>On Fri, 4 Feb 2000 12:41:12 -0500 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>wrote:
>
>> Why do men -- or even women like Catherine MacKinnon & Adrienne Rich for
>that matter -- think that in a just society "where no pregnancy is a tragedy"
>there won't be any abortion?
>
>Errr... I wasn't thinking that. I had neither MacKinnon or Rich in
>mind... but
>it is important to remember that having an abortion is a medical procedure,
>where things can and sometimes do go wrong. I would think that surgery,
>minor
>or major, shouldn't be a celebrated goal. Obviously safe abortions should be
>legal. But the decision to have an abortion, for many women (maybe only
>some,
>maybe most, I don't know), is a painful and traumatic decision (if one can
>call
>it a decision). It would be nice to avoid the trauma to begin with. I simply
>meant that we should seek to create a world where pregnancy isn't tragic, I
>didn't mean to imply that such a world would not include abortions.
OK, but let me remind you that giving birth is also a process "where things can and sometimes do go wrong." The "decision" to give birth can be "a painful and traumatic decision" as well, as you know. In terms of relative safety, safe abortions are _safer_ than childbirths even under the best of the circumstances. People often do not realize that there is _nothing particularly unique_ about abortions, in comparison to childbirths and other questions of health. It is only sexism that makes abortion, but not other medical services (like vasectomy, root canals, etc.), look like an _especially weighty_ moral decision, unlike any other.
Yoshie