Abortion is a moral matter – this is the best defence for Roe v Wade

Despite the advances in contraception, abortion remains the ultimate means of birth control. When contraception fails, or we fail to use it effectively, abortion is a safe way to reset our bodies to “not pregnant” and reboot our lives.

The wisdom of the Roe v Wade judgement – that a woman’s decision about if, when and with whom she has a child is a “private” matter – is as relevant now as it was 30 years ago. No one other than her can fully know the complications and complexities of her own lived life. Only she has the insight to make the shaded judgement about the future of her pregnancy.

In essence, the argument for access to abortion is not complicated. As I explain in The Moral Case for Abortion: A Defence of Reproductive Choice, it is based on the moral right of every woman to decide on the future of her pregnancy according to her conscience, whatever her reasons or circumstances. There are basically three straightforward points.

Firstly, the state should stand down and back out of private intimate matter as to whether a woman will continue or end the pregnancy that is in her womb. That is for her to decide. Secondly, however much we value the “unborn”, it cannot diminish how we value the “born”. A woman does not become less of a person or have fewer rights because she is pregnant, and one of the most important rights we have is that of control over our bodily self. Just as no one can demand a woman give up a kidney to save her sister, so no one should demand she endures an unwanted pregnancy. Finally, ultimately abortion is a moral matter, one that must be subject to the conscience of the pregnant woman since, she can best consider the context of her pregnancy and will live with the consequences of the decision she makes.

In the 1970s, activists understood that abortion was a matter of freedom and a matter of personal choice. Now, this is contested. Forty years ago, when I first became involved in abortion politics, as a student in England protesting against attempts to restrict our rather liberal law, it was Conservatives who slapped back my arguments for “freedom of choice”, for “a woman’s right to decide” and who denied there could be any moral case for abortion.

Now it seems to be those who fly the banner of reproductive justice who seem to be most hostile to these foundational principles of what it means to fight for freedom of reproductive choice. Indeed, the very terms “freedom” and “choice” are dismissed by reproductive justice activists as privileged, consumerist and elitist. I am told I should no longer reference abortion to the biology of birthing, or pregnancy to women since this is exclusionary, despite the fact that abortion has been stigmatized and restricted because it contradicts the social role in which conservative society casts women – that of mother. Abortion is demonized as a rejection of motherhood, when often it is chosen because a woman values her capacity for motherhood and understands what it would take from her.

Abortion is defended as necessary evidence-based health-care required by all, as though this is enough to protect it from assault from those who believe it is murderous. White supremacy within the movement for reproductive rights, expressed through micro-aggressions and misgendering, is identified as the most pressing problem while the scope of abortion services is macerated state by state. A narrative based on justice and equity talk of moral matters is ultra vires.

Those who disagree with the availability of this healthcare procedure should not be engaged but cancelled so their voices are not heard. But here’s the problem. For most folk, especially those outside the metropolitan bubbles, abortion remains a deeply moral matter that speaks to the nature of individual human life, its beginning, and its value. No adequate defence of abortion can side-step and ignore that. Nor should we. Rather we should welcome the opportunity to discuss how we understand the importance of the self-integrity and moral determination that allows us to express what is human in our lives.

Freedom and choice may have become unfamiliar to the “leftist” justice warriors but surely, they still speak to most of the American people. Even those who think abortion is always wrong may understand the need for the state to stand down and respect individual personal moral judgment to determine what is best for a family. States line up to follow Texas in banning all but the earliest abortions, as clinics fold under the pressure of disproportionate regulations, it to some of us that Roe has never been more in need of a muscular defence. For sure, the constitutional commitment to private decision making has never delivered the resources to allow all women to act on their abortion decision. The right to decide is only part of the solution to a problem pregnancy. But without that, there is no solution at all.