BRIDGING THE ABORTION DIVIDE
A Modest Proposal for the Abortion Divide to Unite the USA — Part 1
How to fairly resolve the debate in state capitols
This essay is presented in eight parts. The intent is to comprehensively outline an equitable solution for resolving the pro-choice/pro-life divide in American politics. This document is also offered by a citizen as an issue organizer’s pamphlet, which can be presented to state & federal legislators to inform their policy-making.
We, the American republic, have made a plodding desert journey. Yet, there are far more steps to tread now that we must leave what had served as a judicial oasis: the abortion access status quo of Roe v. Wade.
In the past ten years, we have migrated from a congressman’s prior pronouncements of “legitimate rape,” to a presidential candidate admitting his intent to punish women receiving abortions, to a cult called QAnon immortalized by its bare-chested shaman storming the Capitol, to a Montana senator’s analogy of sea turtles as avatars for the human uterus and, last, to the prospect of impregnated females — including 10-year-old children — indicted for homicide.
The desert heat has been intense, and from no direction have we sensed cooling winds offering some measure of relief.
Thus, across the nation, millions of women, across multiple generations, are sweating with the anxiety of legal repercussions or life-impacting bodily events.
The urgency of bridging the abortion divide
So, America now faces an internecine conflict nearly as dramatic as its Civil War. Or even worse, the Thirty Years War of 17th-century Europe. Though the conflict has not turned hot, and hopefully never will, it is redefining the nature of cold wars.
Both sides deem abortion as the abolition of the 21st century; many on the left view state abortion bans as a draconian return to the 18th century and its views of the inferior status of women. Many on the right celebrate the end of what they see as infanticide.
And, to upstage that 17th-century orgy of monarchal violence, which claimed several million lives in three decades, this current continental conflict — within our continental nation — has lingered on for even longer: nearly fifty years.
We should be nervous. But that fear may now motivate responsible reaction. What we do with our politics in ensuing months might well determine if the fetal conflicts consume us — for another fifty years.
A petition for state and federal legislators
To temper expectations, I do not write here as a lawyer, nor as a theologian. I believe, however, that it’s sufficient that I am simply a citizen, which means I have some standing to raise ideas in our public squares and town hall meetings and encourage others to do the same.
And if there are endless marches and protests in the streets, if America destroys its vaunted global reputation as that “shining city upon a hill,” I will not be alone in suffering despair for our national identity. I expect I will have company from both sides of the political aisle.
Thus, this is my attempt to wrestle with common sense in a vitriolic era when rational discourse is too uncommon. But if democracy is to be true to its essential meaning, I feel obliged to offer this appraisal of what is now a central issue of our decade.
Accordingly, I invite Republican and Democratic staff in every state capitol — and, as well, the corridors of Congress — to circulate this proposal as the seeds of legislation. They will find it equitably addresses the worrisome end effects of the new and proposed abortion bans.
And at the risk of overstepping civic proprieties, I humbly suggest this proposal requires immediate attention. No delay, no dismissal. Lives are at stake, which, of course, is the heart of the issue.
The unfortunate legacies of tribal identities
However, I must strike preemptively against those language war games that would cast these views as conservative — or liberal, or some mongrel variation of those creeds.
Otherwise, legislative staffers will find it easy to reject them as partisan attacks from an opposite political pole of the spectrum.
Nonetheless, I recognize the battle lines are already drawn, and those labels have been adopted by millions of Americans as their tribal identities. So I will use them, but not for myself, and with all the risks of muddled clarity and rhetorical heat that they entail.
We should be mindful, though, three long centuries come and gone in Europe, the relevant opposing sides were Catholic versus Protestant, “papist” contra “heretic.” There was no attitude of a common community (much less acceptance of Jews or Muslims) — just as there is, in this decade because of political brands, no common American identity.
In 17th-century Europe, neither side seemed capable of walking in the other party’s shoes. Neither side was amenable to seeing the opposition’s firmly held perspective. And with six Catholics now positioned on the nation’s highest court, there will be leftist voices tempted to suggest religious dogma, once again, has taken the West to the civil unrest precipice.
Thus, as a son of a mother who was a registered Republican and devoutly Catholic, I feel permission in these lines to speak of conservative ideals and appraise their salient features. This is to bridge the poles of right and left.
What is a conservative?
First, however, I felt the need to understand what political theorists and the ideology’s high priests actually meant by the term “conservatives,” whom herein I will also dub as traditionalists, contra-liberals, or just simply “contras” — i.e., to be brief and avoid monotony.
And just as some SCOTUS justices (the ones identified as conservative) have a preference for past perspectives from the 18th century when interpreting the Constitution (i.e., the judicial philosophy of “originalism”), it would seem appropriate to look to the past and the genealogy of the conservative political outlook.
By such methods, we can discern what the original conservatives intended conservatism to mean. Otherwise, we must accept blindly that anything today’s contras have the whim to do should be deemed conservative.
That strikes me as not very originalist.
An example illustrates the impartial service I wish to offer to the purported disciples of Ronald Reagan. Winston Churchill identified as a conservative, and most would consider him a remarkable model of political leadership. So being contra-liberal is not necessarily divisive or inconsistent with defending democracy.
The same can be true of those who claim the liberal banner or had it placed in their hands. Franklin Roosevelt would be a qualifying example, as well as Churchill’s essential ally.
Hence, I had to seek some clarity on the elements of conservatism beyond its current casual use in the American media — countless times a day. Indeed, I had to discard predispositions that exclusively equated the political outlook with the current following of a former reality TV star.
I left the comfort of my political oasis to walk a doctrine’s desert expanse: this, in hopes of finding clues of what the conservative attitude really meant, and is supposed to be, which may or may not be what it means today.
Defining the stakes of the definition
Balanced interpretation of conservatism may not be achieved completely, but it must, with testosteronic vigor, be attempted by all who hope for calm assessment over post-Roe chaos. The existential reality is simple: If we are to maintain a nation of common countrymen, then we must find a basis for common coexistence.
The alternative for contras and liberals is to accept a nation continuously at war with itself, which is the worst kind of military conflict: one has to fight an enemy within its ranks as opposed to an external foe.
A nation continuously at war with itself? That would be tantamount to acquiescing that the Union Army never really saved the Union — just simply deferred its disintegration for two centuries.
One would hope that both conservatives and liberals would reject that dismal resignation. Yet a question implicit in the current clash is whether conservatism must be synonymous with sexism and female subjugation— as many liberals suggest.
Either that indictment must be definitively dismissed as unwarranted — or bold corrective measures must be taken to unify the nation in what is becoming a second antebellum era.
And let us not forget that term “antebellum” means “before the war.”
(I will address this dilemma in my subsequent installments — as well as a description of the conservative’s outlook on governing, which I am sure Churchill himself would have endorsed.)
Thanks for your attention. This essay will be continued in future posts, and you can press the green button to follow me on this platform. The next installment will be released shortly. — Geronimo Redstone
