Sometimes abortion is the better choice

Almost all of us probably agree that women should not be forced to have children or forced to have abortions, whether the goal is meeting military quotas or saving the planet or obeying someone else's moral code. It tramples human rights. But should we be applying any pressure at all in one direction or the other? Is a nudge too much? And if we should nudge, is nudging them toward pregnancy a good idea? Do we really believe the conservative religious line that women who act "heroically" by continuing unintended or difficult pregnancies are somehow more moral than those who chose to abort? In the current rush to end the U.S. abortion war, some very pro-choice people are suggesting that a push toward pregnancy continuation is a reasonable response to high abortion rates.

It's outright obscene for a government that does as badly as ours in caring for children to even consider encouraging women to continue pregnancies. Benign neglect would be a less evil alternative. And, while encouraging women to have abortions is beyond the pale, we need to acknowledge that choosing abortion could be the most moral decision a woman can make.

I'm all for responsible government, but I refuse to ask women to have children they can't care for, or who are likely to have seriously diminished lives, because some opponents of abortion think having children under any circumstances is the only moral option. I think we must refuse to paint the rosy pictures antiabortion religious leaders falsely put forward of how much help is out there if a woman will only have her baby.

Every pregnancy has possibilities but there are also realities. More often than not, potential parents who are seriously ill-equipped for parenthood can't or don't do a good job. They may decide to become parents anyway, and that is their decision to make, not ours. But it is not our place to encourage them, either. They need the cold hard facts about all options including how tough raising kids is and how little help they will get if they do choose to become parents. If we care about women and children, our policy proposals will be focused on what's best for them and not on what makes us look good or achieves a cease-fire in the abortion wars.