LETTERS
203
Abortion: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow-A Rebuttal Betty Johnson's guest editorial, "Abortion : Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" (February 1978), has saddened me. My sadness is for my profession. While it is normally capable of compassion, it has offered little other than the bankrupt solution of abortion to the problem of an "unwanted" child. I am sad when a professional advances a fundamentally weak argument-that abortion obtains its validity from history. Professor Johnson seems to argue that abortion should be supported as public policy because it has long been a part of the human condition. Infanticide, genocide, slavery, child abuse, prostitution have likewise been regrettable solutions to human stress but scarcely deserve our support. Perhaps infanticide would be a more logical solution to the problem of "unwanted" children. What difference does six months make and why does air in one's lungs make one more fully human? Modern biology says there is no line to be drawn. Life is a fully human continuum, not a succession of more primitive stages, as was once believed. The burden of proof rests on those who would attempt to find justification for ending life once it has begun. Certainly the law of the land does not uphold the child's right to life. We have struggled for civil rights, women's rights, children's rights and still struggle for them. Since when have we waited for the law to define fundamental human rights before we took a position based on our principles? Undoubtedly there is a conflict of rights and no simplistic solution. Such conflicts of rights are not new
204
HEALTH AND SOCIAL WORK
to US either. We deal with them professionally in child protection, work with adolescents, couples in marital conflict, and a dozen other places. Most of the time we recognize that there are rights in conflict. We attempt to help people find a way to deal with these conflicted situations, but not through elimination of the offending party. We are legally bound to warn the endangered party if such a threat materializes. We routinely intervene on behalf of the abused child. It's a strange insensitivity that allows us to ignore any right-claim the unborn child might have on us. The irony is that in our present environment women in crisis with unwanted children perceive few other choices but abortion. In our so-called sexually liberated environment, the thrust is to hide the pregnancy, as if it were something bad, and to get rid of it. What we don't see, we don't have to recognize for its right-claim on all of us. Motivation for an abortion often has a heavy overlay of guilt, that one cannot take care of a child one has conceived. Therefore, the logic reads, it shouldn't be born. We know that if we help people deal with feelings around the pregnancy, there are other solutions. We could draw upon our long experience with women who have unwanted pregnancies, and we do have the capability to develop services for this needful population. Their ambivalence is not far from our practice experience. We have simply allowed abortion to become a quick and easy solution, a "solution" that could prevent us from developing any real health-care services that provide workable alternatives for this population. We have copped out to the simplistic, sterile, and curiously antisexual thinking of people around us. We are losing that unique professional identity that was once energized by deep convictions-convictions about
LETTERS
205
the claim that every human being had on our efforts, time, and compassion, especially the smallest and least recognized. ROBERT
lane Addams College of Social Work University of Illinois at Chicago Circle
T.
CONSTABLE
Johnson Responds Professor Constable makes an eloquent case for using social work skills to help needful (pregnant) populations. I am perhaps less sanguine than he that' our services are always as efficacious as they might be. Also, I would insist on the right of individuals not to receive an unwanted service as well as on their right to have access. to any legal service, including, of course, abortion. We disagree, in fact, only on basic assumptions. Eminent jurists, profound thinkers, and distinguished theologians and philosophers as well as mere social workers have pondered the knotty question of when fertilized protoplasm becomes "human life." Meanwhile, part of the process of understanding and resolving matters of great portent to the human condition involves comprehending their historical context and evolution. Without telling us whether he believes abortion should be illegal, Professor Constable classifies it with infanticide, genocide, slavery, child abuse, and prostitution, which are illegal. Despite recent strictures on financing abortions under Medicare, the Supreme Court decision is still in force. Abortion is not illegal. Unlike Professor Constable, I am not saddened when highly controversial, unresolved issues are the subject of enlightened discourse. I am, rather, led to
203
Abortion: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow-A Rebuttal Betty Johnson's guest editorial, "Abortion : Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" (February 1978), has saddened me. My sadness is for my profession. While it is normally capable of compassion, it has offered little other than the bankrupt solution of abortion to the problem of an "unwanted" child. I am sad when a professional advances a fundamentally weak argument-that abortion obtains its validity from history. Professor Johnson seems to argue that abortion should be supported as public policy because it has long been a part of the human condition. Infanticide, genocide, slavery, child abuse, prostitution have likewise been regrettable solutions to human stress but scarcely deserve our support. Perhaps infanticide would be a more logical solution to the problem of "unwanted" children. What difference does six months make and why does air in one's lungs make one more fully human? Modern biology says there is no line to be drawn. Life is a fully human continuum, not a succession of more primitive stages, as was once believed. The burden of proof rests on those who would attempt to find justification for ending life once it has begun. Certainly the law of the land does not uphold the child's right to life. We have struggled for civil rights, women's rights, children's rights and still struggle for them. Since when have we waited for the law to define fundamental human rights before we took a position based on our principles? Undoubtedly there is a conflict of rights and no simplistic solution. Such conflicts of rights are not new
204
HEALTH AND SOCIAL WORK
to US either. We deal with them professionally in child protection, work with adolescents, couples in marital conflict, and a dozen other places. Most of the time we recognize that there are rights in conflict. We attempt to help people find a way to deal with these conflicted situations, but not through elimination of the offending party. We are legally bound to warn the endangered party if such a threat materializes. We routinely intervene on behalf of the abused child. It's a strange insensitivity that allows us to ignore any right-claim the unborn child might have on us. The irony is that in our present environment women in crisis with unwanted children perceive few other choices but abortion. In our so-called sexually liberated environment, the thrust is to hide the pregnancy, as if it were something bad, and to get rid of it. What we don't see, we don't have to recognize for its right-claim on all of us. Motivation for an abortion often has a heavy overlay of guilt, that one cannot take care of a child one has conceived. Therefore, the logic reads, it shouldn't be born. We know that if we help people deal with feelings around the pregnancy, there are other solutions. We could draw upon our long experience with women who have unwanted pregnancies, and we do have the capability to develop services for this needful population. Their ambivalence is not far from our practice experience. We have simply allowed abortion to become a quick and easy solution, a "solution" that could prevent us from developing any real health-care services that provide workable alternatives for this population. We have copped out to the simplistic, sterile, and curiously antisexual thinking of people around us. We are losing that unique professional identity that was once energized by deep convictions-convictions about
LETTERS
205
the claim that every human being had on our efforts, time, and compassion, especially the smallest and least recognized. ROBERT
lane Addams College of Social Work University of Illinois at Chicago Circle
T.
CONSTABLE
Johnson Responds Professor Constable makes an eloquent case for using social work skills to help needful (pregnant) populations. I am perhaps less sanguine than he that' our services are always as efficacious as they might be. Also, I would insist on the right of individuals not to receive an unwanted service as well as on their right to have access. to any legal service, including, of course, abortion. We disagree, in fact, only on basic assumptions. Eminent jurists, profound thinkers, and distinguished theologians and philosophers as well as mere social workers have pondered the knotty question of when fertilized protoplasm becomes "human life." Meanwhile, part of the process of understanding and resolving matters of great portent to the human condition involves comprehending their historical context and evolution. Without telling us whether he believes abortion should be illegal, Professor Constable classifies it with infanticide, genocide, slavery, child abuse, and prostitution, which are illegal. Despite recent strictures on financing abortions under Medicare, the Supreme Court decision is still in force. Abortion is not illegal. Unlike Professor Constable, I am not saddened when highly controversial, unresolved issues are the subject of enlightened discourse. I am, rather, led to
