is there such a thing as a 'just abortion'?

Because my line of work puts me into contact with a variety of points of view on abortion, I've been thinking about — and grappling with — the issue a lot in the past few years. For me, the interesting parts of this thought process have been not so much from the legal perspective but the moral one.

I get very frustrated by the rhetoric on both sides of this debate, and I find myself wishing — aching, in fact — for some intelligent discussion that does not continually revert in a kneejerk fashion to one political position or the other. So I was inspired when I saw this conversation on the Feminary blog. Basically, the Feminarian poses the question of whether, just as there are moral arguments supporting a "just war," there are also moral arguments supporting "just abortion."

It's rare that I hear such intelligent, nuanced considerations of this question from a moral standpoint. Here's what I mostly experience, at least in soundbytes, and it seems to revolve more around the legal question, which seems too black-and-white for such a complex and personal issue:

"Pro-choicers," in their zeal to keep abortion legal and easily available to all sectors of the population (via public funding, for example), refuse to sway from the point of view that it's completely a women's issue, all about the mother and her "reproductive rights," with almost no acknowledgment of another life to be considered. The mother's body is paramount, even if there happens to be another tiny body involved. It bothers me that the question of whether an unborn fetus/baby has rights (not to mention whether a woman, once pregnant, has an obligation to take responsibility for that newly created life) is automatically not up for discussion, and those who raise the questions are derided as "not on our side," as if the "humanity" of an unborn creature is already decided to be less-than, when perhaps there is a legitimate reason to consider that all human beings ought to be considered in the equation.

"Pro-lifers," in their zeal to criminalize abortion, refuse to address the fact that abortion has always existed and always will, whether legal or illegal, and making it go away goes beyond the question of law: It's going to take a commitment on the part of the whole society to better support pregnant women — and born children and mothers and families — even if this commitment requires them to consider more progressive social policies that go against their political grain. Once a baby is born, it seems, they lose interest in protecting it. ("They already have people to protect them!" one woman I talked to kept insisting by way of excusing her single-track focus on abortion.) Some, though not all, seem to lack a full sense of understanding and empathy for the incredibly complicated and personal reasons women have for choosing to terminate a pregnancy.

And on both sides, there are unresolved moral questions about when life actually does begin, when a life becomes viably human enough to have equal rights, whether it is sometimes acceptable to terminate a life. I don't take lightly the Catholic Church's position that all life is sacred, and that, biologically, life begins at conception. Yet I know the church also has rationale for just war, which also takes innocent lives. The church also makes allowances for allowing a sick person to die if the burdens of caring for that person outweigh the benefits. (This is a thorny issue, though, made clear by the Terri Schiavo case last year. Is a strictly biological definition of life worth defending, or does a life cease to become meaningful when it has no consciousness?) And let's not even get started on the division between people who will fight tooth and nail to protect the lives of unborn children yet refuse to support policies against the death penalty or innocent casualties of war. Is only "innocent" life sacred, not all life? So, even within my religious tradition, I struggle.

I find I've been thinking about this on an even more personal level as I carry our baby through this pregnancy. It has been impossible for me not to think of our baby boy as a separate little person whom I must protect as fully and responsibly as if he were living outside my womb. When friends have lost babies to miscarriages, I am excruciatingly aware of the separate life that has been extinguished. That is probably where my moral sense of an unborn child's humanity leans, but I know there are other women whose pregnancies have convinced them even more strongly that a woman should not be forced to go through such an experience unless she fully chooses. And I have to ask myself the tough question: What if we'd found out that our baby was going to have severe disabilities or birth defects that would make his life incredibly difficult for himself and everyone in it? Would I feel the same way? I think all children are precious, and I can't imagine ever terminating a pregnancy, but I've never been in the shoes of someone who has made that tough decision.

I don't have answers. Wrestling with the questions, and listening as much as I can, are the best I can do. And I appreciate the Feminarian's post for helping me think about it in new ways.