upworthy

abortion

Reproductive Rights

Why I'm morally anti-abortion but politically pro-choice and don't feel conflicted about it

Many of us find ourselves in the messy middle of the abortion debate.

Photo credit: Canva

It's possible to be "pro-life" and pro-choice.

The legality of abortion is one of the most polarized debates in America. We've seen reproductive rights swing back and forth between the Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973 and the Dobbs vs. Jackson decision in 2022, with passionate people on both sides either lauding or lamenting the U.S. Supreme Court.

People have big feelings about abortion, which is understandable. On the one hand, some people feel that abortion is a fundamental women's rights issue, that our bodily autonomy is not up for debate, and that those who oppose abortion rights are trying to control women through oppressive legislation. On the other hand, some folks believe that a fetus is a human individual first and foremost, that no one has the right to terminate a human life, and that those who support abortion rights are heartless murderers.

abortion, abortion debate, prolife, prochoice, roe v. wade, dobbs decision, reproductive rightsYou don't have to choose between the extremes of the abortion debate.Photo credit: Canva

Then there are those of us in the messy middle. Those who believe that life starts at conception, that abortion isn't something we'd choose—and we hope others wouldn't choose—under most circumstances, yet who choose to vote to keep abortion legal with few restrictions.

Some people don't understand being personally anti-abortion but still wanting abortion to be legal, citing the moral conflict seemingly inherent in that equation. But I don't feel conflicted about it at all. Here's why:

There's far too much gray area to legislate abortion.

No matter what you personally believe, when exactly life begins and when “a clump of cells" should be considered an individual, autonomous human being with the same rights as a person not dependent on a woman's body for life is a completely debatable question with no clear scientific answers.

abortion, abortion debate, prolife, prochoice, roe v. wade, dobbs decision, reproductive rightsWhen life and personhood begin aren't easily answerable questions.Photo credit: Canva

I believe life begins at conception, but that's my own religious belief about when the soul becomes associated with the body, not a proven scientific fact. As Arthur Caplan, award-winning professor of bioethics at New York University, told Slate, “Many scientists would say they don't know when life begins. There are a series of landmark moments. The first is conception, the second is the development of the spine, the third the development of the brain, consciousness, and so on."

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that a human life unquestionably begins at conception. Even with that point of view, there are too many issues that make a black-and-white approach to abortion too problematic to ban it. Medicine is complex, and obstetrical medicine particularly so. It's simply not as simple as "abortion is wrong." Every pregnancy is personally and medically unique throughout—how can we effectively legislate something with so many ever-changing variables?

Abortion bans hurt some mothers who desperately want their babies to live, and I'm not okay with that.

One reason I don't support banning abortion is because I've seen too many families deeply harmed by restrictive abortion laws.

abortion, abortion debate, prolife, prochoice, roe v. wade, dobbs decision, reproductive rightsFamilies who wanted their babies have been hurt by anti-abortion laws. Photo credit: Canva

I've heard too many stories of families who desperately wanted a baby, who ended up having to make the rock-and-a-hard-place choice to abort because the alternative would have been a short, pain-filled life for their child.

I've heard too many stories of mothers having to endure long, drawn out, potentially dangerous miscarriages and being forced to carry a dead baby inside of them because abortion restrictions gave them no other choice.

I've heard too many stories of abortion laws doing real harm to mothers and babies, and too many stories of families who were staunchly anti-abortion until they found themselves in circumstances they never could have imagined, to believe that abortion is always wrong and should be banned at any particular stage.

I am not willing to serve as judge and jury on a woman's medical decisions, and I don't think the government should either.

Most people's anti-abortion views—mine included—are based on their religious beliefs, and I don't believe that anyone's religion should be the basis for the laws in our country. (For the record, any Christian who wants biblical teachings to influence U.S. law, yet cries “Shariah is coming!" when they see a Muslim legislator, is a hypocrite.)

abortion, abortion debate, prolife, prochoice, roe v. wade, dobbs decision, reproductive rightsThe government doesn't need to be involved in personal medical choices.Photo credit: Canva

I also don't want politicians sticking their noses into my very personal medical choices. There are just too many circumstances (seriously, please read the stories linked in the previous section) that make abortion a choice I hope I'd never have to make, but wouldn't want banned. I don't understand why the same people who decry government overreach think the government should be involved in these extremely personal medical decisions.

And yes, ultimately, abortion is a personal medical decision. Even if I believe that a fetus is a human being at every stage, that human being's creation is inextricably linked to and dependent upon its mother's body. And while I don't think that means women should abort inconvenient pregnancies, I also acknowledge that trying to force a woman to grow and deliver a baby that she may not have chosen to conceive isn't something the government should be in the business of doing. As a person of faith, my role is not to judge or vilify, but to love and support women who are facing difficult choices. The rest of it—the hard questions, the unclear rights and wrongs, the spiritual lives of those babies,—I comfortably leave in God's hands, not the government's.

abortion, abortion debate, prolife, prochoice, roe v. wade, dobbs decision, reproductive rightsAbortion is inextricable from healthcare.Photo credit: Canva

Most importantly, if the goal is to prevent abortion, research shows that outlawing it isn't the way to go.

The biggest reason I vote the way I do is because based on my research pro-choice platforms provide the best chance of reducing abortion rates.

Just after Roe vs. Wade was passed, abortion rates skyrocketed, peaked in 1990, and then plummeted steadily for nearly two decades. Abortion was legal during that time, so clearly, keeping abortion legal and available did not result in increased abortion rates in the long run. Switzerland has one of the lowest abortion rates on earth and their rate has fallen and largely stabilized since 2002, when abortion became largely unrestricted.

Outlawing abortion doesn't stop it, it just pushes it underground and makes it more dangerous. And if a woman dies in a botched abortion, so does her baby. Banning abortion is a recipe for more lives being lost, not fewer.

abortion, abortion debate, prolife, prochoice, roe v. wade, dobbs decision, reproductive rights, sex edComprehensive sex education and birth control are the proven ways to prevent abortion.Photo credit: Canva

At this point, the only things consistently proven to reduce abortion rates on a societal scale are comprehensive sex education and easy, affordable access to birth control. If we want to reduce abortions, that's where we should be putting our energy. The problem is, anti-abortion activists also tend to be the same people pushing for abstinence-only education and making birth control harder to obtain. But those goals can't co-exist with lowering abortion rates in the real world.

Our laws should be based on reality and on the best data we have available. Since comprehensive sex education and easy, affordable access to birth control—the most proven methods of reducing abortion rates—are the domain of the pro-choice crowd, that's where I place my vote, and why I do so with a clear conscience.

The polarization of politics has made it seem like the only choices are on the extreme ends of the spectrum, but it doesn't have to be that way. We can separate our own personal beliefs and convictions from what we believe the role of government should be. We can look at the data and recognize when bans may not actually be the most effective means of reducing something we want to see less of. We can listen to people's stories and acknowledge that things are not as black-and-white as they're made out to be.

An we can want to see fewer abortions and still vote to keep abortion legal without feeling morally conflicted about it.

This article originally appeared six years ago and has been updated.

From Your Site Articles
democracy
Democracy

I did a roundtable with the Vice President about abortion. Here are 4 things that surprised me.

The conversation was important, but in some ways the experience was nothing like I expected it to be.

TheReidOut/Twitter

Upworthy associate editor Annie Reneau chatting with Joy Reid and Kamala Harris in an MSNBC roundtable

It's been a very weird week.

I'm a writer and editor—not a medical professional, legal expert or political activist in any way—so imagine my surprise when I got a message from Vice President Kamala Harris's senior advisor inviting me to join a roundtable discussion on MSNBC for the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. I thought someone might be pranking me, but nope. The invite was real.

Apparently, someone had read an op-ed I'd written years ago about how it's possible to be morally pro-life but politically pro-choice and felt that my voice would add something to the discussion. The panelists included the lead plaintiffs in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization and the Texas Abortion Ban lawsuits, two activists involved in the fight for reproductive rights, a Texas OB-GYN who has seen the implications of the Dobbs decision in his own practice…and me.

I felt remarkably average among these experts on the issue, but I think that was the point. My view represents millions of average American voters who may feel conflicted about where they stand on abortion morally and legally and are trying to reconcile their personal or religious beliefs with what they think our laws should be. Additionally, as someone with no political affiliation or loyalty to any party, I could speak about grappling with this issue without any partisan pressure or influence.

I'd like to point out that I'm wary of most politicians and well aware of biases in the media, so despite feeling honored to be asked, I was a bit hesitant to participate. I certainly didn't want to contribute to the partisan divide if I could help it. But because abortion is such a complex and nuanced issue, dedicating an entire hour of prime time to a discussion about it sounded like a good way to help people gain a better, broader understanding. So less than 24 hours after being asked, I was on a plane to Dallas to join the roundtable, which filmed the next day.

The full roundtable discussion is worth watching (and can be found on Peacock, with clips available on MSNBC), but I wanted to pull back the curtain and offer a peek behind the scenes because there were some things about the experience that genuinely surprised me.

1. I had no idea ahead of time what questions they were going to ask

I assumed participants in these kinds of events would be prepped ahead of time with what questions they would be asking and have ample time to prepare. This was not the case for me, and according to the fellow panelists I chatted with, it wasn't for them, either. I used my travel time to prepare a few talking points I felt I could address somewhat intelligently based on my op-ed (since that's what prompted the invite), but all I knew before arriving for the taping was that we were going to be discussing the Dobbs decision.

The only preparation we got was about 30 seconds before each segment was filmed. Joy Reid briefly explained how that segment would be structured with something like, "Okay, in this segment, we're going to talk about [some element of the abortion issue]. I'm going to ask [panelist] about [XYZ] and then pivot to [panelist] to talk about [XYZ]. But feel free to chime in if you want to respond to something. We really want this to be a conversation."

That was it. The entire prep. I was surprised—but also delighted—by how unscripted it was. No one asked me to make any specific points. I didn't feel any expectation or pressure to even agree with what was being said. Obviously, they knew where I stood based on what I'd written, but they had no idea what I was actually going to say ahead of time.

2. The conversations on-screen were no different than the ones being had off-screen by all parties involved

I think people who are skeptical of media may think that things said for the camera aren't as genuine as one would hope. Maybe that's the case sometimes, but that wasn't my experience at all here. In the green room and during the commercial breaks while filming, the conversation about the issue continued just as it did on screen, just without a host guiding it. The genuine sincerity of the discussion filled me with hope.

For instance, the OB-GYN panelist I was chatting with in the green room told me that in his 30 years of practice, he'd never had a patient come to the decision to terminate a pregnancy lightly, and we talked about the importance of keeping compassion and empathy central to the conversation about abortion. That was just our casual conversation. In the hours I was there, I overheard people from the crew to the other panelists to Joy Reid and the VP talking behind the scenes about all the things we talked about on screen. There was nothing contrived or fake about what you see in the roundtable discussion.

3. There was no atmosphere of eliteness

Despite the presence of Secret Service agents everywhere and despite being a high-profile cable news show involving the Vice President, the whole thing after going through the metal detectors felt mostly…normal.

All the people I interacted with, from the folks arranging my travel to the people headlining the show, were so down-to-earth. Everyone was genuinely nice and repeatedly expressed their gratitude to all of us for being there. I kept thinking, "Wait, aren't I the one who's supposed to feel grateful for this opportunity?" I didn't expect to feel so at ease. There was an air of professionalism, of course, but not at all a stuffy or high-pressured one.

I mean, I chatted with Joy Reid about her hot flashes while we were waiting for Kamala Harris to arrive, for goodness sake. It was obviously a serious and highly organized event with lots of moving parts, but it also felt casual and relaxed, which made it easy not to feel too nervous.

4. I came home to an immediate example of why this issue is so important

The night after I came home from Dallas, I had friends over for dinner. One of them works with pregnant women and told me about a mom who was in her second trimester and very ill. Her bloodwork looked horrible and her health was going downhill fast. It turned out she had a very rare fetal anomaly that was creating her health problem, and she needed to terminate the pregnancy or risk a dire outcome. The anomaly meant there ultimately wasn't going to be a way to save the fetus.

Her previous OB-GYN who had delivered her other children was in Idaho, and though he wanted to help her, he couldn't, because what she needed was an abortion. She wasn't at death's door yet (though technically could crash at any time), so despite the obvious need to end the pregnancy, his hands were tied by Idaho abortion laws. She then had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get to a provider in Washington who could help her, all while her health continued to be in danger.

There are countless stories like this that illustrate the very real implications of the Dobbs decision on real people, including people who don't actually want an abortion but need one. There's a tendency to try to make this issue black-and-white, but it's not. There are unique circumstances surrounding every pregnancy and every childbirth, and real women are harmed when lawmakers insert themselves into healthcare decisions with no medical expertise or training.

It's vital that we keep the moral debates separate from the legal debates on this issue. Pregnancy is a healthcare issue, deserving of medical privacy. No lawmaker needs to be in the room when a woman and a doctor are making decisions about her healthcare. People can debate the morality of those decisions all day long, but keep the law out of it.

I wasn't necessarily surprised, but I was happy to see first-hand how, at the highest levels of this unfortunately politically-charged issue, the concern behind the debate isn't about politics, but about the real people negatively impacted by the court's decision.


From Your Site Articles
reproductive rights
Celebrity

Chrissy Teigen just learned her 2020 miscarriage was an abortion. She's not alone.

'I remember reading "spontaneous abortion" in my medical records after a very much wanted pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. It was devastating to read that.'

commons.wikimedia.org

Chrissy Teigen learned her miscarriage was an abortion.

Having a miscarriage is a devastating experience for most people that have experienced one. No one goes into a wanted pregnancy expecting this sad outcome, and for Chrissy Teigen and others like her, having a miscarriage later in pregnancy is beyond what most people can imagine. But two years ago, Teigen lost her son Jack at 20 weeks, after a complicated pregnancy that landed her in the hospital. Eventually, it was determined that to save Teigen's life, the hospital would need to deliver the baby only halfway through her pregnancy. After some time processing the loss of her son, Teigen came to understand that what she had was, in fact, an abortion.

Since she shared the news recently at a summit called "A Day of Unreasonable Conversation," people have been lambasting the expectant mom wondering how she couldn't know. When I first heard about the criticism of her sharing her discovery, it knocked the wind out of me. One in four women experience a miscarriage and I happen to be one of them. Most people know someone who has experienced a miscarriage and they've hopefully treated them with care and compassion, but few people know what comes next for those of us who have miscarried babies.

After getting through the tears, depression and haze of having had this experience, insurance paperwork shows up in your mailbox or you happen to look over the discharge papers from the hospital and you read the words "spontaneous abortion" in the diagnosis section. If you've had a D&C (dilation and curettage) or D&E (dilation and evacuation), the paperwork may only read "abortion." It reads this way because it's a medical term, even though it's a term that has become emotionally charged.

There are women like Teigen who may have been told something much less harsh when they miscarried. Doctors do their best to not cause extra duress on the person losing a child, so sentences like "we have to induce" or "we have to deliver" are used when they can, instead of words like "terminate" or "abortion."

No matter the situation, oftentimes seeing the word "abortion" on your paperwork when the child you lost was very wanted can knock you off kilter. So many people have been where Teigen is, having the realization the procedure they had was classified as an abortion, even if their bodies completed the miscarriage on its own.

On a post about how Teigen may not have realized she had an abortion, hundreds of people shared their stories about learning what was written in their charts. One commenter, Jennifer, wrote, "I remember reading 'habitual aborter' in my medical record. It was horrible and anxiety inducing. I had three miscarriages back to back while trying very hard to have a baby. I was dealing with a lot. I was not ready to read that in my records."

Another commenter, Julie, said "I remember reading 'spontaneous abortion' in my medical records after a very much wanted pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. It was devastating to read that. There's a reason doctors and nurses don't use that term with women going through that."

Stephanie shared, "I had a D&E because I was bleeding so bad they were afraid I was going to bleed to death. Heartbeat was gone. 3 weeks later I opened the mail and opened up a report with the word ABORTION on it. I screamed and cried for two hours."

The comments go on and on full of people who had no idea what they had was considered an abortion. It's heartbreaking to know Teigen is facing such harsh criticism over her discovery. No one wants to become one in four and no one wants their experience invalidated by people who have never experienced the pain.

Medical terminology doesn't care about the political atmosphere. It doesn't care about how emotionally charged people get around seeing or hearing the word. Medical terminology is there so other doctors and insurance carriers know what's going on and doctors do their best to shield grieving parents from terms that may make things worse.

Teigen may never see the comments people leave, but family and friends will. I don't know if there will ever be a day where the word abortion doesn't elicit such a visceral reaction from people, but education around how the word is used could be a start.

From Your Site Articles
chrissy teigen
Democracy

American Medical Association president explains how abortion laws are already causing harm

'These decisions turn out to be quite complicated in a lot of instances.'

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Abortion is a part of reproductive healthcare.

The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has created a ripple effect of confusion and frustration in the medical field as doctors struggle to navigate the nuances of providing lifesaving care to patients under new state laws prohibiting abortion.

Who would have guessed that legislators criminalizing reproductive medicine—especially when they have no medical training or expertise in what can impact a pregnancy—could backfire? Who would have thought that politicians making decisions about what healthcare a person can and can't receive could lead to increased risks for patients?

Dr. Jack Resneck Jr., the president of the American Medical Association (AMA), knows more than the vast majority of us about why medical care should be left to medical professionals and the harm that stringent abortion laws can lead to.

"These decisions turn out to be quite complicated in a lot of instances," Resneck told journalist Chris Hayes. "So trying to make hard and fast rules in legislative bodies that apply the same across the board is just incredibly dangerous for patients."

Since the enactment of trigger laws in several states after the Supreme Court ruling, we've seen story after story of vital healthcare being denied for patients, from prescription medicines for rheumatoid arthritis to potentially lifesaving interventions in pregnancies gone wrong. Doctors are unclear on what they can and can't do, and the criminalization of care that could fall under the abortion umbrella has created a stressful situation for doctors who end up stuck between providing the best evidence-based care and risking jail time or losing their career.

Resneck provided testimony on behalf of the AMA to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations as part of a hearing entitled “Roe Reversal: The Impacts of Taking Away the Constitutional Right to an Abortion.” In his statement, he explained how abortion laws put both doctors and patients in a dangerous position.

“The recent Dobbs decision overturned nearly a half century of precedent, ending patients’ rights to comprehensive reproductive health care, allowing government intrusion into the medical exam room, and criminalizing medical care," Dr. Resneck said in his statement. "And, now, physicians in many states are reporting chaos and confusion. Physicians have been placed in an impossible situation, trying to meet their ethical duties to place patients’ health and well-being first, while attempting to comply with vague, restrictive, complex, and conflicting state laws that interfere in the practice of medicine and jeopardize the health of our patients. Physicians are worried about prosecution of their patients and themselves in the midst of significant legal uncertainty and this is dangerous for our patients."

Resneck shared that the Dobbs decision is already limiting people's access to medications that treat chronic disease and explained how it will "worsen existing gaps in health disparities and outcomes, compounding the harm that under-resourced communities already experience."

"States that end legal abortion will not end abortion, they will end safe abortion, risking devastating consequences, including patients’ lives," he added.

Resneck wrote that the association has “only begun to assess the full impact of the Dobbs decision on our physicians and their patients," and that at this point there are "more questions than answers." However, he reiterated the AMA's commitment to opposing the criminalization of medical practice and challenging criminal or civil penalites on patients or health professionals who find themselves legally at risk from reproductive healthcare.

If the associations of our nation's top medical professionals—not just at the AMA, but also those that specialize in pregnancy and birth, such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Nurse-Midwives, the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses and more—oppose abortion legislation, we should listen to them. They're the ones who have dedicated their lives to pregnancy-related medical care. They're the ones who understand the medical implications of this ruling and the laws that it triggered. They're the ones who should have a say in patient care, not government officials with no expertise in medical research or practice.

The state governments that are banning abortion are egregiously overstepping. No one but a doctor and the person experiencing the pregnancy should have any say in their healthcare, period.

From Your Site Articles
Trending Stories