Will we only pretend to protect "the sanctity of human life" ??

The following paragraphs are excerpts from an article researched and written by Sharon Lerner, a senior fellow at the Center for New York City Affairs at Milano Graduate School, New School University. It was posted on the internet (at AlterNet) Jan. 22, 2005.

These harsh realities must be acknowledged and grappled with by those of us opposed to abortion (myself included.) It is a severe injustice to merely stand idly by, or to try to avoid these dramatic effects of misguided policies, especially when we enter into discussions (whether it be at the national, state-by-state, or local efforts) regarding overturning Roe vs. Wade. Otherwise, I fear the current Mississippi experience will get repeated all over the country -- and how can we possibly claim that such a reality represents moral or spiritual progress? -Clair

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Thirty-two years ago the right to have an abortion was affirmed by the Supreme Court. Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi is marking the anniversary of Roe v. Wade with an official proclamation declaring the seven days leading up to the anniversary "a week of prayer regarding the sanctity of human life." Barbour also authorized the placement of tiny white crosses on the lawn of the state Capitol "in memory of the unborn children who die each day in America," according to the decree. The crosses have been planted for the past three years... Barbour is a Republican, but it should be noted that the tradition of transforming the Capitol lawn into a symbolic mini-graveyard was begun by the previous governor of Mississippi, who was a Democrat.

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With the third-highest teen pregnancy rate in the country, Mississippi's low number of abortions is not an illustration of the "safe, legal and rare" ideal that many talk about, in which a decline in unwanted pregnancies creates a corresponding drop in abortions. Rather, it is the direct consequence of concerted opposition to abortion from the grassroots to all levels of government. Such concern for the rights of fetuses does not appear to translate into a commitment to promoting the well-being of the children they may become. The uncomfortable irony for an opposition movement purportedly concerned with saving "innocent babies" is that restrictions on abortion are associated with worse outcomes for actual babies. Indeed, children fare terribly in Mississippi.

The state with arguably the least access to abortion also has the second-highest rate of child poverty in the country, according to the Children's Defense Fund. Mississippi's infant mortality rate - a good indication of the health of both women and children - is the highest in the country. For every 1,000 live births, 10.5 infants under age 1 die in Mississippi. In parts of the impoverished Delta region, that number ranges up to 18. (The national infant mortality rate, by comparison, is 6.8.) Interestingly, a post-election comparison found that "red" states had higher infant mortality rates than "blue" ones. In general, states that restrict abortion spend far less money per child than pro-choice states on services such as foster care, education, welfare and the adoption of children who have physical and mental disabilities, according to a 2000 book by political scientist Jean Reith Schroedel.

Schroedel also found that women in anti-abortion states are worse off than their counterparts in pro-choice states. They suffer from lower levels of education, higher levels of poverty and a larger gender gap in earnings. They are also less likely to enjoy mandated insurance coverage for minimum hospital stays after childbirth. Together, the conditions make for an abysmal reality for women in Mississippi, which came in 51st in a 2004 ranking of the status of women in the 50 states and Washington, DC, published by the Institute for Women's Policy Research.

The poverty of women in Mississippi both increases their need for abortions and their difficulty in obtaining them. In the poorest state in the country, where more than one in five women lack health insurance and live below the poverty line, girls and women are often unable to get birth control. Only about two in five women and teens in Mississippi who need publicly financed contraception receive it, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which does research on reproductive issues. Though the inability to prevent unwanted pregnancies makes women only more likely to want abortions, many of the forces behind the anti-abortion movement here also oppose contraception. Pro-Life Mississippi, for instance, regularly protests the only Planned Parenthood office in Mississippi, which is in Hattiesburg, even though it provides only birth control, not abortion.

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Mississippi forbids facilities that receive public money from performing abortions and bans Medicaid funding for them. Though the law officially makes exceptions for cases of rape, incest, fetal anomaly and danger to the woman's life, clinic staff say they have not once succeeded in collecting Medicaid reimbursement in these cases. "We've filed for it and we've never been paid for them, and so we don't even file anymore," says Susan Hill, the Jackson Women's Health Organization's president. Hill, who was a social worker before Roe, says, "Mississippi is like the rest of the country was before 1973." Women who arrive at her clinic "have that same look in the eye now," she explains. "They have to go through the same kind of struggles."

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Virtually every possible restriction on the procedure exists here, from a mandatory 24-hour waiting period after counseling, to a requirement that minors obtain the consent of both parents to have an abortion, to 35 pages of regulations dealing with such physical characteristics as the width of a clinic's hallways and the size of its parking lot. The mounting restrictions (Mississippi passed six anti-abortion laws last year alone) have delighted anti-abortion activists all over the country, who have hailed - and copied - the state's innovations.

Meanwhile, pro-choice activists see Mississippi as a glimpse of what might become the norm in a possible post-Roe future. "It's the canary dying in the mine," says Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. If the Supreme Court were to reverse the decision, abortion would likely become illegal in 30 states, including Mississippi, according to a 2004 report by the center. Across what can seem like a great divide, the 20 other states have laws, constitutions or court decisions that would protect the basic right to abortion even if Roe falls. While some of these, including New York and Washington State, which both decriminalized abortion before 1973, will likely remain strongly pro-choice, others may pass restrictive laws like Mississippi's.

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We too easily write people off who don't agree with our personal position on this divisive subject of abortion. In my own experience, ameliorated over the years by direct, mutually-respectful discussions with a number of pro-choice friends and acquaintances, I have found most of them to be very thoughtful people exercising great conscience. (All will say they are pro-choice and NOT pro-abortion.) And to my recollection they all -- virtually without exception -- have been concerned precisely about the important moral and spiritual issues I've highlighted above.

The challenge is before us -- we have got to work together to find a better way...

Are there any readers here from Mississippi who might care to comment? Or who could verify the realities depicted above?

Chaplain Clair Hochstetler, Goshen, IN