Seeking a bridge across the divide

Linda Dunn

It’s no surprise Indiana lawmakers are talking about introducing a law similar to the recent one in Texas. Since Roe v. When the country became law in 1973, I watched with a mixture of confusion and concern as proponents and anti-groups line up and fight to overthrow or defend it.

I don’t have a dog on this hunt as I struggled with endometriosis-related infertility problems for several years before finally reaching motherhood. However, I have often wished that our politicians would stop using this issue as a political wedge to “raise the grassroots” and instead address the underlying problem that drives this great divide: the principle of physical integrity.

When does the state have the right to tell us what we can and cannot do with our bodies? And isn’t it ironic that we hear the same phase – “My body, my choice” – from those who oppose the wearing of masks – as those who speak out against abortion restrictions?

Are we really that far apart when we have physical integrity and a desire – perhaps selfishly – to put ourselves first?

I fully understood the decision of an acquaintance – whose wedding and (later) funeral I attended – who rejected the doctors’ advice and successfully brought her pregnancy to a close before she died. She sacrificed herself.

I also understood and empathized a story shared by someone who made a different decision: In the days before Roe v. Wade’s wife’s doctor gave him contact information for an abortion doctor and told him to have her abortion or find another doctor because he refused to sign her death certificate. The fact that they had preschoolers weighed heavily in their decision to drop out.

We seem to have forgotten what drove many women’s demands for abortion in the era of this second couple: Our maternal mortality rate was 32 per 100,000 births in 1972 (according to Vital Statistics of the United States, CDC), and that rate declined significantly as the year progressed Roe v. Calf. Also, our abortion death rate was 6.3 in 1965 and less than 1 in 1973.

Unfortunately, this trend has reversed in maternal health. The maternal mortality rate was 17.4 in 2018 and rose to 20.1 in 2019. It is also higher than in around 50 other developed countries. Then why not focus on improving access to quality medical care for all pregnant women combined with easily accessible quality childbirth and follow-up care?

The health risk to women remains a major and legitimate concern that our politicians have consistently failed to adequately address while tightening abortion restrictions. Unfortunately, it has received far too little attention, especially when you consider that the fight for the right to abortion was originally supported by many religious organizations that oppose it today.

In 1971, delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, passed a resolution calling for “Southern Baptists to advocate legislation that prohibits abortion under conditions such as rape, incest, and unequivocal evidence for severe fetal malformations and more carefully verified evidence of the likelihood of damage to the mother’s emotional, mental and physical health. “

Can you imagine them taking the same stance today?

Some people say they have had a “change of heart”. I think we have made great strides in science and technology.

Ultrasound alone had a huge impact on how many of us saw the beginning of life. Fetal reconstructive surgery, prenatal surgery, and prenatal surgery have offered opportunities that we didn’t have in the 1970s. We have also developed new measures to address many disabilities that once limited not only life expectancy but also the quality of life that one would enjoy.

I believe that this has resulted in our being far less inclined to accept a situation as hopeless. We are now less willing to accept bad news and insist on a medical miracle.

A “medical miracle” has made the water cloudy for many of us: 1.5% of all babies born in the USA are the result of in vitro fertilization treatments.

The belief of many that life begins with conception should make the practice of IVF medicine as illegal as abortion, but you don’t see protesters (at least not me) in these centers talking about “medical waste” disposal complain .”

The Catholic Church forbids IVF and many other fertility options, as do some other Christian sects; but most of us – especially because we know someone with fertility problems or have suffered from them ourselves – are willing to make an exception in this one area.

I am sure. My youngest grandchild is the result of IVF after several medical interventions and disappointed hopes and dreams.

I believe and hope that the long-term solution to this ideological divide lies in medical advances and better access to this technology. At the moment, however, we are in the middle of the fact that women rightly want and demand physical integrity, while a minority is enacting laws that restrict it.

I predict that Texan law and those who obey it will protect the lives of the unborn as effectively as the 18th Hygiene in America. “

There has to be a better way. We should put our differences aside and work together to find them.

Linda Dunn, who lived in Hancock County all her life, is a writer and retired Department of Defense staff member.

source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/09/21/seeking-a-bridge-across-the-divide/