Forty years ago we got Roe v Wade. And the battle has waged ever since. Forgive
the length of this post, but I want to share my thoughts on this divisive
topic. And while my thoughts are not necessarily "Buddhist" in construction,
how I feel about this topic is guided by my Buddhist understanding of how the
world works.
First, I must clearly state that personally I believe
that taking another person's life, including that of an unborn person, is
simply wrong in any and all circumstances -- even in self-defense. I believe
that way because killing another person represents an outcome one has hurled
him or herself toward through a series of extraordinarily poor decisions that
could have been interrupted just about anywhere along the way.
Having said that, should I find myself in a situation
that defending my own life means taking another's, I suspect I will fight to
the death. But if I should emerge from such a fray victorious, there will be
consequences for my actions. Even if I am found legally innocent of any
criminal act, I will nonetheless face the karmic consequences of my actions,
consequences that may manifest themselves in any number of ways, not the least
of which will be an unsettled mind that will on a daily basis struggle with
what I did and how I might have avoided it.
I cannot foresee every situation, but I can take steps
right now to avoid potential situations that may put me in a position of
behaving in a manner contrary to the way I believe. And on occasion, despite my
intentions, I do act unskillfully and find myself in awkward situations.
But I got there because of the choices I made, even when
I thought the choices I was making were good ones.
Which is a long, round-about way of explaining why,
despite my personal belief that taking someone's life, including that of the
unborn, is always wrong and never without consequence, I will fight to ensure
that abortion is kept legal and easily accessed.
To impose my personal belief on another person about whom
I know nothing, about whose life challenges I know nothing, strikes
me as a supreme form of righteousness that frankly makes me sick. Yes, perhaps
that person made a series of poor decisions, but they were his or her
decisions and to suggest that I know what consequences he or she should suffer
and how these consequences out to be delivered when my own life is far from
perfect - well, I'm not a Christian, but it seems to me that Jesus said
something about fretting over the speck of dust in another person's eye while
ignoring the rock in my own.
The Buddha taught us also that all our actions have
consequence and that we cannot always predict the outcomes of our actions. Besides,
there are some things, the Buddha taught, that we really don't need to know. Despite that he gave us tips, such as his guidance to his son Rahula, to avoid making unskillful choices, and with the simile of the salt crystal he explains that we have the ability to mitigate future
consequences via our current actions. The Buddha is also quite clear with the
story of Angulimala
that while we have the option to renounce our past completely and pick up a
new, more virtuous life - sort of like being 'born again' - we can never escape
our past and the consequences we have set in motion.
Believing this, I know that anyone facing the ominous
decision of abortion has been through a series of events leading her to that
choice and that she will experience consequences unknown to me - and frankly
none of my business - that she may or may not be able to resolve in her current
life.
Even if you don't believe as I do, there are societal
benefits to having legal access to abortion, and one of these benefits is not
always part of the public discussion: The impact legal abortion has on crime.
What raised this connection was a 2001 study
that is highly cited within the scientific literature and at the time of its
release got a fair bit of attention in the popular press. But since then it has
oddly disappeared from the primary discourse. The study notes that crime rates
in the U.S. began a decline roughly 18 years after Roe v. Wade, and in states
where abortion was already legal and widely available as early as 1970, crimes
rights there began a similar decline much earlier than the rest.
While purely correlative, it does strongly suggest a
causative relationship when you consider certain key facts about crime: who
commits the most crime, and what environmental circumstances are more likely to
lead a person to crime than others. Let's start with the last and work
backwards.
For starters, it's pretty well established that low
income areas have higher crime rates than more affluent neighborhoods; that
low-income households produce more members who commit crime; that substance
abuse is strongly connected with crime. In my journalism career I've worked
with many police chiefs and sheriffs who repeatedly said that if we, as a
society, could get a handle on substance abuse, crime would drop out of sight -
especially alcohol abuse. While
things like meth and crack and other harder drugs certainly are connected with
crime, the law enforcement folk I worked with universally said alcohol abuse is
the number one problem.
It is also pretty well established that those who
regularly commit crime are individuals with a number of behavioral and
character flaws. Often these flaws develop in childhood while being raised in
highly stressed households, either economically or emotionally. For about 15
years I worked with delinquent and emotionally disturbed children and not a
single one of them was unable to sense on some level that their parents just
really didn't want them. As one boy told me, "My mother had a choice to
keep me or the dog. She kept the dog."
Growing up in that type of environment frequently leads
to substance abuse, which law enforcement will universally will say is the sin
quo non of most crime. Substance abuse impairs one's decision making skills,
and criminal activity is the result of flawed decisions.
Next, who commits the most crime? Crime statistics year
after year report the same thing: most crime is committed by young men between
the ages of 18 and about 26. In fact, it is mostly young men of color.
Maybe it's starting to become clear how abortion plays
into this. Because a reasonable hypothesis to make based on the above
information is that there ought to be a decline in the population most likely
to commit a crime roughly 18 years after abortion becomes legal, which in turn
should result in a decline in the number of crimes committed.
And that's exactly what this country saw. Just take some
time and look at this chart. Starting in 1960, the data shows crime continuing to rise along with
population. But low and behold, beginning in 1991, we see that trend reversing!
And when we look at the specific types of crimes more likely to be committed by
a young male - property crimes, robbery, and vehicle theft - the reversal in
trend is even more pronounced despite a few stutters between 1991-93. There's
even a reversal in murders committed started in 1993.
Granted, this does not on its own suggest a causative
relationship, but it's nonetheless worth noting and worth further study. It's
quite reasonable to conclude - and Occam's razor would suggest this as well - that
with abortion legal and widely available, you have fewer unwanted children born
and being raised in highly-stressed conditions that are very closely associated
with anti-social behavior such as substance abuse and criminal activity.
In Buddhism, virtually all unskillful behavior arises out
of either greed, hatred, or delusion. As a man, let alone a gay man, imposing
on women this notion that they must carry to birth all pregnancies no matter
how conceived is far more evil than terminating an unwanted pregnancy.
Any woman who faces that choice is facing a terrible
decision, and not all of them do so with caprice. In fact, I firmly believe
that most do not look at such a choice without it weighing heavy on their hearts
and minds.
It is their choice and should remain so.
