Crowded Train: Oh Yeah, The Big Protest

The ride into the city on the Red Line this morning was a nightmare. First, it was seven degrees outside when I left the house. Then there were track problems at Rockville station and a train broken down at Medical Center. A nearly-empty train pulled up just as I ascended to the platform at Twinbrook, three or four sleepy looking people in each car -- the train stopped, sat there, never opened its doors, and it left again. The next train was a classic rush hour sardine can, as I tried to get toward the center of the car a guy standing at the door coughed all over me. He coughed all the way to Metro Center. There was a backpack jammed into my side and people jockeyed for a grip on the overhead support rails, too close for comfort.

After a few stops the familiar sound of chattering tourists out of season made me remember, oh yeah, today's the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. They're having their big protest on the mall. I didn't see any signs this year, not one, but there were excited teenagers on the platforms and you could tell they were from out of town. If you live here you know the sound of it.

It is intriguing to me that abortion, of all things, is the most emotional issue, the one they kill over. It is estimated that forty percent of American women have had an abortion, this isn't something obscure or rare, it's something that happens every day. Conservative women have abortions, liberal women, white and black, religious women and nonbelievers.

I think almost everyone would agree that preventing an unwanted pregnancy is better than terminating it. That's one reason it is important to teach young people how to properly use contraceptives. But the fact remains, approximately half of pregnancies are unintended, and sometimes life's circumstances lead a woman to decide to end the pregnancy.

The idea that an embryo is a person from the moment of conception is unnecessarily absolute. For simple minds that can only consider black-and-white truths, this may be a useful heuristic, but I don't believe that anyone in their right mind really believes that the expulsion of a pinpoint ball of cells from the uterus is equivalent to killing a real baby. If you believe that a deity introjects a soul into some biological material at the moment of the union of a sperm and ovum, then fine, you have the right to believe that. If your religious beliefs teach you that aborting a fetus is a kind of murder, then again, good for you, nobody minds if you think that. The appropriate response then is for your religious leaders to promote practices that result in live births for members of your religious group. It doesn't matter how right you think you are, not everybody agrees with you, and they also have the right to their beliefs.

When it comes down to it, the only person who can decide if a woman will have an abortion is the woman herself. The father can offer his input, he may have an opinion, but in the end she is the one who will decide. It's just the way nature created us, the developing fetus resides inside the body of the female of the species, and she's the one with the final word on how that body will be treated. She may be intimidated or even forced to choose one way or the other, but a civil society should respect the fact that it is ultimately her decision.

The idea that government should force women to have babies seems entirely un-conservative to me. The decision to abort is perhaps the most private decision anyone can make, you are choosing whether to bring life into the world, and no one makes that decision capriciously. And yet the trains are crowded today with excited conservative people, conservative leaders will speak to the crowds, insisting that the government is better suited to make that decision than the woman herself.

If these people want to meet to show their support for pregnant women, in other words if they were really "pro-life," then there would be no controversy. They can rally to support live birth, encourage women to prevent unwanted pregnancy and provide assistance to those who are not sure they can handle the responsibility of a child. But I have the feeling we are not going to see a lot of people promoting birth-control pills and condoms on the Mall today, I am pretty sure we are not going to hear a lot of cheers for welfare and other assistance for impoverished mothers. No the subtext today will be about the irresponsible inferiority of women and minorities.