A Family Perspective on Abortion

Abstract

Abortion is the most politically divisive of all the so-called family issues. Though a pregnant woman’s decision either to abort or to give birth dramatically affects her family life, the family considerations that weigh in her decision are rarely mentioned in public debates and are seldom discussed in the volumes of writings on the subject. This chapter outlines what these family considerations are and argues that they should be given greater weight in both legal and ethical discussion.

Until quite recently, I had no doubts about which side of the abortion controversy I belonged to: I was a rather unreflective supporter of the prochoice movement. I began, however, to find that certain phrases of the prochoice movement grated on me, and that some of the arguments of the prolifers struck a resonant chord. I disliked the tactics of both sides and found that their strident certainty did not correspond to the way I believed most people, including myself, thought about the complex issue.

My prochoice sympathies grew naturally out of the values I learned from my family and from experiences as a child and a student in England. Both my parents were public health doctors and served as medical missionaries in China, where I spent the first four years of my life. Their experiences in China, however, led to a loss of their once deep religious faith. I grew up as the eldest of three in an agnostic household guided by many Christian ideals. I remember always being aware of the problems of poverty, ill health, overpopulation, and the evils of war. My parents were both British socialists, and my father was an ardent pacifist. I went to a progressive boarding school where many of the faculty were left-leaning in their social and political views and many were Quakers. In college, I was active in socialist clubs and went on several peace marches. I don’t ever remember discussions about abortion with family or friends, though we talked at length about the need for the sexual revolution to be accompanied by responsible birth control use. I am confident that the pacifists I knew would have supported abortion, seeing no inconsistency in this position.

All of these factors led to my deep conviction that it was our duty both as a society and as individuals to attempt to remedy the evils of the world; and to my belief that the problems of poverty, ill health, and inequality could be remedied. Everyone, I thought, should be able to have as much control as possible over the circumstances and the direction of their lives: One important step toward this goal was controlling the size of one’s family, and choosing whether and when to become a parent. Later, in America, two close friends did have abortions for reasons that I did not question at the time. The main issue, for them and for me, was not the morality but the illegality of abortion: how to get a safe one. (The other issue was the absurdity of finding three doctors to certify that my friend was suicidal.) Luckily, I have never had to face an unwanted pregnancy myself, although when I was pregnant during the rubella epidemic, both my husband and I had no question about what we would do if I contracted rubella. I greeted the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision as one victory for good sense in the battle to overthrow a number of archaic and repressive laws concerned with sexuality. Although I was involved in several ways in the women’s movement, abortion was not the central issue for me.

Ever since my undergraduate work in philosophy, politics, and economics, I have been interested in theoretical issues. However, my years of practice as a social worker and a family therapist have taught me to respect a diversity of situations and values, and to distrust any theory or policy that did not work in practice. My work with families has profoundly changed the way in which I view the world. My professional growth parallels my own progress through the life cycle. When I was a young, unattached individual who was loosening my own family bonds, individual rights and freedom of choice seemed of utmost importance. Now that I am a wife, a mother of three, and a family therapist, I am more impressed by the value of connections, responsibilities, commitments, and context.

In particular, becoming involved with two families whose 16-year-olds became pregnant led to my interest in the family issues surrounding a teenage pregnancy. Directing a policy research study on the topic, I was disturbed to learn of the large numbers of teens getting abortions and the numbers of women of all ages who were clearly using abortion as a method of birth control. I realized that I no longer felt that abortion was an obvious or simple choice or indeed solely a woman’s right. I knew that I needed to think through my position much more deeply.