I was raised Catholic: First Communion, altar boy, confirmation – the whole 9 yards. My parents ran a group called “Pro-lifers For Survival,” though they were against the death penalty and for a preferential option for the poor, making them a bit more consistent on sanctity of life than many of today’s anti-abortion crusaders.
Needless to say, I thought viability was a great test for abortion laws. If the fetus can survive alone, shouldn’t the father get the chance to care for it?
I was wrong. Working as a physician-scientist and moonlighting as an LGBT activist, I think I’ve gained some information and hopefully some wisdom. As I watch the back and forth about 20 week (and sooner) abortion restrictions, I feel there is an important point that is too often left out: technology is a terrible lens through which to view fundamental rights.
For a moment, let’s leave the idea of fetal rights out of the equation, and look at a different basic right important to the LGBT community. Imagine it’s 2030, and a genetic test for homosexuality is invented. Bob goes to the county clerk’s office with his boyfriend, Phil. They prick a finger on Bob and Phil, run the blood through a little machine, and deny them a marriage certificate. It seems that Phil is bisexual, and the most recent Supreme Court ruling says you can only marry someone of the same sex if you are 100 percent gay. Otherwise, as Chris Cooper so ably argued to the Court in 2023, America has a rational interest in seeing you marry someone of the opposite sex so you can procreate more easily.
Sound absurd? No more absurd than mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds, fetal pain and fetal masturbation would have sounded when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. (OK, that last one still sounds absurd.) Yet each is being used in attempts to limit a woman’s right to control her own body, as is medical progress that can keep prematurely born infants viable at an early time.
The viability argument gets pushed by people who think that once a fetus could live outside the womb, a woman has a duty to give it the chance, even at personal risk. For those who believe in such fetal rights, I have another example. Imagine a time when a part of your body could save a life, and it requires only a minimally invasive procedure with little danger to your health. Should you be compelled to do it?
The procedure is living kidney donation. The time is soon, if not now. Still, the answer is a resounding “No!” Which is as it should be, because your control over your body shouldn’t depend on technology, or on the needs of another.
It’s a startling and imperfect comparison, but not a terrible one, particularly with regard to risk. The mortality rate for kidney donors is about 3 in 10,000 and will probably decrease with technologic advancement, while the pregnancy related maternal death rate is 1.3 in 10,000 pregnancies and rising. I don’t think abortion restrictions will lead to government forced transplantation, but it is a potential stop on a very slippery slope.
Living donation also demonstrates the positive potential of technology. Surgical advances have made the procedure safer and imaging techniques and blood tests have provided important data on the risks and benefits of the procedure. That information has been compiled in educational materials, which have helped people make the best decisions for themselves and others. All the while, it’s been voluntary.
Which is how it should be for women.
President Clinton once said abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” Medical advances are best suited to help with “safe,” by making both abortion and pregnancy less dangerous. If technology and data have a role in “rare,” it is neither as part of an argument to fight “legal,” nor as an intimidating and demeaning forced transvaginal ultrasound. Rather, it is by offering respect and support for the decisions women make before, during and after pregnancy.
