Roe Must Stand

It's the 33rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade today, and I'm taking a couple of minutes to stand up for it. I'm sick of reading/hearing from/discussing with progressives who feel that Roe needs to go away for feminism/the Left/the Dems to recover. Some now say that, with the popular tide turning against abortion (the rate is dropping among all but the poorest women), Roe is just getting in the way of the important issues. But if abortions are becoming less prevalent among the voting citizenry, wouldn't it make sense that the issue will fade in importance except among fanatic pro-lifers? With better contraception preventing more and more unwanted pregnancies and the vogue for middle-class single motherhood reducing the shame factor for some, Roe could become a kind of "blue law." The Left/feminism/the Dems will move on naturally if that happens.

Whereas if Roe gets overturned, we'll have to devote our energies to dozens of state-level battles and the inevitable Underground Railroad to make sure women who do choose abortion get it. The Left/Feminism will be COMPLETELY preoccupied with the fight for abortion rights.

Doesn't that seem like cold, practical logic? That said, my own conviction that the right to choose still matters is unwavering, even though -- in fact, because -- I am a mama because a brilliantly compassionate and brave woman "chose life," as they say. Mallory's choice was the beginning of our family-building, the first step in the many incredibly hard choices that unite us all today. Open adoption needs this choice, too, to be the open-eyed and open-hearted process it can be.

It's become a cliche to say that the abortion wars are a matter of faith; well, my faith tells me that whatever the soul is, it doesn't cease existence when the biological vessel expires, whether that happens in utero, at thirty, or at eighty. It finds another vessel. That's the soul's choice, as one lapsed Catholic bad Buddhist maybe someday Quaker sees it.

Oh, and by the way -- for now, it seems "Jane Roe" has been forgotten by those pro-lifers who've used her as a mouthpiece all these years. I hope "God" does provide for her soon, as she says.