Is Abortion Necessary for Women to Be Equal to Men?

            Families, communities, and nations are stronger when men and women have equal opportunities to reach their full potential. Pro-abortion activists claim that access to abortions is necessary to bring equality to women. However, other people understand that women already have full equality without the need to kill their babies.

            Four days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, a book that is authored by Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis and is critical of abortion was released on June 28. On June 27^th, the authors took part in a discussion at The Heritage Foundation about their book in the post-Roe America.

            According to an article by Bernadette Hassan in The Daily Signal, Anderson suggested that there is “physical, emotional, and mental harm done to women by abortion” as well as “great harm is done as a result of the worldview suggesting abortion is necessary for equality.” Anderson said such a view of abortion “has allowed us to sustain a culture in which the male way of being human, the male way of embodiment, is taken as the norm, and my wife’s way of being human is somehow a defective version of my way of being human.” He continued his explanation as follows: 

We structure our higher education system, our employment system, our economy, our entire culture around my body being normal, and her body being somehow dysfunctional. For her to be equal to me, she needs to sterilize her body. If the sterilization fails, she needs to kill her child, who is viewed as a threat to her equality.

            DeSanctis spoke about the thought process of abortion being empowering. She explained that this type of thinking is “fueled by this underlying assumption that freedom is just participation in sex at any point with anybody with no consequences.” This type of thinking says that a man can walk away from a sexual encounter “without physically bearing a child,” but a woman cannot have that same type of freedom without aborting her own child.

DeSanctis challenged pro-abortionists by saying, “What kind of society are we if the best solution we have to any set of problems is to kill the most vulnerable people among us?” She continued by saying, “If you believe abortion is necessary, think about why, and think about: ‘Are the problems that you identify that make you think abortion is the solution really solved by perpetrating violence against innocent, vulnerable human beings?’ How are any of us really better off?”

            Males and females are equal just as we are. The bodies of men and women are different, but we are equal in value. We are also equal in responsibility when a child is conceived. We can strengthen our families, communities, and nations by working together supportive partnerships and make the world better for all people.