| Abortion will be one of the most decisive domestic policy issues during the impending 2008 elections. But progressive propaganda on this issue - the fundamental `right to privacy' couched in the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade - has grown stale. How then, in an era where precedent is just a nine letter word, should the pro-choice position be framed? The answer is to distinguish between the right to choose from the choice and, rather than vehemently defending the former, offer cogent policy that affects the latter.
Roe v. Wade ensured women the right to choose. Thus, continuing to frame the abortion debate as a Constitutional right is ineffective and only makes Roe v. Wade more vulnerable. Instead, the abortion debate should focus on the factors that drive some to choose abortion, including the personal and economic hardships families currently endure.
To motivate this much needed paradigm shift to the abortion debate, it is important to understand the state of parenthood in the US. In a recent report by the Urban Institute titled, "Framework for a New Safety Net for Low-Income Families", nearly one-third of non-elderly families with children are low-income (defined as family income less than $40,000/year in 2006 dollars). Their low-income status, however, does not stem from low labor force attachment: 71% of adults in these non-elderly, low-income families exhibit moderate to high levels of labor force attachment (defined as working 1,000 hours/year or more).
Despite the high level of labor force attachment, these families face high levels of job insecurity and are more likely to be affected by economic downturns. Furthermore, with about one quarter of US jobs paying $9 an hour or less, low-income parents are finding it difficult to provide basic family needs: 27% of high level working families worry about or have had trouble affording food when needed, 27% have had trouble paying their rent or mortgage, and 36% lack health insurance coverage.
The Urban Institute report concludes, "Because low-income families are less likely than better-off families to have flexibility at work, are more likely to be raising children with physical or emotional health problems, and are more dependent on each week's paycheck without significant private resources, they face even more wrenching conflicts between family and work than other Americans."
A more "wrenching conflict" between family and work faced by current parents, however, is the decision to abort or deliver a child confronted by prospective parents. Given the sad state of low-income families in the US, pregnant (often single) women must choose whether to abort a child all too often.
Thus, the high rate of abortions in the US is, and should be framed as, a systemic lack of sympathy for the dispossessed rather than a lack of morality among them. And abortion itself should be viewed as a sign of desperation rather than a lack of family values. In this regard, the major shortcoming with the right to choose argument is that it focuses on the individual, making women appear as the transgressors rather than the victims.
Senator Obama alluded to this point during the South Carolina Democratic debate. In response to whether he would use Roe v. Wade as a litmus test for high court nominees, Obama argued that we should make it "less likely for women to find themselves in circumstances where they've got to anguish over these decisions." Potential policies to improve the outlook for current and potential families include ensuring appropriate wages for workers, providing adequate care and income support for disabled parents and children, and increasing support for childcare for both working and nonworking parents.
Obama continued, "…can we move past some of the debates around which we disagree and can we start talking about the things we do agree on?" What we should agree on is that one abortion is one too many, leveling all moral high grounds that the conservative right now enjoy. What we disagree on, however, is how best to decrease the incidence of abortion in the US. |
