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My Secret BurdenThe abortion-rights movement grapples with repression.

By William Saletan
Posted Thursday, March 9, 2006, at 7:29 AM ET

Friday morning, leaders of pro-choice and feminist groups gathered at the Center for American Progress to debate the movement's future. One of the panelists reported that the latest annual tally of abortions in this country was 1.295 million. The most recent comparative numbers, detailed in an article I brought to the meeting, indicated that our abortion rate exceeds that of every Western European nation. "Raise your hand if you think that number is too high," the conference moderator told the 50 people in the room.

I saw one hand go up. The woman next to me said she saw another. The two hand-raisers used to work for pro-choice groups but no longer do.

This is the predicament facing the abortion-rights movement. It's led by three kinds of people: Those who see no problem, those who are afraid to speak up, and those who think it's futile. I'm betting that the denial, fear, and futility will give way. But it'll take time.

I should mention that I didn't raise my hand. I was invited to the meeting, along with my friend Katha Pollitt, to debate the wisdom of declaring a pro-choice war on the abortion rate. Katha and I are on the record on this question. I'm for it; she's against it. Although I'm pro-choice, I can't claim to be part of the movement. I haven't earned it, and as a professional critic, I can't make such a commitment. So I came, I made my case, and then I shut up and listened. It was like preaching to the choir, except that my preaching was Sunni, and the choir was Shiite.

The silence about whether there are too many abortions was partly a nuance problem. Some attendees worried that saying yes would signal approval of restrictions rather than voluntary reductions. The hard-nosed political people in the room probably wanted to slap their foreheads at this hairsplitting. I certainly did. The lesson of John Kerry's defeat, and arguably the whole sorry history of recent Democratic politics, is that nuance kills. (I wrote a book arguing the opposite, but, uh, I'll explain that another time.) Most voters think in simple terms. Sixty percent of them have no problem telling pollsters they want fewer abortions. If you can't connect with these voters, you're in trouble.

I'm not a woman, obviously, so I hesitate to say this—but is it really true, as some folks at this meeting argued, that abortion is fundamental to how today's women construct their lives? I understand the point, made by the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that this generation of women has grown up with the implicit assumption that they can get an abortion legally if they need one. But I find it hard to believe that many women would call this part of how they construct their lives. You construct your life around things you expect, plan, or hope for. You might construct your life around your menstrual cycle or your boyfriend's maintenance of the condom supply. But abortion? Isn't that the thing you don't construct your life around, because you don't want to think about it? And shouldn't a movement that aims to reflect the way women construct their lives deal with it in that context, as a fallback?

My other problem at gatherings like this one is that I'm not a lefty. So, I listened with dismay as some speakers dismissed the abortion debate as a byproduct of racism and misogyny. Pro-lifers don't really care about morality, said one participant: They just "want white women to have more white babies." She went on to assert that leaders of protest groups such as Operation Rescue do what they do because they have no other way to make a living—possibly the most amazing statement I've ever heard, considering that the entire penalty-avoidance strategy of such groups is perpetual poverty. I'm happy to vouch that the people in this room, some with backpacks or spiky hair, are nothing like the "abortion industry" depicted by pro-lifers. But it's not like the grunts at the National Right to Life Committee have been lunching at Jack Abramoff's restaurant.

Then I have this hangup about relativism. Like most people, I'm open to relativism. If you accept that the rightness or wrongness of abortion depends to some extent on circumstance, or that as a general rule, the woman in question is more entitled to weigh the moral factors than Rick Santorum is, that makes you a bit of a relativist. But it was clear at Friday's meeting that many pro-choice activists go further. They're absolutists about relativism. They argue that abortion is good because it's what a woman wants, and that the goodness or badness of abortion depends entirely on her choice. They insist all choices must be "respected" and "free from stigma." I don't get it. If everything has to be respected, what's the value of respect? If every exercise of liberty has to be free from stigma, how secure is liberty?

This is why I'd never cut it in a movement. I have no patience for diplomacy, or, as I prefer to call it, evasion. Right away, I got in trouble for calling abortion "bad." I like such words because they're blunt: They express a nearly universal gut reaction and make it clear which direction you'd like to go. The absolute relativists in the room found these words unacceptable, since they "stigmatize" and "pass judgment" on women and doctors. (As far as I can tell, women who have abortions, and doctors who perform them, are more judgmental about the act than the movement's leaders are.) To my relief, cooler heads pointed out how judgmental the absolute relativists are about gender equality and human rights. Liberals treat judgment the way conservatives treat sex: forbid it, except when you're doing it.

I knew I'd get flak for using the word "bad." But I was amazed at the group's reaction to the word "responsibility," which was the subject of the next panel. "Responsibility is to me a code word that has a lot of racial and class … implications," said one participant. "I don't like the word 'responsibility,' " said another. "I don't want to talk about responsibility unless we're talking about the government taking responsibility," said a third. Hoping to bring the discussion back to earth, the moderator suggested, "Is there a way for us to reclaim the idea of responsibility?" The answer was a chorus of rejection, punctuated by a "No way!" She retreated apologetically.

Fortunately, repression, even when practiced by the left, doesn't work. Again and again, participants who decried stigma, judgment, and overt advocacy of fewer abortions went on to concede that some women find abortion "sad" or that pro-choice policies on birth control and sex education reduce the abortion rate. Advocates who work with post-abortion women were the most explicit. One described the abortion dilemma as "awful." Another called for more stories of women who, while regretting their own abortions, wouldn't deprive others of the choice. Slowly, as though coming to terms with buried sexuality, the abortion-rights leadership is groping for a way to think and talk more frankly about the morality of ending unborn life.

In part, this process is being driven by political defeat. In part, it's being driven by the truth of women's experiences. In part, it's a matter of younger women taking over the movement, uninhibited by old fights and fears. And in part, it's a matter of reflection by some who fought those fights but see how times have changed. Abortion no longer symbolizes freedom and women's rights as it did in the 1960s and 1970s, one old-timer observed; the movement must ask how abortion fits into its mission, not the other way around. Another veteran warned her colleagues that fetal life has become "the elephant on the kitchen table": If you can't acknowledge it, people will tune you out.

In the struggle for self-correction, such candor and wisdom will help. So will humor. Toward the end of the meeting, a Planned Parenthood executive announced with delight that Wal-Mart had just agreed to stock morning-after pills. "Of course, we don't want anyone to shop at Wal-Mart," cracked a woman to her right. Everyone laughed. Irony is part of a well-balanced diet, especially when you're earnest.

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William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.

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Notes From The Fray Editor:

The Fray is at its finest in response to Saletan's latest – replete with thoughtful replies, rooted in a wide range of perspectives, and challenging almost every aspect of Saletan's argument. Get in on the discussion in the Human Nature Fray. -- G.A.

Remarks From The Fray:

[...] I do not construct my life around my ability to have an abortion. I DO construct my life around whether or not I want to be a parent nine months from the moment. That is why I am on the pill. [...] Of course I don't want to think about getting an abortion. That's time out of my schedule, money out of my pocket and probably a great deal of emotional anguish. I'm fortunate enough not to know. But an abortion is a back up plan *in case* I am pregnant and the things I dearly want in life — a husband, for one thing, a home, financial security, a fulfilling career I can come back to — are not in place at that time. [...]

[M]y life isn't constructed around my ability to obtain an abortion. It's constructed around my career, finding my future lover, spending time with my friends, doing my hobbies, planning my vacations, helping my family, and a big part of that planning depends on when I choose to create a family. [...]

--SpaceCadet

(To reply, click here.)

[Saletan] should try a pro-life conference. Maybe he has. Maybe he can attest to the over abundance of male pragmatism in the pro-life movement. It seems to me that their whittling away at the edges of abortion rights is a very pragmatic approach. Therein lies a key difference between the two movements as far as I'm concerned. Pro-choice men are unconcerned. For them, it's a woman's issue. Their general logic is simple. If they were a woman, they'd want the option. But they're not women and are content to leave it up to women to protect the right. Pro-life men are a different story. Not only is the pro-life movement deeply rooted in the male dominate hierarchies of religious institutions, but pro-life thinking men, generally speaking, believe they are fighting for justice and the life of innocents. That's their business. Or to put it more bluntly. The women in the pro-life movement aren't threatened by their male allies. If anything, they welcome them. The battle over abortion is nothing short of boys and girls vs. girls. That's why the pro-choice movement is losing. They don't have the numbers because their male counterparts are more than content to sit on the sidelines. [...]

--SonofGoliath

(To reply, click here.)

I'm pro-choice but not pro-abortion. [...] I have a friend who had a late-term abortion when she discovered her fetus had Downs. I had zero problem with that until they named the baby and had a memorial service for it. Now, I never said anything to her and I remain committed to the idea that it was her right to make that choice and that never having faced that dilemma I wasn't in a position to disapprove. But if she considered it a human baby enough to name it and have a memorial service, it bugged me that she could then kill it because it wasn't perfect.

So, I'm not welcome in the pro-choice crowd or the anti-choice crowd. I'm just representative of the majority of Americans who are told they have to choose sides based on absolutes. It makes it tough to get excited and involved. So it's up to the extremists on both sides and unfortunately, the right has more extremists than the left so abortion rights are themselves going to be aborted.

--C-D-Day

(To reply, click here.)

[...] I have never heard anyone--even the most ardent pro-choice activist--ask a woman when her fetus will become a human being. Instead, they ask: when is your BABY due? [...] If you listen to the rhetoric of the pro-life movement, a two-month-old embryo has the same moral status as a two-year-old child. However, if the South Dakota legislature truly believed that, it would have made the women who have abortions subject to prosecution for premeditated murder. They did not do so, which suggests to me that most pro-life people don't really believe that early-stage embryos and fetuses are morally equivalent to born human beings. They simply believe that the choice belongs with the State.

--JeffonMelrose

(To reply, click here.)

[...] The problem with the "Pro-Choice" movement is that the chief beneficiaries of safe legal abortions do not really become advocates for the future right of another women to make the same choice, particulalry since they now have mixed feelings over that choice. [...] The trick is to throw the moral dilemma back onto anti-abortion activists. In other words, are they willing to expose the identity of every woman, man, or doctor who has had or participated in an abortion in the past and criminalize that choice. To put it simply, the pro abortion movement has to rename themselves "Those Unwilling to Throw the First Stone" and the Anti-Abortion movement as "The Hypocritical Stone Throwers." [...]

--koplaw

(To reply, click here.)

Valuing human freedom and equality is not relativism. [...] The fact that we have a different idea of what constitutes morality (advancing human capabilities and equality) than that proposed by conservatives (sex is bad) doesn't mean that we subscribe to the post-modern notion that all viewpoints are equally valid. They aren't. The conservative formulation of morality as primarily a sexual phenomenon is ridiculous and flat out wrong. And I don't care that conservatives nominally care about morality in other facets of human life. Their policies betray their true priorities. [...]

If you don't think that zygotes are fully formed human beings [...], the only way that abortion would be a tragic choice is within a society which tells women that sex is bad and that giving birth is their societal duty. [...] The very premises upon which believing that abortion is bad is based are core problems that liberals see in our society--gender inequality and an unhealthy attitude towards sex. That does not make us relativists, and to claim otherwise is intellectually dishonest.

--rufustfyrfly

(To reply, click here.)
(3/10)

Like Will Saletan, I attended a recent meeting at the Center for American Progress with reproductive rights and health activists to discuss the morality of abortion and the meaning of responsibility. And like many of my colleagues, I had read Saletan's exchange with Katha Pollitt of The Nation and was eager to hear what they had to say. After reading his March 9th Slate posting, "My Secret Burden: The abortion rights movement grapples with repression," however, I can't help but wonder if we were in the same room that day. I don't recognize the repressive, judgmental, absolute relativist, radical lefties he condemns in his description. I recall a robust and thoughtful debate on a number of complex issues surrounding abortion, pregnancy, and motherhood by participants who represented a range of perspectives.

We spent much of the day sharing visions for our society, including one in which women could have the abortions they needed in a climate that is not politicized, or one in which the pain some experience with abortion could be acknowledged and respected. We questioned the word "responsibility," as it often is used to imply irresponsible sexual behavior on the part of certain communities – primarily low-income people, people of color, and in almost all instances, women - while ignoring the obligations of government to provide people with the services and resources they need to prevent unintended pregnancies and raise healthy, wanted children. We argued that the focus on the abortion rate distracted from what many of us see as the real problem - the U.S.'s high rate of unintended pregnancy. We also expressed concern for the women who wanted abortions but could not get them because of legal restrictions and barriers to access. Far from being unreasonable and absolutist, the views expressed by my colleagues demonstrated a depth of understanding of the issues, a genuine respect for differences of opinion, and a collective commitment to ensuring a humane, just, and healthy society.

According to Saletan, nuance kills in the world of politics. He is looking for blunt language and a streamlined political strategy to combat the right wing's ferocious attack on reproductive rights. He wants to talk about abortion in black and white, avoiding the gray. But abortion is not a just a political issue, isolated from the totality of women's lives. Those of us who gathered at the Center for American Progress that day were talking about real people and the complicated lives they live. In other words, we were giving voice to the gray. I, for one, think that although we must speak clearly, we cannot avoid the nuance inherent in this issue. If Saletan really wants the abortion debate to change, he should start getting used to the gray.

--AimeeTT

(To reply, click here.)