Election 2008: Abortion and the Middle Way

Yesterday, in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Sen. Joe Biden said, "I’m prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception.” However, Biden -- the Democratic Party's candidate for U.S. vice president -- is opposed to criminalizing abortion.

Some conservatives cannot accept Biden's position. They think we must choose between two moral options: One either believes abortion is morally wrong -- the taking of a human life -- and must be criminalized, or one believes it is not morally wrong and may remain legal. Senator Biden's position is, however, perfectly reasonable from a Buddhist perspective.

As explained in "Buddhism and Abortion: A Buddhist Perspective on the Abortion Issue," Buddhism does consider abortion to be the taking of a human life. At the same time, Buddhists generally are reluctant to intervene in a woman's personal decision to terminate a pregnancy. Buddhism may discourage abortion, but it also discourages imposing rigid moral absolutes.

The Buddhist approach to moral issues is one that some deride as "situationist." Instead of imposing rigid, one-size-fits-all rules to every situation, Buddhists are encouraged to resolve moral problems by considering the complex causes, conditions and relationships surrounding a particular situation. We are to examine our own intentions and motivations honestly and weigh possible consequences to others as well as to ourselves. And all of these factors are to be considered in the light of the Buddha's teachings.

It's true that people will make choices that seem selfish and callous to many of us. But consider the fruits of absolutism. Where abortion is illegal, women risk their lives by submitting to unsterile procedures. They drink bleach or turpentine, perforate themselves with sticks and coat hangers, and even jump off roofs. Worldwide, unsafe abortion procedures cause the deaths of about 67,000 women per year, mostly in nations in which abortion is illegal, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

And the terrible irony is that making abortion illegal doesn't stop it. If you compare abortion rates by nation, you see that some nations that outlaw abortions have more abortions than some nations in which abortions are legal. For example, the rate of abortion (abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44) is 31 is Latin America, where abortion is illegal almost everywhere, and 19 in western Europe, where most nations have made abortion legal.

The evidence is clear that an authoritative, punitive approach to abortion does not stop it, but only drives it underground, where it is performed in unsafe ways, causing more death and suffering. Yet many conservatives will not listen to alternatives to criminalization. They seem to believe that sweeping abortion under the rug, so to speak, confers some moral sanctification, and suffering that's out of their sight can be ignored.

From a Buddhist perspective, such a point of view is akusala -- as close as Buddhism gets to a concept of evil. As Robert Aitken Roshi wrote in his book The Mind of Clover: Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics (p.17), "The absolute position, when isolated, omits human details completely. Doctrines, including Buddhism, are meant to be used. Beware of them taking life of their own, for then they use us."

And this takes us back to U.S. politics and the abortion issue. The Republican Party platform (p. 52) says,

Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

(The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution confers citizenship to everyone born in the United States or its territories.)

Here is the Democratic Party platform (pp. 50-51):

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to comprehensive affordable family planning services and age-appropriate sex education which empower people to make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.

Real-world experience shows us that the best way to reduce abortion is to encourage use of contraceptives. As this Alan Guttmacher study shows, there is a strong correlation between increased contraceptive usage and reduced abortion rates. The Democratic Party wants to support family planning services.

The Republican platform makes no provision for supporting family planning services. Indeed, on page 45, the GOP platform says,

We renew our call for replacing “family planning” programs for teens with increased funding for abstinence education, which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and expected standard of behavior.

Real-world experience shows us that encouraging contraceptive use among teenagers lowers pregnancy rates. Abstinence-only education has yet to be proven to have any effect at all.

In fact, the Democratic Party's approach, which Republican's scorn as "pro-abortion" or "anti-life," probably would reduce the rate of abortions in the U.S. The Republican Party's "pro-life" approach probably would not reduce the rate of abortions in the U.S. but would lead to injuries and some deaths from back-alley abortion

Buddhism encourages us to confront and acknowledge real lives, real circumstances, and real suffering, and to take practical steps to alleviate suffering. Imposing absolutist "solutions" for the sake of conceptual moral principles that don't apply to the real world and which, in fact, increase suffering is evil to us.

Thus, Senator Biden's position on abortion is completely reasonable, from a Buddhist perspective.