Abortion continues to be a
highly-contentious issue, even as this week marks the 40th anniversary
since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court verdict was handed down. It’s a
never-ending battle, typically colored by raw emotion. While one polar
side traditionally argues that life begins at the moment of conception,
the other tends to shy away from any recognition that the unborn qualify
as human lives.
This pro-life versus pro-choice dynamic
often leads to intense clashes in the public sphere, with both sides
accusing the other of restricting rights and advocating
damaging policies. In a new piece that
was published this week, Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams, a pro-choice
adherent, decides not to steer clear of the “life” issue and asks: “So
what if abortion ends life?”
The question, itself, is enough to send
anti-abortion advocates into a tizzy. Williams, who identifies herself
as pro-choice, takes a divergent route from others on the left who have
staunch views about abortion rights. Rather than denying the fact that
fetuses are human lives, she, like pro-lifers, fully embraces this
ideal. However, Williams differentiates between the rights that the
unborn have from those that belong to women.
“Yet I know that throughout my own
pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was
carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that’s what a fetus is: a
human life,” Williams wrote. “And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice.”
She went on to decry the “semantic
power” that is inherent within the modern-day debate, taking particular
aim at those who oppose abortion by using the word “life” to win the
debate. But rather than cowering to what the writer says are the
“sneaky, dirty tricks of the anti-choice lobby,” Williams proposes that
pro-choice advocates should not cower when the word “life” is brought
into the discussion. Instead, she believes that pro-choicers should
double down and explain why women should have more rights than fetuses.
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