Pro-life, Pro-choice, Pro-gress

As the president of Brown Students for Life and in the spirit of New Year’s resolutions, I suggest a radical resolution for all socially aware pro-choice students and pro-life students.

Our members spent this past semester both participating in the broader pro-life culture of Providence and raising awareness for the pro-life viewpoint here on Brown’s campus. Last October, members of Brown Students for Life walked throughout downtown Providence in the annual Rhode Island Right to Life fundraising Walk-a-Thon. We sponsored roundtable discussions in which our members debated contemporary issues of euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the death penalty over Thayer Street dinners. We invited David O’Connell of Problem Pregnancy of Providence to come to one of our meetings and discuss the resources they have available to women including pregnancy testing, abortion information, mentoring and emotional support, baby and maternity supplies, and referrals for various medical, housing, and other social services. We organized a lecture attended by students from area schools such as Providence College, Rhode Island College, and Brown Medical School on the topic of wholistic sexuality given by Natural Family Planning (NFP) Medical Consultant Dr. Paul Carpentier. He spoke from a physician’s perspective on NFP procreative methods as a viable, even superior alternative to artificial forms of contraception. Throughout, as food for thought, our members received regular “Answers to Pro-Choice Questions” written by Feminists for Life president Serrin Foster, the archive of which is available on their website: http://www.feministsforlife.org/Q&A/.

While I am delighted by what I observe to be reinvigorated student interest in human life issues, we can and must focus this momentum in a more constructive way in the coming semester. It is critical now more than ever to unite the causes of the pro-life and pro-choice movements. To an indifferent or apathetic bystander, this may seem ludicrous. After all, more than thirty years of seemingly irreconcilable disagreement has resulted in both sides gnashing their teeth at the other in a stunningly inert stare-down. Former President Bill Clinton once said that he believed abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare,” though little has been done on a broad scale to achieve the latter.

Ever since it was made legal by Roe v. Wade in 1973, abortion has become ingrained in the fabric of everyday American life. It may come as no surprise that I believe this now infamous Supreme Court decision was the wrong way to tackle the problem of unplanned or unwanted pregnancies. According to Planned Parenthood’s research arm, The Alan Guttmacher Institute, most women having abortions do so due to a lack of financial and emotional support. The procedure of abortion does not care for the woman by giving her the critical emotional and financial support she needs to care for her child. It simply destroys the child. With the necessary social and economic infrastructure in place to provide assistance, I believe that a woman would choose to continue her pregnancy and care for her child.

Why should this endeavor be a partnership between the pro-life and the pro-choice movements? Two reasons: first, actual progress and reform are more valuable than boorish and sedentary bickering. Second, legality concerns are overshadowing our common ground, preventing us from recognizing that very fundamental problems in our society can be corrected by jointly investing our time and energy. We could work to make available both emotional and financial resources for pregnant women, starting with organizations already in place, such as Problem Pregnancy of Providence. We could work to cultivate a respectful and flexible environment here at Brown University, that would allow and encourage women to continue their work or their education both while they are pregnant and after they give birth. This implies that daycare centers must also be made available and affordable, as should prenatal and pediatric health care. If the woman does not feel she is capable to raise the child herself given her current situation, we could educate about the multitude of adoption services that are available.

Although I believe our society would be better if abortion were not sanctioned by federal law, the way to achieve this goal is not by abruptly overturning Roe v. Wade. The very word “overturning” usually implies ensuing chaos, and the most desperate women will seek substitutions for legal abortions, which are just as wrong and potentially more dangerous. Instead, we must work from the bottom up. Reasonable people can agree that 1.3 million abortions performed every year in the United States is far too many. Pro-choice students who want the best for women, together with pro-life students who want the same, should devise and implement better opportunities for women as women.

To kick off what will hopefully be a productive and synergistic spring semester, Brown Students for Life attended the Pro-Life Rally at the Rhode Island State House. The keynote speaker was Dr. Alveda King, who is the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, one of our nation’s most beloved heroes in promoting equal human rights.

Join us in probing beyond the legal aspect of abortion. It is a procedure that is topped in its repugnance only by the social and economic inadequacies that lead women to consider it their only choice. Let us all resolve this semester to blend our ideas and resources to help make life just as viable an alternative.