Why not shoot my political aspirations in the foot, and make wholly non-researched suggestions regarding a top “hot button” issue? Hey, that sounds swell.

If I’m going to write about abortion, I’d like to start by pointing out that I am male, and therefore lack the appropriate organs to ever be pregnant. Hence, I can make all sorts of statements about this without any real hope of empathy. In other words, I want to always bear in mind that I probably cannot fully understand abortion.

But that doesn’t stop me from making some statements and throwing an off-the-cuff solution out there.

Initial Thoughts

The stock “right-wing Christian” answer (whether or not the majority of right-wing Christians actually support this, I don’t know) of abstinence programs may sound like a nice idea, especially to those of us who chose pre-marital abstinence for moral reasons, but I just don’t see how abstinence programs have any likelihood of working among those who don’t have such a pre-exisiting moral stance. Fear-mongering about STDs didn’t seem to cause any particular concern among my high-school class. Indeed, it rather frustrates me to find so many Christians trying so hard to “rationalize” Biblical instruction.

Instead of that route, I begin with the assumption that abortion is always undesirable. Note that I am not saying it is always immoral, unethical, etc., but that it is undesirable. To put this in perspective, I imagine presenting a woman who chooses to have an abortion–for whatever reason–the option to go back in time and prevent fertilization. I assume that in all cases (or very close to all) she would choose to do so. If I’m wrong on that point, the rest of this discussion is probably bunk, but this makes sense to me.

Proposal

My proposal then is as follows:

1. Invest significant federal funding (at least what’s going to the abstinence programs) into identifying or developing female and male contraceptives that prevent conception.
2. Distribute–again, federally funded–said medicine to everybody over the age of, say, twelve. Distributions might include a solution that the medicine could be dissolved in. That way, one could either take the medicine and throw away the solution or dissolve the medicine in the solution and throw both away. The rationale here is to avoid religious demands of placing the unused medicine on the altar–particularly parents demanding of teenagers.
3. Recommend that all people, sexually active or not, take the medicine unless they are trying to conceive.
4. Make it illegal to punish anyone for use of said medicine or to deny it to anyone, including children.
5. Both biological parents (since both can take the medicine) are financially and otherwise responsible for any children.
6. Keep abortion legal. Tell people this is an option, but make clear the benefits of using the medicine.

Hey, that’s nice and simple. Would it work? I don’t know, but it seems a better solution that anything going on right now. And, again, I’m taking the assumption that people will use a free, easily accessible contraceptive, in preference to the possibility of a future abortion. The key here is to make obtaining and using the contraceptive the easiest solution.

Problems

This approach seems the best to me, currently. I don’t doubt that over time I will see other approaches that I may prefer. But at this time, the stuff I keep hearing–abstinence “programs”, legal rulings, etc.–offers no solution, so at least this seems better. I do see some immediate problems that would have to be addressed, and which may not be fully addressable, and so must be weighed against the overall value of this approach:

1. Religious groups might attack anyone who uses the medicine. I’ve proposed some measures above, but I don’t think there’s anyway to fully prevent this.
2. Possible allergic reactions.
3. Some people would refuse to take medicine for religious reasons. I may assume here that they would also refuse abortions. And that hopefully their religious reasons would also prevent them getting into an ‘unwanted pregnancy’ situation. Ha ha.
4. I assume that no contraceptive will be 100% effective. But I hope that the majority of people who consider abortion immoral would accept the opportunity to prevent 99% of abortions despite knowing that unwanted pregnancies will occur, though hopefully only a very small percentage.
5. A fear/concern that the government and/or pharmaceutical companies could somehow abuse this solution, perhaps including other drugs in the medicine for whatever purpose. My response to that is if the government gives that a try, there’s better pre-existing distribution methods. Say, soft drinks.

So, that’s one idea.