Can We Break the Abortion Impasse?

   The following is a philosophical experiment, an attempt to create a 
forum for discussion between the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life movements. It 
is not meant to be a complete solution to the debate, only a point of 
departure for constructive dialogue. I am, in part, challenging the 
assumption that the central goals of the two groups are mutually 
exclusive. 

   I am not asking the reader, "Does this theoretical model give you 
everything you want?" but rather, "For the sake of peace between you, 
could you live with this?"

Introduction
 
The abortion debate has long been so polarized, so emotionally 
charged that no end is in sight to the legal wrangling, the protests, or 
the abortions themselves. In such an atmosphere the only way one side 
can get what it wants is by the other side's losing. Americans have 
never been particularly fond of losers.

What if we could construct a hypothetical resolution to the issue to 
which both sides could agree? Getting both sides on this issue to agree 
to even a hypothetical solution would be a major accomplishment and 
perhaps point us in the direction of a real-world resolution to this 
debate.

Common Denominator

Certainly Pro-Choice advocates do not want abortions. They do not 
want to have to bear or bear the lifetime responsibility for children 
who are the products of an unplanned pregnancy. Enduring pregnancy only 
to place the child up for adoption seems to them too heavy a burden. 
They see abortion as their only recourse.

Pro-Life proponents view the fetus as a complete, although still-
developing, human being deserving protection under the law. For them, 
abortion is murder. They want it abolished.

Unplanned pregnancy here is the common denominator. Eliminate that 
and the abortion problem blows away like so much chaff in the wind.

I believe it may be at least theoretically possible to develop a 
solution which will address the concerns of both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice 
camps. 

One caveat here is that there is no perfect solution. As long as 
both sides are determined they must get everything they want, just the 
way they want it and right now, no progress is possible. However, there 
may be a way to give each side essentially, if not entirely, what it 
wants.

For this next trick I will require the assistance of a philosophical 
device: a drug.

A Modest Proposal

*There is a drug which when taken will turn off a person's fertility 
indefinitely, and another drug to counteract the first.*

The problems of unplanned pregnancy, teenage pregnancy, and abortion 
are major health issues in this country. Other such problems have been 
addressed already in this century: smallpox, polio, tuberculosis and 
others. In this model, unplanned pregnancy will be treated in a similar 
fashion.

At entry into school at age five, children will be required to 
present proof of inoculation against fertility, just as they must now 
present inoculation records for smallpox, polio, etc. Like these others, 
the anti-fertility drug will be freely available through the public 
health department or through a family physician. Both boys and girls 
will be required to have the inoculation.

Anytime after reaching the age of eighteen, upon request, a person 
could receive the counteractive vaccine and be free to pursue 
reproductive activities as she or he sees fit. Afterwards, the original 
inoculation would again be available to prevent further pregnancies.

Since this compulsory program would begin with five year-olds, people 
older than five would be allowed a lag-time period (say, eighteen 
months) to get theirs voluntarily. After that time, abortions, except in 
specific cases (rape, incest, health of the mother, etc.) would become 
illegal. Since traditionally many men have assigned to women the task of 
birth control, financial responsibility for children they father should 
be more strictly enforced at the federal level (with child support 
withholding and, perhaps, a penalty) as an incentive to be inoculated.
  
Age Restrictions

Age restrictions on specific activities are nothing new in our 
culture. We as a people recognize that certain developmental and 
educational milestones must be reached before a person is ready to take 
on particular adult responsibilities.

We do not let people drive until the age of sixteen. We do not let 
people vote until the age of eighteen. We do not let people purchase and 
consume alcoholic beverages until they are twenty-one. Why, then, do we 
assume a person is prepared and has a right to become a parent as soon 
as he or she reaches puberty? (Note: The average age for the onset of 
menses has dropped from about thirteen in the fifties and early sixties 
to nearly ten, and in some cases nine, now. Does a nine year-old have a 
constitutional right to become a parent?)

   Rationale behind some of these age restrictions include protecting 
the public from the effects of accidents caused by the irresponsible 
behavior of persons too immature to handle those particular proscribed 
adult responsibilities. The poverty, inadequate education, and  
hopelessness represented by teenage pregnancies weighs on the mother, 
the parents, the child, and the entire community. Do under-age parents 
have a right to burden their children and the community in this way 
simply because they are biologically able to conceive?

Responsibility

One feature of this model is that both sexes bear responsibility for 
birth control. The woman does not carry that burden alone by default. 
She still retains the right to choose when and how many times she will 
become pregnant. As prospective parents, both must make a conscious 
decision to get the counteractive vaccine if the woman is to get 
pregnant at all. If either chooses not to conceive, he or she can remain 
infertile.

No real vaccine is 100 percent effective. Some small percentage of 
the population will get the vaccine and yet remain fertile. This can 
easily be tested and effected individuals alerted. Even so, given the 
fact that both sexes have been inoculated as children, the probability 
that two unprotected, unsuspecting people from this small population 
will mate and conceive is minimal.

Having a child, under this model, becomes a matter of conscious 
choice, of accepting personal responsibility, and not an accident. Human 
history has demonstrated that as responsibly as one might try and act, 
unplanned pregnancies still occur. Sexual desire can cloud the judgement 
of even the most conscientious. And expecting self-control alone to do 
the job has proven itself an unreliable solution in the real world.

In this country we do not demand an exceptional degree of personal 
responsibility from our people. Still, if somone wants to get a driver's 
license, once or twice in life he or she may be required to memorize the 
driver's handbook, pass a written test, and pass a driving skills test. 
If one wishes to vote, once or twice in life he or she must be 
responsible enough to bother to register. To purchase alcohol (through 
your twenties, at least), you must be responsible enough to get a valid 
picture ID to prove your age.

I do not believe it is requiring too great a degree of responsibility 
from people to have to visit the health department once or twice in life 
to manage one's reproduction.

Pros and Cons
 
Certainly there will be some religious groups and others who will 
object to having themselves or their children inoculated. They can apply 
for and get their five year-old children exempted. Beyond that, their 
own participation would be voluntary. As these groups typically oppose 
abortion anyway, nothing will change for them. The fact both male and 
female must be unprotected for a pregnancy to occur will still provide 
their children of both sexes with significant protection. Any 
responsibility for inculcating sexual morality remains, as it should, in 
the parents' hands.

Some women may still object on principle to having the abortion 
choice eliminated, even though the vaccine will eliminate the very 
necessity of ever having to make such a choice. But while abortion is 
perceived as a woman's only recourse, demand for the service will 
continue, and the political will to abolish it will never materialize. 
With the introduction of this type of program, however, an abortion 
will become a rare occurrence and demand will wither, making a ban 
politically practical. With this level of universal birth control, the 
Pro-Choice camp gets essentially what it wants. Women will not have to 
bear or bear the responsibility for children who are the products of 
unplanned pregnancies. Those pregnancies simply will not occur.

The Pro-Life camp has long had a secondary goal of promoting its view 
of sexual morality in public policy. The teaching of sexual morality, 
however, is properly the purview of parents, not of the federal 
government. Objections will be raised that making them infertile 
(temporarily) will send the wrong message to children and foster 
promiscuity. But then, what political or moral message did you get as a 
child when you had your smallpox vaccination? Still, for the foreseeable 
future, AIDS should provide as effective a curb on promiscuous behavior 
as Pro-Life groups could wish. And when Pro-Life groups appear in public 
at rallies, at marches, or at abortion clinic protests, the signs and 
slogans they use say things like, "Save the Babies," "Abortion is 
Murder," "Ban Abortion Now," or "Stop the Genocide." Rarely in such a 
public forum have I heard the issue of sexual morality raised. I treat 
it here as they do in public, as a separate issue.
 
This model, then, gives the Pro-Life camp what it publicly says it 
wants: a ban on abortions. Again, there is no perfect solution to this 
issue. Everyone may not get everything she or he wants. But if accepted, 
this model might reduce the number of annual legal abortions from about 
1.5 million to from a few hundred to a few thousand, those being the 
legal exceptions which even many from the Pro-Life camp approve, a 
reduction of over 99 percent. Accepting this model could prevent the 
deaths of over one million babies a year in this country, an achievement  
Pro-Life forces would be reckless to reject out of hand.
  
Conclusion

This theoretical model gives each side in the divisive abortion 
debate essentially what it demands, though perhaps not everything it 
might wish.
 
   Clearly, no such drug now exists, but if debate over the framework of 
this model can create some areas of agreement and opportunities for 
constructive dialogue between the Pro-Life and the Pro-Choice camps, 
that is, in itself, significant progress over where we now stand.

Perhaps we may promote the discovery of workable alternate modalities 
for achieving the same results. Then, hopefully, we can reach some modus 
vivendi and put this painful controversy behind us. Other social 
problems now go wanting for the vigor and commitment of people of 
conscience on both sides of the abortion debate.


-Thomas M. Sullivan  4/2/91