Why Forced Gestation is the Right Terminology
On June 26, The New York Times published an opinion piece by Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren in which she asked, “is restricting abortion the same thing as forced gestation?” Her answer was, “to use language of forced gestation or of a state ‘controlling’ women’s bodies is to portray biology itself as oppressive and halting the natural course of the body as the liberative role of the state.”
That answer is patently ridiculous. To create a law — any law — is to control, as laws are enforced by the power of the state. I am forced by the state to buy car insurance; calling that “forced insuring” would be correct, whether or not you think it is a good thing. I, personally, am both comfortable with forced insuring and comfortable saying that I am comfortable with it. Forced gestation is exactly and precisely what anti-abortion laws institute. The term “forced pregnancy” would be inaccurate; as Warren points out, many women seeking abortions become pregnant through consensual sex. “Forced birth” doesn’t work, either, as many unwanted pregnancies — like many wanted pregnancies — will end in miscarriage; there is no guarantee that any given pregnancy will result in birth, and no law can do anything about that. However, if the power of the state is used to prevent women from terminating their pregnancies, that is, by definition, forced gestation. Warren doesn’t have a problem with forced gestation, she just has a problem saying she is in favor of it. I don’t think that she — or anyone else — should be so easily let off the hook.
Warren claims that calling anti-abortion laws forced gestation is portraying “biology itself as oppressive and halting the natural course of the body as the liberative role of the state.” Again, no. Illness is also biological and natural, yet while we do not demand that the state liberate us from illness, most of us would be uncomfortable with either forced treatment or forced nontreatment. If I develop cancer, I will have many choices to make — chemotherapy and radiation? Surgery? Herbs and acupuncture? No treatment at all? Happily, the choices will be my own (insofar as I have the resources to access them), as the state neither forces me to seek treatment nor to forgo it.
Proponents of forced gestation insist that a potential life be given the same legal protections as a living human; however, the zygote, embryo, and fetus have not always been considered sacrosanct, not even by Warren’s fellow Christians. One of the reasons the right to abortion isn’t enshrined in the Constitution (along with the fact that women aren’t mentioned in it at all) is that the Founders didn’t have any reason to think abortion would ever become an issue — it was practiced, legal, and normalized in all states at the founding of our nation. None other than the venerable Benjamin Franklin reprinted and distributed information about home abortions, along with remedies for a number of unwanted natural, biological conditions.
While our Christian Founding Fathers were not up in arms about abortion, they were very concerned about the separation of church and state — which, unfortunately, our current Supreme Court justices are not. Hiding behind a faulty originalism, they aim to impose their beliefs on us all. When that happens in Muslim countries, we call it theocracy, and odious.
Those who support anti-abortion laws are in favor of forced gestation. Full stop. And they should have the courage to say so.
