Abortion: Further Reflections

On Oct. 23, 2006, I posted "Roe vs. Wade: Right to Life?" at http://bpa-cinc.zaadz.com/blog/2006/10/roe_vs_wade_right_to_life

Today, I have more to add.

The Basic Issue of Equal Protection under the Law

If abortion were to be banned in the United States, the effect upon poor and rich women would be noteworthy. Rich women, who might decide to seek abortions, could simply visit another country and have their procedures done there. Poor women might find that difficult if not impossible. This is the basic problem I have with movements seeking to illegalize abortion. Such groups would, in effect, be promoting an environment in which the poor would be penalized under the law, while the rich (though still violating the law) would not be penalized.

I suppose it could be argued that the wayward wealthy could be prosecuted upon their return to this country for their crime committed overseas. However, thorough enforcement of such laws would be problematic. Confidentiality laws in other countries might preclude US authorities from proving an abortion had taken place. Perhaps a law could be passed mandating that any woman who leaves the US must take a pregnancy test to determine if she is pregnant. The idea being, she better damn well still be pregnant when she returns ... or else!

You see how complicated and out of control this starts to get.

What about the Tenth Amendment?

According to the US Constitution's Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Please note: I am going to make increasing use of the Tenth Amendment as a wedge to increase the power of the people. Of course, our Founding Fathers had no such intention. However, as time has shown, what is meant by "the people" has been expanding far beyond what the Founding Fathers imagined. Not just in terms of including former slaves, women, and those without property. What is meant by "the people" has assumed greater primacy due to the reasonable expectation that people have for greater personal freedom due to our increased national wealth and the unforeseen social transformations wrought by technology.

One of the "powers not delegated" (referred to in the Tenth) could be the power of "the people" to assert a "universally-acceptable" morality or sense of common decency. This would not necessarily entail an establishment of religion, but could simply boil down to: "What are the behavioral standards We-the-People accept as being minimal?" For example, most people could not find it acceptable to abort a perfectly healthy baby, living inside a perfectly healthy mother, on the day before its birth. However, any sober and unbiased reading of the Fourteenth Amendment would allow exactly this type of abortion to proceed (seehttp://bpa-cinc.zaadz.com/blog/2006/10/roe_vs_wade_right_to_life.

Interpretations like this, though perfectly valid, make it hard to be a strict constructionist. Especially since it would seem that the Tenth and Fourteenth Amendment would be at odds here.

Righteous Nation

I understand the sentiments of the Religious Right, when they pray that the United States continues to warrant God's favor by becoming (more and more) a righteous nation. This is not an alien concept to Buddhists (my tribe), since they extol the virtues of the so-called Wheel-turning Sage King. Nations have karma just as individuals do. However, I believe that the collective karma of the United States would actually be improved by granting each woman the right to choose whether to give birth. This is because the nation would be respecting each individual woman's conscience and decision-making power. It is only through showing respect for all of its citizens (and honoring their choices) that a nation becomes righteous.

I believe our negative national karma would be far more easily overcome by treating other nations with more respect than we do at present, and not using our energy to (instead) persecute women faced with agonizing personal decisions. [No, we're not always the good guys.]

Suppose a novel application of the Tenth Amendment created a moral imperative that abortions be banned. If this were done during my presidency, I would still do as I promised: Grant a presidential pardon to any women brought up on charges of violating any newly-established anti-abortion law. This is ironic because I personally do not believe that the president (or state governors) should have the power to pardon. I would, however, use that power to help an abortion-seeking woman avoid imprisonment. This promise is in my contract, the basis of my presidential campaign.

As a side note: Any US president could decide to completely empty the federal prisons of all offenders. He could do this on his own authority and it would be perfectly constitutional. This is one reason, among many, that I favor a complete replacement of our current Constitution. Of course, one other reason lies in the conflict between the Tenth and the Fourteenth Amendments, mentioned above.

Buddhist versus Christian Perspectives on Abortion

Based on my brief readings on how Christians view unbaptized babies (for example, aborted fetuses), I sense their uncertainty. Some argue that the unbaptized go to Hell...period. Others say, "to limbo." Others say, "No such place as limbo." Others are uncomfortable with the aborted being given a "free ride" to Heaven "simply" because they were aborted...but why should they be damned?

Buddhists don't struggle with these issues, or at least this Buddhist doesn't. I've heard, "at the instant of conception an eternal soul comes into being." What nonsense! Each of us has existed from the infinite past and will continue to exist into the infinite future. If we end up being aborted somewhere along the line, it is simply because our personal karma dictated this outcome in this particular life cycle.

That being said, I believe it would be harder for a Buddhist woman to abort than for a Christian. As I understand it, all the Christian would have to do is ask Christ to forgive the sin. Though a Buddhist woman would not view her aborted child as never being able to have another chance, she would feel that her unborn child had indeed lost a precious opportunity and would have to wait for a long time for another such opportunity to occur.