Reply #10: Making pro-choice more than a euphemism for abortion. [View All]

[calmblueocean]

I'd like to see us broaden the idea of what pro-choice means by offering more reproductive choices.

For instance, we ought to support medical research into safe extraction, storage, and reimplantation of embryos. A girl who gets pregnant in high school and finds abortion unacceptable ought to be able to have her embryo extracted and medically stored. Then she would have a whole host of options open to her, such as:

1) reimplanting her embryo later in life when she has the economic means to support a child

2) letting a surrogate bring her embryo to term while she stays in school

3) donating her embryo to a childless couple or gay couple to bring to term

4) donating her embryo for research into lifesaving medical treatments

5) offering the father the opportunity to find a surrogate and bring the embryo to term, if he wishes

While the window of embryo extraction would likely be short, over 80% of all abortions are performed within the first trimester, and women who wait are often simply hoping for (or actively trying to induce) a miscarriage. They may be struggling with determining their own moral feelings on abortion, and they may not even have the resources to access an abortion when they first find out they are pregnant. But if women knew they had the option to extract and store their embryo, with all the attendant possibilities, many would choose to do so. Abortions might be reduced more by offering embryo storage, donation, and reimplantation as options than by criminalizing abortion itself, which is the only "choice" conservatives have to offer. Describing a vision of this future would bring many pro-life and on-the-fence voters back into the Democratic camp.

A commitment to furthering reproductive technology would change the whole dynamics of the abortion debate. Protesting outside a reproductive health clinic would be pointless, since many women would be going there to save their embryos. Abortion would become just one facet of women's reproductive rights, which would also be folded into the greater framework of the right to basic healthcare in this country. A woman's right to decide how to proceed if she gets pregnant should not be determined by whether or not she can afford what she thinks is the right and moral choice.

New choices bring new challenges, but they also bring new happiness and new hope. The Democratic party should proceed towards a future with new choices, but always maintain it's commitment to women's rights. Just because these new choices would exist wouldn't give anyone else the right to demand, influence or discover what the woman's choice was. It's still her body. She would just be able to do more with it. The possibility exists for a future in which abortion nearly evaporates as a hot button issue, where the conservative stance on reproductive rights is laughed out of the debate. But we have to choose to make that future a reality.