Latest twists in abortion debate

I just donated to the March of Dimes, the iconic initiative aimed at promoting the health of children and pregnant women.

It was founded in 1938, exactly 85 years ago, and was inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s struggle with polio.

Understanding the obstacles he had faced as an adult, FDR wanted to try and alleviate the pain of those who were most impacted by the deadly disease: children.

Over the years, the March of Dimes became one of the country’s premier organizations devoted to wellness initiatives for babies, children and most importantly, pregnant mothers.

As I made my donation, I found it ironic that this was the week that women were fighting for the right not to be pregnant.

Two events have captured their attention: the battle over the abortion pill and Florida’s recently enacted abortion ban.

I know that people of good will have different opinions on both of these issues, although the only voices I hear supporting the pill and opposing the Florida ban are strident, ill-tempered and self-centered.

There is no talk about babies, or their welfare. It is all, and only, about the rights of women.

How did we get to a point where concern for children and a desire to assist women who want to bring healthy children into the world has been replaced by a desire to appease the anger of those who have a proprietary sense of their reproductive organs?

I’ve been writing about abortion long enough to know that I’m not going to be changing any hearts and minds.

But I do think it’s important, at this time when we are assailed on every side with stories of women who think they’ve been relegated to second-class status, to examine exactly what will satisfy these victims of circumstance.

Every single abortion ban at the state level has an exception for the life of the mother. Some have an exception for the health of the mother. A few more have exceptions for rape and incest.

But for most of the proponents of abortion rights, this isn’t enough.

The “life of the mother” exception has been attacked in many jurisdictions because it wouldn’t allow a woman suffering from a nervous breakdown or other form of mental crisis to seek an abortion to “save her life.”

The easy fix of getting rid of the baby is an example that in this society, we have simply abandoned the most compassionate and common-sense solutions for the easiest ones.

Some have suggested that a woman who is suicidal because she doesn’t want to be pregnant deserves an abortion.

We are not talking about preclampsia, a ruptured uterus, cancer, organ failure or a possible stroke. We are talking about a woman who says she would prefer to die than to give birth.

That is not what the “life of the mother” exception was designed to advance.

I argued this point with a rabbi on a radio show I once hosted, and he tried to use religion against me.

He thought that my opposition to suicide and abortion was motivated by my Catholic faith, and tried to make it appear — as they always do — that I was imposing my religion on someone else.

When I asked him if his own views were motivated by his Jewish faith, he seemed offended and rigorously denied that this was the case. He said that his position rose out of his belief that women had the right to save their own lives in any way they believed necessary.

When I asked him if he would at the very least require the woman who threatened suicide to undergo rigorous examination and documentation from at least two psychiatrists that she would commit suicide if she could not have the abortion, he demurred.

“We have no right to force a woman to prove her state of mind,” he said.

And when I asked him if a doctor needed to provide proof of a medical threat to the mother’s life, or was it OK to just “trust the woman” he said I was making an unscientific argument.

So I went from being a religious zealot, to a science illiterate.

But without meaning to, he did answer my most fundamental question: Will there ever be enough exceptions for women who think that they have dominion over life and death?

That answer, clearly, is no.