Abortion Won’t Stop : This Moral Dilemma Can’t Be Resolved, Nor the Debate Ended

The Fourth of July--a national holiday celebrating a government conceived to protect liberty, justice and freedom for all.

No matter that such a government was conceived when some of its citizens were not free. No matter that it was conceived when more than half were denied the right to vote. America was a nation bent on ideals with a Constitution grounded in pragmatism.

The only problem then and now is that liberty, justice and freedom for all are unachievable if we are compelled to take into account the unborn.

What we have today on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a Missouri abortion law is a moral dilemma that can never be resolved, a conflict that will never disappear and a debate that will never end. This is true despite the moral certitude of either abortion faction--right-to-life or pro-choice--and despite any Supreme Court decision that has been handed down or that will ever be handed down.

Of course, the Supreme Court has the power to make abortion legal or illegal. So do the states. (In the form of a constitutional amendment, the states have always had this power.)

Yet the crucial issue is: Can anyone (court, legislature or law enforcement) stop women from having abortions?

Judging from the millions of women who have abortions in countries where it is both illegal and, for religious reasons, highly immoral, probably not.

Judging from history and the millions of women who suffered dangerous back-alley abortions before the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, probably not.

Judging from the 350,000 to 600,000 women who marched in Washington last April demanding their right to have an abortion, probably not.

Monday’s decision affects poor women the most. It is both feared and hoped (depending on which side is doing the worrying) that poor women will not be able to have abortions. But when Congress passed the Hyde Amendment in 1976, restricting public funding of abortions, a similar prediction was made. The government then was funding about 350,000 abortions a year. Today, it funds less than 400. Still, that has not stopped poor women from obtaining an abortion. Last year, approximately 290,000 had the procedure, paying for it with money they no doubt could have spent on basics like food and shelter.

Regardless of the decision or any future decisions, millions of women are not going to return to the Dark Ages of coat-hanger abortions either. They no longer have to. In the years since abortion was legalized, new and safer techniques such as vacuum aspiration--now used in more than 90% of all abortions--have been developed. RU-486, a French abortifacient pill, is now available in that country and will soon find its way into America, most likely to be sold illegally (maybe the Medellin Cartel is already eyeing it as a new product line).

The coat hanger may be obsolete, but this is not to say that illegal abortions are safe or that young poor or desperate women won’t still try to induce abortions with unsafe methods like cocaine. It’s just that they would have greater alternatives than ever before. Of course this is all premature. Abortion may be more restricted than at any time since it became legal, but it is still legal.

It’s difficult to predict what the Supreme Court will decide next. Maybe it will uphold parental consent laws. Maybe it will further restrict where and how abortions are performed. Maybe it will abolish the trimester system for determining fetal viability. Maybe it will even overturn Roe vs. Wade.

The point is that no matter what the court decides, abortion is not going to stop. The debate is not going to end. And the battle is never going to be over.

Meanwhile, on this Fourth of July, thousands of people, especially women, are hedging their bets, trusting that the Supreme Court will settle the issue once and for all. Clearly, it can’t.