Compromise - Moral Issues in Politics - Abortion
- Ian Hacker
- Jul 22, 2019
- 6 min read
Cartoon time! *Click*, "Stacey George Charlie Madeline fights for you. SGCM has consistently worked across the aisle with their colleagues in the Senate... State Senate... House of Representatives..." Politicians touting their cross-party work had been a campaign running piece my entire childhood commercial life. My brain became saturated with their add speech. Saying you were more than a party seemed to be a great advantage, and then I looked and thought.
Compromise is hard in any situation. Sometimes a compromise makes it feel like everyone lost. If there is one cookie, and three people, sure it stinks if you only get a third of the cookie, but life moves on. Plus, you got a third of a cookie, instead of nothing. In politics, if you are fighting for something you believe is an ethical need in society, it is much harder to rationalize taking a third of the cookie. The two-thirds of the law enacted, or the two thirds of the cookie you do not have, would make you feel rotten to your core. People blame the other side for not compromising. They then state compromise is needed in the government of the United States of America, but take a moral view you hold and make a compromise with it. For instance, I find the 2019 Alabama Abortion Bill HB314 painful and scary:
"On November 6, 2018, electors in this state approved by a majority vote a constitutional amendment to the Constitution of Alabama of 1901 declaring and affirming the public policy of the state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children. The amendment made it clear that the Constitution of Alabama of 1901 does not include a right to an abortion or require the funding of abortions using public funds. " ( Source 1, HB314, Page 2 1-8).
I find the bill above disturbing because of how it restricts, coming close to fully banning, the reproductive rights of women. I do not think the government should have any right to restrict a woman's body, and her choice, especially because unlike other restrictions, such as gun control or environmental bans, an abortion does not endanger the general public. For the backers of the bill, the words "sanctity of unborn life" stand out as important. The backers' words make me believe they feel an embryo or fetus is equivalent to a human. Their belief that impregnation is equivalent to a human makes them feel the need to protect the embryo or fetus. Making a compromise is hard because both sides feel like they are giving up on protecting the rights everyone deserves. Moral and ethical differences create the highest and most dangerous mountains.
Compromise can come down to majority opinion, which has been the case in some abortion laws. People see the development of the embryo and then the fetus and the transitioning point into being a human at different times. This timeline dictates some laws surrounding abortion. According to a May 2018 Gallup poll, 60% of those polled believe abortion should be legal within the first three months, 34% illegal, 28% believe abortion should be legal in the second three months, 65% illegal, and 13% legal in the final three months, 81% illegal (2). So state governments like California and New Mexico ban abortions only once "viability" (when the fetus or child can live outside of the womb, 22-28 weeks) has been achieved, (3,4).
Majority rules is an idea for how to compromise on big issues, but the past has shown the majority believing something does not make it right. In the history of the United States, White Americans have felt superior to other races, seeing African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans as subhuman or even animals. Racism is still a problem people, especially people of color, deal with daily. This racism has been backed by the majority in many instances throughout history, inside and outside of the United States.
Some personal reasons I have a hard time compromising with the writers of the Alabama Abortion Bill is because of how extreme the bill, and their opinion, is on the issue. This makes me think their idea of a middle ground law is wildly different from my idea. The bill bans all abortions except those that put the mother's life in danger. This leads to cases like the raping of a woman and a subsequent pregnancy where the mother has no choice. She must carry the tremendous emotional burden her attacker gave her and then have her attackers baby. How can that be right? Her body, her choice. A crime as evil as rape should have its impact limited as much as possible by the law, not furthered. With HB314 writers starting on the side where a raped woman should not be allowed to have an abortion, where is the middle? Is the middle for them when abortions are only allowed in the first six weeks of a pregnancy, or is it more towards a middle I am okay with, like the states law legalizing abortion before "viability" has been achieved and banning it after, as long as the mother is not in danger.
One of the hardest things compromise entails is listening to words that make you boil at the seem. The Alabama Abortion Bill states:
"It is estimated that 6,000,000 Jewish people were murdered in German concentration camps during World War II; 3,000,000 people were executed by Joseph Stalin's regime in Soviet gulags; 2,500,000 people were murdered during the Chinese "Great Leap Forward" in 1958; 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 people were murdered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during the 1970s; and approximately 1,000,000 people were murdered during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. All of these are widely acknowledged to have been crimes against humanity. By comparison, more than 50 million babies have been aborted in the United States since the Roe decision in 1973" (Source 1, HB314, Page 3 14-24).
The lawmakers compared abortion to genocide. They compared killing millions of humans based on ignorant hatred filled ideas, with the impossibly difficult act of choosing to have an abortion. The Alabama Law Makers named every person who has had an abortion in the same breath as the Khmer Rouge and Nazis. The stated abortion statistics do not even say if they take into account abortions that might have occurred because of a danger to the mother's health. If the mother might die, how can the choice to have an abortion be wrong? Is it even a choice then? Abortions are not something a persons hopes to have, but they are something a person deserves the right to choose. It is her body. An abortion is something I can never experience, but the emotions and sorrow involved in that choice seem like something that will always be in the mother's memory and heart.
In the end, can either side compromise? From my view, forcing a woman to make a choice about her body seems like a terrible human's right restriction. The other side wants to protect what they see as "the sanctity of unborn life". People can debate when an embryo or fetus becomes a human, and that can push the direction of law and the conversation in one direction or another, but it's hard to compromise when you feel like you are giving up or taking away human rights. Is either side okay with half a bad cookie? Does the good half make up for it?
Those are some good questions to end on, but I'd like to say a few more words. Humans have created a world that is better than ever before despite our differences. We have done this through compromise, even with hard questions. One day, a compromise might become a situation where a whole side gets a cookie, and hopefully, that the idea, law, or people deserve that cookie. It sucks we cannot get what we want all the time, especially when it is something we feel so strongly is wrong or right, but pragmatism allows for some movement, and some is better than none. Finally, fight for what you believe in, use words and kindness, stand your ground but keep an open mind, and most importantly, listen, think, and feel.
Sources
[1]http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/ALISON/SearchableInstruments/2019RS/PrintFiles/HB314-enr.pdf
[4] https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/factsheet/sfaa-nm.pdf
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