Roe v. Wade – Have We Gone Too Far In Both Directions?

It’s Complicated

Our Solution: Adoption Instead of Abortion

It seems to me that we’ve greatly misinterpreted the Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade. I don’t think they were anticipating third term abortions or killing babies out of the womb when they passed it. I’m positive that wasn’t the issue they were voting on.

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion. However, it ruled that this right is not absolute, and must be balanced against the government’s interests in protecting women’s health and protecting prenatal life. The Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the three trimesters of pregnancy: the Court ruled that during the first trimester, governments could not prohibit abortions at all; during the second trimester, governments could require reasonable health regulations; during the third trimester, abortions could be prohibited entirely so long as the laws contained exceptions for cases when they were necessary to save the life or health of the mother.  Because the Court classified the right to choose to have an abortion as “fundamental”, the decision required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the “strict scrutiny” standard, the highest level of judicial review in the United States (click here for the full Wikipedia definition).

The full report can be found in the Library of Congress (click here)

I am actually a pro-lifer, but I do believe in abortion rights.

What I personally struggle with is how can a woman consider herself to be a mother if she doesn’t believe her unborn child is a child? A mother protecting her body has always been the big argument of the pro abortionists and it is her body. Well, if it’s her body, how could she be a mother if she doesn’t believe it’s a child in her womb? Also, what about the Unborn Victims of Violence Act? I believe it was President Bush who said, “Any time an expectant mother is a victim of violence, two lives are in the balance, each deserving protection, and each deserving justice. If the crime is murder and the unborn child’s life ends, justice demands a full accounting under the law.” And it was John Kerry, who said “I have serious concerns about this legislation because the law cannot simultaneously provide that a fetus is a human being and protect the right of the mother to choose to terminate her pregnancy.”

These are questions I personally struggle with. I get that not everyone agrees with me and I’m okay with that.

It’s all very complicated.

But again, I do believe in abortion rights. It’s my opinion that an abortion should only be allowed up to the second term. I would prefer abortions be done in the first trimester, but I understand there are certain situations when a woman may not know she is pregnant until she is beyond that point or there are extreme circumstances such as high health risks or she is a victim of incest or rape.

I also don’t believe abortion should be used as a form of casual birth control but unfortunately, I think it is.
We have killed approximately 60 million babies since Roe v. Wade. But if you don’t believe they were babies, then that figure wouldn’t bother you. If you believe it is a baby, then that would be 60 million adoptions that we potentially could’ve had. More than that, probably 70 million because some would have been twins, etc.

When you consider that 40% of the abortions are in the African American community, who represent 7% of the women, had it not been for Roe v. Wade they would represent 12%.

You can check the abortion statistics at www.cdc.gov.

When you read about the history of Planned Parenthood as well as the philosophies presented in the book Freakonomics written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, it’s disturbing. According to Freakonomics our crime rate has been reduced because of the decrease in births due to abortions. It’s been great for our economy to not have to take care of these potential burdens on our society. Then there is Planned Parenthood’s origination which is said to have ties with the eugenics movement and the Ku Klux Klan. Just think about it. How has this impacted the growth of certain minority populations?

Contrary to Planned Parenthood, I think we need to develop a stronger and more accessible national adoption system. Where the adopters allow the birth parents to be part of the child’s life if they choose to. This would be a great solution to reducing abortions.

I don’t think the option of adoption is promoted strongly enough in the U.S.

I’ve been told by many people who have gone to Planned Parenthood, that no one talked to them about adoption as an option. They said there’s a brochure on the wall and that’s it. Planned Parenthood thinks more money is to be made on abortions. According to their website without insurance the out of pocket cost to get an abortion is $500 to $1000 or more.

Every year there are about 1,300,000 abortions. And it is estimated that there are between one and two million couples waiting to adopt. Only 4% of women with an unwanted pregnancy place their child through adoption.
Let’s do the math on this. Hypothetically let’s say in one year Planned Parenthood did 1,000,000 abortions at $1,000 per abortion they would make $1,000,000,000 (a huge business). Now what if 800,000 of those abortions were adoptions instead? Let’s say they charge $10,000 per adoption. They would make $8,000,000,000 in a year. We could have the private sector build a better, happier business. The average adoption costs $30,000 to $40,000 per child. The mother gets paid living expenses through her pregnancy. The adoption can be financed over ten years by the private sector. Remember there are approximately 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 couples waiting to adopt.

I wish Planned Parenthood would focus on that as a priority.

I’m confident it would be more profitable for them. But more importantly the advantages it would have on the mental health of many women and as the gift it would give to so many people who can’t have children.

Adoption can be such a wonderful thing.

Especially if it is an open adoption. My wife and I were blessed with children. One of which is adopted. With our adopted daughter we regularly sent pictures and updates to her biological mother. When she was 10 years old we told her that she was adopted. We figured she was old enough to know and understand. We also told her how special she was to us because we were able to choose her. We encouraged her to reach out to her biological mother if she wanted to. Her biological mother appreciated knowing how her daughter was doing, knowing that she made the right decision giving her daughter the opportunity for a great life.

I understand that not every situation will play out as well or in the same way as it has for my family. But we can’t ignore how much opportunity there is out there for us in our own country.

It makes me sad to think that we choose to adopt children from other countries and abort hundreds of thousands of our own children each year. It doesn’t make sense to me.

I know having an abortion takes a mental toll on many women and that many have suffered the long-term effects from it. I get that people want to take the fast, easy way out, but no one talks about the emotional impact on a woman after she has had an abortion. Over time it happens, often times they’re young. They solve the problem. They’re okay. Sometimes they’re not. Many times, it’s 10 or 20 years later when they’re mental acuity starts to kick in and they end up going to psychiatrists to deal with it. They wonder about their baby that could have been.

I have to share Ashley Bratcher’s story. Ashley Bratcher is the actress who plays the part of Abby Johnson in the movie Unplanned. It’s the story of Abby Johnson, the youngest Planned Parenthood clinic director that quit her job and became an anti-abortion activist. According to the Catholic Digest just after four days on the movie set Ashley Bratcher found out from her mother that she was in a clinic on the table about to have an abortion when she changed her mind and left. Ashley would have never been born. Ashley found out that her mother had an abortion when she was 16 and that she had considered aborting Ashley. But, she never knew that she was literally moments away from never existing. What an amazing story (click here).

I realize that adoption is not the answer to all of it, but it could be the answer to a lot of it. And Planned Parenthood could do so much more to advocate for it. Instead they seem to advocate for eugenics and the slow genocide of the African American population in our country.

I want to see an adoption process that provides a tremendous amount of resources to the birth mothers while making it more affordable and steam-lined for people to adopt. For those birth mothers who are struggling in one way or another provide them with resources for mental health counseling, financial assistance, education, job referral assistance, etc. Let’s create a super program that helps everyone.

I don’t think abortions will totally be eliminated, and I also don’t think backdoor abortions are the right thing either. We don’t want to put people in harm’s way and we need to come to a compromise that stops the challenge to Roe v. Wade.

The recent radical laws that have been passed by some states has opened Pandora’s box. Let’s face it. The new Alabama Bill banning all abortions has the county reeling in disbelief. According to a recent Gallup poll the country is divided 48% pro-choice and 48% pro-life (click here).

Then we have our Presidential hopefuls and Congress entertaining the thought of repealing the Hyde Amendment. Can you imagine? Isn’t it enough that those who believe in pro-life accept pro-choice and a women’s right to choose. It’s one thing to go against your own personal and religious beliefs in the spirit of compromise but to ask them to fund it through their tax dollars is crazy. If I were a Presidential hopeful I wouldn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole. It will be fought greatly and put Roe v. Wade in even more jeopardy.

I don’t think the majority of the people who considered themselves as pro-choice believe in allowing a child to be killed outside of the womb or in third term abortions without serious restrictions. And I don’t think Americans want abortions to be banned completely. Why has it become so extreme on both sides?

Wouldn’t it be a better mantra for Planned Parenthood to be about celebrating life rather than terminating it?

So, let’s reduce it greatly by focusing on developing an amazing US adoption program.

What are your thoughts?