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“All we’re doing
is providing care for poor mothers so their children are going to be born
healthy. How anybody can now turn this into a pro-choice or pro-life argument,
I can’t understand it.” -
Tommy
Thompson, Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services
I’d like to believe the good
secretary except I’d also have to wonder how he manages to find his way home at
night. We have come to accept a little fudging from public officials, but this
is America, a place where politicians can’t say “good morning” without someone
trying to read in a position on abortion.
Whether or not
HHS’s proposal to allow states to consider fetuses children for the purpose
of providing prenatal care is a pro-life ploy, we are in for a loud debate. The
outcome is pretty much certain; after a perfunctory comment period, little can
prevent a final regulation from being issued. After that it should all be over
but the shouting.
Of which there
will be plenty. The
State Children’s Health Insurance Program, co-funded by the federal
government, provides health care for low-income children under age 19. The
proposed regulation tweaks that, permitting states to begin coverage at
conception.
No one seems to object to
expanding medical coverage, though perhaps someone should in the name of fiscal
responsibility, a concept almost as flexible as “choice.” Nor will the rule
impact Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
However critics view the move as an incremental step toward challenging what
they call abortion rights.
They may have a
point. If fetuses are endowed with rights it will be difficult to assert their
interests are served by being aborted. Even with no direct impact on abortion
laws, the change can rightly be viewed as a salvo in the battle for hearts and
minds.
While abortion opponents have
consistently asserted that life begins at conception, the position of abortion
advocates is a moving target. In the 1970s a fetus was said to be a “nonviable
tissue mass,” not unlike a cyst. What is independent life and when does it
begin? My children are teenagers and I’m still looking for signs, but doctors
now measure heartbeat 18 days after conception and brain waves at 40. Few doubt
that earlier detection awaits only the next generation of technology.
Further, most states now define
death as cessation of brain activity. If the absence of brain waves means death
it’s tough to argue their presence doesn’t mean life. The debate thus shifted
to “choice” and more recently “rights,” a shrewd tactic itself. The manufacture
of rights is an American cottage industry, much easier for most folks to relate
to than aborting a fetus with a heartbeat or brain waves.
Many pro-choice
groups
support subsidized prenatal services but have danced around how a being
without rights can be entitled to health care by asserting that the patient is
actually the mother. The proposed rule stops the music, reducing the dance to
an uncomfortable squirm.
Inconsistent
reasoning has put abortion activists on the spot before. Administration support
of a proposal making it a federal crime to injure a fetus in an assault on the
mother
moved many to oppose the measure despite not liking such crimes any more
than anyone else.
In a telling
remark, Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Gloria Feldt claimed
two earlier administration proposals on women’s health care
“equal ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’” a reference to a novel in which sex is
strictly for procreation. So perhaps sex without consequence is what “abortion
rights” really means, and maybe Secretary Thompson isn’t as confused as he
claims. In any event a little forthrightness by all would be welcome.
© 1997 – 2002 Brent Morrison
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