I was sitting in a recent committee hearing at the state house listening to Planned Parenthood and the NH Women’s Foundation argue in favor of a senate bill (SB 486) that would require employers in the state to cover all abortions in their health plans. I had brought my young son and found myself reflexively holding him closer as I heard the arguments being made. In today’s political climate, abortions are no longer being framed as “safe, legal, and rare.” Instead they are defended as basic healthcare, and, as Elizabeth Warren has said recently, also an “economic right.” We’re no longer talking about the first trimester. Ironically, as science has shown us how early our children in utero can respond, feel pain, and be viable outside the womb, the abortion drumbeat today is the demand for the right to terminate a baby’s life at any time for any reason, even after birth. And, for everyone to pay for it regardless of what their conscience dictates.

When did our next generation become so dehumanized, seen as an impediment to a woman’s ability to contribute? Why is the extreme measure of abortion cast as the only answer, and as “basic” healthcare no less? As I listened to pregnancy being framed as a detriment to a woman’s economic utility, I found myself wondering how pregnancy had become so antithetical to a woman’s worth?

That’s not what the early feminists thought. They were pro-life as much as they fought for the rights of women. They lived in the wake of an era that had seen what was estimated to be an abortion rate of 20% to 25% of all pregnancies. It was a time when a woman’s pregnancy was a source of shame and isolation. These women believed that the rights of mother and child were bound together, and that the liberty to live and participate in our government is a fundamental human right that extends to women and their children. As Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a proud mother herself, put it, “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.”

We were all embryos at one point, each with our unique DNA and the promise of a full and rich life. At some level, we all understand that. But, why do we think our successful birth gives us the right to deprive another of their life? Despite the science and the ability we now have to witness the miraculous process of independent life flowering in the womb, the pro-abortion lobby instead treats the unborn as inconvenient biohazard matter to dispose of. The inherent contradiction in that thinking is perhaps no more evident as it is in this discussion between a college student and a pro-life speaker when the student claims a living baby born after attempted abortion is “not a baby” and should be allowed to die. Why? Because, to acknowledge an unwanted, yet living, breathing human is a person would make it wrong. And, by extension, every child that could live outside the womb could arguably be defined as an individual in their own right. So, she tenaciously clings to that absurd belief.

As I listened to the speakers that day in the state house, I thought how these arguments would be sure to raise the ire of those early feminists who envisioned a better future for women too long abused by a society of convenience and degradation. And, what is the end goal? To ingrain abortion so deeply in our ethos and laws that no one can escape endorsing and supporting it, whatever their beliefs? Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her peers would be appalled.

By labeling it “basic healthcare” and pushing to include it in every healthcare plan, Planned Parenthood would have us believe abortion should be the measure of first resort when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. I know they have their reasons. After all, they have a business to protect. However, abortion is not basic healthcare, and it does not have to be the inevitable resolution to an inconvenient pregnancy. I prefer to believe that, as the organization Feminists for Life asserts, abortion is a symptom, not a solution. It tells us we have not adequately met the needs of women or their unborn children.

This is 2020, not 1850. Those of us who are opposed to underwriting abortion because of our shared belief in the inherent dignity of each human should not be compelled to participate in the deliberate extinguishing of a young life, much less deem it healthcare. Women today and their children deserve better. I hope our state doesn’t force me and others who share my convictions to violate those beliefs.

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