“No one is pro-abortion”, I have heard said in this space and elsewhere by people whose compassion and thoughtfulness I respect.

It seems to me the national mind is stuck in a feedback loop. A woman’s body hosts a new force. The place of this new force is considered by her and others. Then, either a complementary force (encouragement, support, respect, opportunity, ethical necessity) or a contradictory force (abortion) is brought to bear on this emergent reality.

The forces become identified with each other and exist as choice and force, as emergence and submergence.

When I consider the slowness of human imagination in multiple areas (racism, climate, animal rights, human rights, kind speech, equity, sexual self-identity), I am highly alert to the likelihood that our dramatics around what is going on in the maternal body and mind and soul (combine as you like), is ready for an evolutionary upgrade.

Evolutionary upgrades usually entail ethical maturing.

Contraception was a step in the right direction.

The patriarchal edifice (crumbling in places) is in evidence in the very existence of a procedure such as abortion. It has the feel of “that’s good enough for women.”

This is an open invite to mind-and-life thinkers on ethics and society to consider ways out of our current feedback loop. Something that would “wow” us, make us incredulous a hundred years from now that we ever settled for abortion as a way out of anything.