There is an old expression that basically says, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
It may be the main reason so few serious problems ever get solved anymore, especially in this country.
Take the issue of abortion, for example. Ever since the Supreme Court legalized a woman’s right to have an abortion in Roe v Wade in 1973, folks on the right argued it was bad law and should be overturned. One of their biggest arguments against it was that the courts shouldn’t be deciding it and it should be left up to individual states to decide whether they wanted abortion to be legal in their own states.
Well, the Court finally went along with them last year in its Dobbs decision, and a number of so-called red states immediately passed draconian anti-abortion laws.
I suppose that’s their prerogative. Theoretically at least, folks have the right to move to other states if they don’t like it.
But don’t move too fast. Here some the hypocrites. Many anti-abortion crusaders who used to say it should be up to the states are now demanding Congress pass a national ban on abortion.
In fact, the abortion issue is a perfect example of the perfect being the enemy of the good. There have been numerous proposals to make it easier for a woman to choose not to have an abortion — medical care, child care, maternity leave. The response from the right? No, no and no.
To a lot of them, it seems like it’s more about punishing women for having sex than it is about saving babies.
And it doesn’t matter how young they are or if they even wanted to have sex. A cause celebre in Ohio involved a 10-year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped. Since Ohio had passed a law outlawing abortion after six weeks, the girl was going to be forced to carry to term and give birth.
Her family took he to Indiana for the abortion.
Indiana is politically even more conservative than Ohio, but its abortion laws are slightly less restrictive.
It certainly could have been worse. A few states have even outlawed traveling to other states to have abortions.
Actually, an Ohio judge suspended the six-week law pending further developments. You see, even in Ohio, a majority of voters believe a woman and her doctor should choose rather than the government mandating what she should do.
So prochoice forces got an amendment to the state constitution on the ballot of the November 7th election. Issue 1 would make it a state constitutional right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including abortion, contraception, fertility treatment and miscarriage care. It would allow the state to restrict abortion after fetal viability, except when “necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.”
For Issue 1 to pass, it requires only a majority of those voting. Opponents don’t believe in majority rule, so they panicked and got a measure on the August ballot requiring a higher threshold to pass constitutional amendments.
Voters saw it for what it was and defeated it handily. With only nine days till the vote on Issue 1, polls show support for the measure is at nearly 60 percent.
Both sides use scare tactics to influence voters — 10-year-olds giving birth, babies being killed after birth — but the so-called pro-life side is far worse. In Ohio, opponents are claiming that passing Issue 1 would make it legal for minors seeking gender reassignment surgery to get it without parental consent.
Here they go again with the big hulking men using the little girls’ bathroom.
Thankfully, Ohio Republican Attorney General, Dave Yost, said “it would certainly be too much to say that under Issue 1 all treatments for gender dysphoria would be mandated at the minor individual’s discretion and without parental involvement.”
And of course, they go on and on about late-term abortions, which they misleadingly call partial birth. It would probably surprise many voters to realize that according to KFF, a health policy research organization, abortions after 21 weeks (the current measure of viability) amount to 1 percent of all abortions performed in the United States.
Let me make one thing clear.
I think abortion is a bad thing and I would like to see the number of abortions in the U.S. reduced to as small a number as possible. But you don’t do that with abstinence-only education, restricting access to birth control or forcing women to give birth without any financial aid.
How do you do it?
I don’t claim to know all the answers, but in 2000, when I was a newspaper columnist in California, I attended a Southern California Republican mini-convention and discussed the issue with people working for candidate Gary Bauer. Bauer was part of the Christian Coalition and strongly anti-abortion.
We started from the premise that neither side was going to get everything they wanted.
Here was my proposal.
EDUCATION — Abstinence teaching is important. Kids in high school and below should not be having sex. But if they do, they need to be aware of the necessity of birth control and how to avoid getting pregnant or getting STDs. My closest friend called this a mixed message, but it absolutely is not. The message is don’t do it, but if you must …
BIRTH CONTROL — The dumbest people around are the ones who want to make it more difficult for women to have access to birth control. They’re not pro-life or anti-abortion. They just don’t want women to have sex unless they want to have babies. One way to reduce abortions is to have fewer women getting pregnant.
All right, the first two steps reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Now we move on to the tougher ones, dealing with women who get pregnant and didn’t intend to.
STOP SEEING WOMEN AS SINNERS — This step sets up all the ones that come after. We need to stop punishing women for getting pregnant. Don’t kick them out of school or fire them from their jobs. Instead, work with them so that they can stay pregnant and still get their education or keep working and bringing in money.
PRENATAL MEDICAL CARE — Make sure pregnant women get the proper medical care AND education about what they need to do to have healthy babies. This includes vitamins and prescriptions as needed. Make sure they understand they are important and their babies are important to the community as a whole.
PRE- AND POSTNATAL MATERNAL LEAVE — The necessity here will be different in different cases, but if a woman is to be asked to carry to term and have her baby, she needs time off to have the baby. Then she needs time after the baby is born to care for it. Money-wise, this is obviously where the government needs to be involved.
POSTNATAL MEDICAL CARE — The mother’s job only starts with birth. Seeing a doctor to check on progress and the health of the baby is crucial. At the very least, there should be clinics that would deal only with these issues where mothers and their babies could go regularly.
JOB SECURITY — Another toughie. Here’s where we need to remember how important it to make women want to have their babies. If a woman is to have her baby, she should not lose her job or her chances of advancement over it. Government subsidies to employers might be needed here.
CHILD CARE AND PRESCHOOL — For a mother to return to work, there has to be safe, affordable child care and preschool for her children. Enough said.
There you go, those are basically the eight steps. I guarantee there will be more happy mothers and healthy kids.
Oh, there is one more step.
IT’S STILL THE WOMAN’S CHOICE — There can be restrictions as far as viability, limiting late-term abortions to the life and health of the mother, but early enough, it’s got to be the woman’s choice and not the church or the governments. I’m sure forced-birth fanatics will hate this part of it, but I would bet a lot of money that following this plan would reduce abortions by at least 75-80 percent.
And sorry to brag here, but would you like to know what the Gary Bauer people said to me when they heard my proposal?
They said it was the most reasonable solution that they had ever heard.
<mic drop>