We’ll be posting a lot on the South Dakota referendum as well. Here’s a piece by Jonathan Cohn from today’s New Republic page on one ad campaign:
Cohn doesn’t like it, of course.
But when doctors don the white coats to address the public, they create the impression that they will be conveying medical information and hard facts–that they will be acting as scientists, not moralists. And yet moralizing is precisely what the physicians in that commercial are doing. Consider that first statement: "Science now proves that life begins at conception." This is an apparent reference to a finding by the state task force that laid the intellectual groundwork for the new ban. It’s also absurd on its face. Science can prove a lot of things about the process of human reproduction, like what happens when a sperm and egg meet, how the newly formed zygote behaves after that point, when it implants in a woman’s uterus, and so on. But the one thing science cannot "prove" is at which point in this process life actually begins–because, by definition, that is a subjective judgment based as much on moral and religious beliefs as on observable scientific facts.
The statement that 96 percent of abortions in South Dakota are for birth control is, in some ways, more curious. Insofar as the point of abortion is to end a pregnancy, and therefore control a birth, it would seem that every single abortion is a form of birth control–in the same way, say, that steering a car could be called a form of motion control.
Of course, the point of this ad is to imply something else: To suggest that women are having abortions for frivolous reasons. The figure, 96 percent, comes from survey findings that only 4 percent of abortions are performed because of rape, incest, or concerns over the mother’s health. The unstated assumption, then, is that all other abortions are, in the parlance of the right-to-life movement, "abortions of convenience."
But who’s to say which reasons for an abortion are frivolous and which ones aren’t? Is a woman with several children, already struggling to provide for them emotionally and economically, being cavalier if she chooses to end an unplanned pregnancy? What about a woman who simply doesn’t feel ready to have a child? To some people, aborting a fetus with genetic abnormalities is frivolous; to others, it isn’t. Serious and thoughtful people can–and should–debate these matters. But for a group of doctors to present their views on these matters as cold, hard statistics is just wrong.
(more after the jump – but a question first – there was dispute among pro-lifers about the original bill. Is that impacting this present vote at all? Or is everyone on the same page? Okay, now go read more Cohn.)
And what about the last part of the ad–where the doctors assure viewers that the measure really isn’t so extreme, since victims of rape and incest can still use emergency contraception? The problem here isn’t moral judgment masquerading as scientific fact. It’s old-fashioned misinformation dressed up as truth.
For one thing, emergency contraception, known to many as the morning-after pill, is hardly fool-proof. A woman can take the pill after intercourse and still get pregnant. And it’s not like getting emergency contraception is particularly easy–at least in South Dakota. Many of the same people who oppose abortion also oppose the use of emergency contraception, either because they think it’s actually just another form of abortion (it can theoretically stop a fertilized egg from implanting) or because they fear it will encourage promiscuity. In South Dakota, a pharmacist can refuse to fill a prescription for the morning-after pill just as a physician may refuse to write one.
M ake no mistake: the doctors in this advertisement have a right to speak their minds–and, perhaps more than many people who voice their opinions about abortion, they have an important and unique perspective to lend the debate.
It turns out several of the doctors in the advertisement are pediatric sub-specialists, the kind who spend most of their time treating children with severe congenital health problems. You don’t have to second-guess couples that abort damaged fetuses to imagine why such physicians might feel so strongly about allowing even these pregnancies to go full term. Indeed, when I telephoned one of the physicians in the advertisement–a Sioux Falls pediatric cardiologist named William Waltz–he cited that experience as one reason he supports the new ban on abortions. "Seeing them thrive and grow up" had a huge impact, he explained. "These are human beings from the start."
That experience wasn’t his only reason for opposing abortion, though. His feelings also reflect religious faith, he said. And when I asked him whether he’d grant a patient’s request to fill a prescription for emergency contraception, he said he wouldn’t–because he wouldn’t want to participate in the destruction of an embryo. (He also noted, correctly, that it was an unlikely scenario given that most women would approach an obstetrician or family doctor, not a pediatric cardiologist, on such a matter.)
I imagine many if not most of the other doctors in the advertisement feel as Waltz does. (I called half a dozen of them; Waltz was the only one I reached before deadline.) And they are entitled to their opinion. But they should be clear that it’s just that–an opinion–rather than objective scientific fact.
Read Previous Post