We need to talk: opening dialogue on abortion to protect our rights
It can be difficult to discuss topics that engender deeply held convictions. But in our efforts to avoid conflict and arguments, we also deny ourselves the opportunity to delve into those issues most important. At the intersection of politics and religion lies the hardest topic of them all: abortion. Yes, ignorance is bliss, but complacency has vicious consequences. Our avoidance of discussing abortion furthers our entrenchments and creates barriers to progress.
In the years following Roe v. Wade’s establishment in 1973, the right to choose became a political and medical presupposition. Many assumed that Roe v. Wade was indisputable and that the right to have an abortion on U.S. soil was forever guaranteed. Yet, we soon witnessed the Supreme Court’s blatant contraveneance of legal precedent in 2022’s infamous Dobbs Decision, viscerally changing America’s political and medical landscape.
Following the pivotal moment of Roe’s establishment, it is not that we stopped seeing demonstrations or media advocacy on abortion rights; it is not that abortion left our dinner table debates or uninhibited the ballot; but it is that we no longer needed to fight to get Roe v. Wade. We no longer needed to convince anyone. So, in many ways, we stopped. We stopped exploring the rhetorical intricacies of the right to choose and all of its implications; we stopped examining why abortion is a necessary right and how to communicate that to those around us.
It should be noted that this article is not intended to minimize or ignore the efforts taken by the thousands of powerful figures who have continued the crucial plight towards bodily autonomy. It is intended to serve as a belated revisitation of the science, ethics, and pressing consequences of bodily autonomy in the pro-choice lens.
The cutoff to have a medical abortion (through the use of the abortion pill) is nine weeks after the pregnant individual’s last period. The cutoff to have a surgical abortion is between 14 and 16 weeks, depending on state and clinic; this is around the end of the first trimester of the pregnancy. (It may be noted that only in emergency scenarios when the parent or fetus’ life is in danger will an abortion possibly take place after this period). Anti-choice rhetoric often insists that because the embryo’s undeveloped heart begins beating roughly five weeks into pregnancy, to terminate a pregnancy at either of these points would be to kill a living individual. While very logical, this argument lacks medical understanding; research has shown that the brain development necessary to be legally considered living does not occur until 25 to 35 weeks of pregnancy, well beyond the window of offered abortions. At the stage in development in which a pregnancy can still be terminated, the fetus is not alive; it cannot feel pain, it cannot experience consciousness, and it absolutely cannot be compared to a living, breathing, thinking human being.
The rest of the common pro-choice argumentation stems from the acknowledgment that a fetus in the first trimester is simply not alive. When we assert the phrase, “My Body, My Choice,” it is because we understand that a pregnant person is a living being, and the fetus inhibiting them is not; in the sense of this phrase, the fetus is still a part of the pregnant person’s body.
Once again, complacency has vicious consequences. Every right is vulnerable to facism, but I remind my reader that, to paraphrase Walt Whitman in A Song for Occupations, government and politics and civilization exurge from you. Our great nation exurges from you: your creed, your values, your wishes and wants. So take a seat at the table; talk about abortion, talk about guns, talk about the sacred liberties that inhibit a healthy world; talk about why, talk about how, and talk about what if.
Written by Ivy Bergin
