Ever since I was a high school senior, when my girlfriend and I needed advice about birth control, a Planned Parenthood clinic has always been nearby, ready to provide guidance, medical treatment, fertility treatment and abortions — which ceased to be available in 23 states after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in June of 2022.
In Texas, Planned Parenthood stopped providing abortions after September 2021, when the so-called “heartbeat bill” passed, allowing private citizens of Texas to sue anybody who helps a woman obtain an abortion.
I wanted to volunteer for Planned Parenthood after becoming alarmed by the unreasonable steps the state has taken to muzzle, restrict and undermine Planned Parenthood. This quintessentially American institution has become a target because it views abortion as an essential healthcare option for women.
In our post-industrial world, where every profession is open to women, abortion is an essential option. Women cannot live freely or fully when they are prohibited from choosing when to begin a family or when to limit the size of a family already begun.
Many sincere opponents of abortion believe they are doing the Lord’s work by opposing it. But the recent abortion bans in Texas and across the nation have stoked outrage, anguish and fear in millions of women and men. In states where abortion is banned, hospitals are turning away women who have miscarried or have ectopic pregnancies because these conditions are treated with procedures that resemble abortions.
Are we doing the Lord’s work when we fuel outrage and deprive women of medical treatments that can save them from serious injury or death?
Roe vs. Wade gave us a shared legal framework that acknowledged the full human complexity of abortion. The decision honored women’s need to control their own bodies, while also addressing the legitimate moral concerns of opponents. The decision made abortion permissible during the first trimester, before viability. After the first trimester, when a fetus becomes increasingly capable of surviving outside the womb, abortions were only permitted to preserve the health or life of the mother.
Under Roe, the vast majority of abortions took place during the first trimester. This outcome mirrors the views of most Americans, 60% of whom, according to a recent poll, think abortions are justifiable early in a pregnancy but should be restricted after viability.
Because they see no distinction between a fetus and a baby, opponents believe that abortion is a desecration of the core Christian tenet that all life is sacred. But this is a contested view that many theologians, historians and philosophers reject as a category error: A fetus before viability is a potential human being, not an actual human being, just as an acorn is a potential oak tree, but not an oak tree. As a citizen, I am a potential president of the United States, but not the acting president. The difference is real.
The Catholic Church treats abortion as an absolute wrong, but does not routinely give the fetus aborted in miscarriage a public burial. In practice, even the Catholic Church treats a fetus differently than a baby, an irrefutably independent being, fully deserving of protection and support.
The 13 rabbis and ministers suing the state of Missouri for its extreme abortion ban are standing on solid moral ground. Judaism, recognizing that life is never black and white, but complex and tangled, sanctions abortion as an option that some women will need to protect their well-being. The Florida synagogue suing to overturn its state’s abortion ban stands on solid moral ground.
The bans on abortion in Texas and other states are robbing women of the freedom they need to be full human beings, the same freedom we all need to pursue our own version of the American dream. These bans are causing anguish, and pain in the lives of women who need abortions or who are being deprived of medical treatment for miscarriages and topical pregnancies.
We Americans are compassionate and practical people. Eventually we’ll recognize, as have countries like Ireland and Argentina, that the medical needs of women must be balanced against the legitimate rights of the unborn. Until the political pendulum swings back toward the middle, I’ll be devoting time, energy and money to Planned Parenthood. I hope you’ll consider doing the same.
Lyon Rathbun lives in Rancho Viejo.
