Conservative, Moderate And Liberal Positions On Abortion

The recent nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court justice has sparked major outrage among advocates of abortion and women’s rights. His appointment threatens the reversal of the trademark decision made in the Supreme Court case Roe V. Wade which legalized abortion to an extent in all fifty states. This issue has been an extremely polarized issue between Republicans and Democrats and their constant battle to keep federal laws inside the boundaries of the church while encouraging the separation of church and state in order to prioritize human rights.

The differences and similarities between conservative, moderate and liberal positions on abortion are pronounced and they deserve thorough investigation.

The far right conservatives have fought for many years to ban abortions by strongly arguing that it is an unethical act which allows the killing of a fetus. The republican GOP member Chris Christie recently accused Democratic Party leadership of murder by saying “Hillary Clinton, believes in the systematic murder of children in the womb to preserve their body parts”.

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Moreover they believe that since most taxpayers are opposed to abortions, it is unfair to use tax money to pay for abortion procedures. According to Forbes magazine’s 2015 issue “Are taxpayers paying for abortion” “taxpayers subsidize roughly 24% of all abortion costs in the U.S.”. The pro-life movement, centered around the conservative population suggests that there are moral considerations other than those of the life of a fetus; among these concerns is the concern for the well-being of the mother who goes through immense physical and emotional trauma by undergoing such a life altering procedure.

The right to life movement believes that having an abortion causes a woman to drift away from God and lose her faith, which leads her to depression. Margaret Cuthill from the abortion recovery care and helpline told telegraph magazine that, “Many of the 95 per cent of women [in the study] will during their lifetime find it wasn’t the answer for them. I have women coming to me on a daily basis, whether their abortion was three days, five months or 10 years ago and who have lived with a secret they’re ashamed of and regret.”

The issue in regards to the liberal side of the argument is that abortion is done before the development of a fetus and therefore if there is a chance that the child may have a life threatening birth defect, it would be considered wise to let the mother have an abortion so that not only will the child be saved from being subjected to a short and painful life, but the cells retrieved through an abortion can help children and adults suffering from terminal illnesses. Author Carina Storrs writes in her article “how exactly fetal tissue is used for medicine” that “Fetal tissue has been used since the 1930s for vaccine development, and more recently to help advance stem cell research and treatments for degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease”.

With scientific innovations and more funding for planned parenthood the liberals have more reason than ever before to turn abortion into a legal right with no strings attached, but what they lack is the approval of their conservative counterparts to agree to it. Despite the constant guilt trap of murder the republicans use to defend the outlawing of abortion, the democrats have been very compromising even though they refuse to grant the conservatives the authority to ban abortions all together. They argue that an unwanted child brought into this world is likely to be abandoned and put through immense emotional and physical struggle, therefore abortion is not only a women’s right, but also a way to prevent child abandonment and homelessness. The liberal feminist Iris Young called out conservatives in an interview for “the new republic” magazine by saying that “For the right-to-life movement, of course, no fact about the potentially miserable outcome of the fetus's birth affects the imperative that it be born”. Furthermore, children who are raised without parental supervision and a proper family structure often turn to crime and violence to seek attention. Jerry. Z Muller, in his article “the conservative case for abortion” states “A growing consensus holds that unsocialized children are at the heart of our social deterioration, not only because they are more likely to engage in violent and criminal activity, but because they lack the discipline needed to learn in school and to function in the workplace”.

While the liberals and conservatives have highly differing views on abortions, the moderate group has opinions which relate to both parties. The moderate population advocates for safe sex and contraception throughout the country. They believe that it is necessary to prevent unwanted pregnancies and it is also imperative that a woman should be given the right to choose. Some underlying principles of the moderate party are that women and medical specialists should abide by certain timeframes in order to ensure that the abortion will cause no harm to a growing fetus or the woman carrying it. Although the moderates have well thought out beliefs regarding abortion, most of their ideas do not please the conservatives because they have convinced themselves that abortion in any stage or situation is in fact murder. In author Damon Linker’s words, “At six months. At three months. At six weeks. At four weeks. The morning after. The timing doesn't matter. There's always a homicide victim and a perp”.

In conclusion, the case for abortion is a three way debate among conservatives who are limited by their unwavering loyalty to the church to see the positive side on abortion, the liberals who stand by the right to choose principle at the expense of potential trauma, and the moderates who cling to preserving both the right to choose and the right to life ideas based on struggle and circumstance. The reality is that the country has chosen the wrong people to decide. We do not need middle aged, rich and privileged men and women deciding what women and children can and cannot have; we need strong independent women, medical professionals and an overall less judgmental society to heal the emotional wounds of families regretting decisions they made under fear and pressure and stitch the broken hearts of unwanted children who were abandoned by their parents at birth. The most important thing we need in this political climate is acceptance, and more importantly love, a trait lost among our country’s differences.