be defended at the cost of life and revolution if necessary and I clearly believe it is more important than my personal anti-abortion policy. My convoluted point is that it rarely boils down to philosophy but rather to practicality. Abortion is often seen as a quick solution to a terrible and life-altering problem and thus it will be accomplished no matter how much we legislate against it. We must never lose sight of the political capital aimed by politicians when they bring up abortion; they certainly know, just like the war on drugs and pre-marriage sex, that urge, impulse and practicality wins out over philosophy and religious doctrine every time.

Anti-information programs hurt democracy and If women are going to have an abortion one way or another, shouldn’t it be in a sanitised clinic and carried out by a professional? I definitely think so and for those that disagree, I respect your opinion and suggest you immigrate to Tehran or Vatican city where the gouvernment has made birth control, abortions and women voting illegal.

(Epilogue : It feels really good to write ‘former president Bush’)

(Pictured : In Ancient Cambodia, lack of information led to abortions by method of "mallet to stomach" - Even Soviet Russia had information programs about safe abortions, 1925 - President Obama was "Warholised")

End.