Lift sex taboo, abortion debate will end

Shane is a third-year political science student.

By Jennifer Shane

Amanda Schapel’s argument that women should turn to
lesbianism in order to solve the abortion debate is certainly an
original and perhaps practical idea. (“Lesbianism may solve
debate over life, rights,” Viewpoint, Jan. 31) The only
problem with it is the people who oppose abortion are likely to
oppose lesbianism, too.

Thus, the key to stopping the abortion debate and the debate
over sexuality in general is to liberalize the issue of sex.

Sex is a common occurrence: It had to happen for each of us to
get here. It’s nothing special. It’s made taboo,
though, by people’s religious beliefs and morals. In
Christianity, for example, premarital sex is discouraged, and even
when a couple is married, sex is regarded as a mechanism of
conception and reproduction more so than an expression of love.

Sex is made into a secretive rite by conservative ideologues. It
becomes something that should only be talked about by adults (who,
obviously, are the only ones who have sexual impulses) and
something that should only occur between a man and a woman.

The problem with making sex into an unspoken and mystical act is
that its outcome, pregnancy, is regarded in much the same way:
sacred and untouchable. Thus, conservatives who oppose abortion
feel justified because they’re opposing the culmination of
something they frequently deny themselves, something that seems
super-human.

The value of pregnancy becomes equated with the value of sex
(and any good economist knows that when demand is high, but
“supply” is low, value increases).

Out of this is born the opposition to abortion. Having an
abortion seems like a violation of the holy act between a man and
woman, an act that’s supposed to produce more babies
(according to what Adam and Eve were told).

But there’s something wrong with this picture: Though the
Bible may command us to ward off premarital sex, nowhere in it does
it say abortion is bad or shouldn’t be done. It doesn’t
even say the word abortion in the context we think of it. This is
something contrived by theologians and religious leaders, not a
specific Biblical command.

The Bible does oppose murder, but it doesn’t oppose
abortion. Abortion, when done early, involves the removal of a
cluster of cells. The developing cluster may eventually take the
semblance of a baby, but it is not really a person until it
develops the ability to think and feel emotions. These attributes
are what make a person a person, and this is why when pregnancy
reaches the third trimester it is unethical to pursue abortion,
because the baby can basically be born and survive on its own.

Many oppose saying that if the baby wasn’t a person, then
it wouldn’t grow. But, in the first few months of pregnancy,
potential life is just that, potential not actual. An egg is also
potential life, but when you take it away from the chicken, you
prohibit life from starting. You do not kill it; there is no life
to kill.

Sometimes it’s difficult to accept this point because we
attach our values to pregnancy, but viewed under a lens of pure
pragmatism, it makes logical sense.

The key to viewing abortion more practically is to stop viewing
sex in an impractical manner. It’s a common practice that
everyone thinks about, and though they may not admit it in Sunday
school, it is something that everyone wants to do. Once we
liberalize our view of sex, we can begin to think of pregnancy as
something all mammals do and not as something holy.

Liberalizing sex can also void abortion in the first place.
Frank and candid discussions about sex during which protection can
be encouraged and explained (with a realistic mind-set that teenage
sex cannot be stopped) will work to curb the need for abortion.

If conservative and religious people feel strongly about not
having abortion, they need to give up some ground to get a victory.
Stop making sex such an unspoken subject so your kids can come ask
you how not to get pregnant ““ that way, they won’t have
to ask you about abortions instead.