{"id":1249,"date":"2004-12-07T19:33:12","date_gmt":"2004-12-08T03:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/12\/07\/frances-kissling-on-the-fetus-value\/"},"modified":"2004-12-07T19:33:12","modified_gmt":"2004-12-08T03:33:12","slug":"frances-kissling-on-the-fetus-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1249","title":{"rendered":"Frances Kissling on the fetus' value"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frances Kissling – the head of Catholics for Choice and a longtime pro-choice activist – argues that pro-choicers can and should value the fetus more<\/a>. I don’t have a comment on this article yet, but it’s been getting a lot of discussion among pro-choice circles, so it seemed worth linking to. Here’s a sample:<\/p>\n

An interesting thought exercise might help to clarify what prochoice (and antiabortion) leaders believe about fetal value. Imagine a world in which it was possible to remove fetuses prior to viability from women\u2019s bodies and allow them to develop in a nonuterine environment. Perhaps they could be implanted in men or other women who want them; perhaps they could develop in a specially equipped nursery? In this world, medicine is so far advanced that this could be accomplished painlessly and without risking the health of either the woman or the fetus. Of course, this is at present largely a fantasy and by that time we would have found the ideal, risk-free, failure-free contraceptive; but let\u2019s pretend.<\/p>\n

What are the first five concerns and reactions that come to your mind? Is one of them the fact that this would mean fetuses need not die? My own experience in presenting this option to both advocates and opponents of abortion is that the fetus\u2019s life is rarely a consideration. Among the most interesting reactions of those who are prochoice is a concern that some women might find the continued existence of the fetus painful for them or that women have a right to ensure that their genetic material does not enter the world. Abortion in this sense becomes the guarantee of a dead fetus, if desired, rather than the removal of the fetus from an unwilling host, the woman. To even offer women such an option is, some think, cruel. For some the right to choose abortion seems to include the right to be protected from thinking about the fetus and from any pain that might result from others talking about the fetus in value-laden terms. In this construct, it is hard to identify any value fetal life might have.<\/p>\n

This level of sensitivity to protecting women from their feelings takes other forms. For example, some prochoice advocates have objected to public discussion of abortion that includes concern for the number of abortions that occur in the US or has as its goal reducing the number of abortions. Some bristled at President Clinton\u2019s formula that abortion should be \u201csafe, legal and rare.\u201d If abortion is justifiable why should it be rare? Even the suggestion that abortion is a moral matter as well as a legal one has caused concern that such a statement might make women feel guilty. Words like \u201cbaby\u201d are avoided, not just because they are inaccurate, but because they are loaded.<\/p>\n

In a society where women have long been victims of moral discourse, these concerns are somewhat understandable, but they do not contribute much towards convincing people that when prochoice people say they value fetal life it is more than lip service.<\/p>\n

The reaction of antiabortionists to the idea that a fetus could be removed from the body of an unwilling woman is as troubling. Again, one rarely hears cries of joy that fetal lives would be saved. The focus also is on the woman. But here, the view that women are, by their nature, made for childbearing dominates. Women have an obligation to continue pregnancies, to suffer the consequences of their sexuality. It is unnatural to even think that fetuses could become healthy and happy people if they did not spend nine months in the womb of a woman. One is led to believe that, for those opposed to abortion, it is not saving fetuses that matters but preserving a social construct in which women breed.<\/p><\/div>\n

There’s lots more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frances Kissling – the head of Catholics for Choice and a longtime pro-choice activist – argues that pro-choicers can and should value the fetus more. I don’t have a comment on this article yet, but it’s been getting a lot … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}