Integral Interpretation of Abortion, Abortion Bans

Town Square
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Seems Mississippi’s post 15 week abortion ban will be heard by SCOTUS later this fall.

What is the Integral interpretation of Texas’ just enacted post 6 week ban on abortions?

Couple of notes/talking points from articles:

  • At 6 weeks a woman very likely won’t know she is pregnant
  • Ban is based on first heartbeat
  • Everyone is deputized to report an abortion or assisting with an abortion w/ a $10,000 reward

How does freedom of choice map into Integral levels?
How does destruction of a fetus map into integral levels?

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Here’s a discussion Ken and I had on the subject.

Personally think the Texas law is an absolute moral and legislative disaster.

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@corey-devos Thanks for the posting Corey. Couple of thoughts:

How many minutes per week are you in dialog with living breathing humans on the conservative side of the spectrum? Actual dialog please, not “dialog about those people” is what I am asking.

You look to set context by initially conflating conservative, religious fundamentalist, and those that are not pro abortion.

Quoting Old Testament Biblical scripture in a clear Literal Mythic interpretation then peanut buttering across all that disagree with your stance is fundamentally intellectually corrupt since you also believe Literal Mythic as extremely low altitude. You reference zero New Testament Biblical (the trans tribal, trans eye for eye proscriptive post Judism Christian contribution) scripture that might possibly refutiate your pro abortion stance. You take the unterpretation that most supports your pro abortion beliefs in every instance, and sprinkle statistics that would have the everyone left with trivialality of scale. Your late term abortions (at a negligable %) are “only” just under 10,000 killings per year. The scale of abortions in the US is +600,000 every year. Nice job cherry picking your “only +1% per year late term abortion” marketing point. The comment on using the US Constitution as your “North Star” was sarcasimn right? All this in lead in to a lovely discussion by Ken. You definitely milk yout KW franchise to the fullest.

Ken’s discussion was great at covering holons, systems, rights, liberties and agency. This portion was well worth the listen.
Kens discussion was perhaps integral looking at multiple aspects. Corey, you come across as a PR operative for a far left agenda.

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Well if it isn’t another friendly difference of opinion from FermentedAgave. Well, maybe not so friendly this time around.

I’ll see if I can quickly answer your questions for you.

How many conservatives do I talk to? Plenty. My wife’s family is entirely conservative. Catholic too! I also talk to plenty of right-leaning libertarians, left-leaning libertarians, centrists, progressives, socialists, and Q Anon followers. I love taking to all sorts of people, especially people who disagree with me, because I find that most of them — the ones who don’t have their identity completely wrapped up in their politics, anyway — have offered me some partial truth or perspective that has informed my own views. Some more than others, of course.

As for your next paragraphs, I think it’s an awfully uncharitable and fairly disrespectful reading of my views, values, and overall intentions with this show. It’s almost like you have a hard time with the idea that I simply have a different view than you do, and how dare I present that view in my discussions with Ken. But that’s kind of what we do here. I offer a frame, and Ken responds to it. Sometimes the frame is mine, other times it’s a summary of Ken’s own thoughts, so I can get him to the good stuff more quickly without feeling like he needs to repeat what he’s said in other discussions. Integral is not an ideology, after all, so I am not particularly interested in bringing a whole lot of ideological fervor to these discussions. But I do occasionally have a view. And clearly you don’t like my views very much. But again, that’s okay, we are allowed to disagree here.

As I said in the discussion, I think this is all largely a question of metaphysics. It all comes down to the question, “when do you believe life begins?” And I offered examples from some of the loudest voices from each altitude. And for amber, “life begins at conception” is by far the loudest voice. I did not say all conservatives have that view.

And no, I wasn’t comprehensive in my examples. Upon review, I also gave a fairly negative appraisal of orange as well (“fetuses are parasites until they are born”, which I called profane). I also made a little joke about green, saying they would just be mad at us for being two men daring to have this conversation. A little poke at wokism, you know.

So I don’t really see where I “conflated” anyone here, other than by giving purposely hyperbolic examples from the fringe of these altitudes.

Except, you know, that whole amber “life begins at conception” thing isn’t really so much an example from the fringe, as it is has been a defining slogan of the culture wars and repeated by mainstream politicians on the right for just about 40 years now.

I’m fact, here’s what Abbott said as he was signing this into law:

“Our creator endowed us with the right to life and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion,” Abbott said in a bill signing ceremony.

So yes, because religious fundamentalism is undeniably a major current in today’s GOP electorate, and because laws like the one in Texas are being actively and publicly justified by religious beliefs, I did find it worthwhile to mention that it turns out the only actual mentions of abortion in the Bible are a recipe for abortion, as well as the fact that it’s suggested that life begins at first breath, not at conception.

The book of Genesis is still a fairly important reading in American Christianity, is it not? Was there some other mention of abortion in the New Testament that I missed? Or was there some later clarification about when human life truly begins?

And yes, only 1.3% of abortions occur after 21 weeks. And I actually did appreciate your point about “the triviality of scale”, as this is exactly the tactic many anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers employ when talking about the horrific death rate from Covid. It’s a really important point — there are a LOT of human beings on this planet, which means that things that effect 1-2% of a given population are impacting far more people than we imagine. Of course, in this case, I made clear that the vast majority of that 1.3% are due to medical emergencies. Safety of the mother, organs growing outside a fetus’s body, etc. Real grisly stuff. The sorts of things that are already incredibly traumatic for women and families, even without the protestors outside the door calling them evil.

Because, as it turns out, the scale of these medical emergencies is anything but trivial.

Or are you implying that otherwise healthy women with healthy pregnancies are choosing to terminate a week or two before delivery?

You say, “The comment on using the US Constitution as your “North Star” was sarcasimn right?”

I was actually referring to the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, saying that I believe the values of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” is hierarchically arranged — you can pursue happiness, but not at the expense of my liberty, and you can pursue liberty but not at the expense of my life. I then stated how this reading is causing me some degree of moral conflict as I apply it to abortion, because as useful of a heuristic as that often is, this discussion calls into question the life and liberty of multiple agents at multiple holonic levels. I find that an interesting frame, so I presented it to Ken.

Why do you think I don’t support the Constitution? Why would you suggest it’s a joke? That seems needlessly disparaging. Because we have different interpretations of what it means and how it should be enacted?

You then engage in a couple unprovoked low blows that border on personal insults. This politics stuff sure gets you riled up, huh? Hey, I get it, I’ve been pissed off about this absolutely idiotic Texas thing all week, the very idea that a vigilante system has been created in order to effectively outlaw abortion for as many women as possible, regardless of matters of rape or incest. Thankfully it has exemptions for late-term medical emergencies, so I imagine that 1.3% will pretty much continue unchanged. And of course, middle class and rich women can still get their abortions, they just need to pay for a plane ticket. But not poor mothers of course.

So yeah, this week pissed me off. But instead of choosing to go online to argue with fine folks such as yourself, or accusing people like you of being a far-right spokesman for your contributions to the community, instead I spent the day planting a couple trees in my back yard. I’m exhausted, but it was tremendously rejuvenating work and practice. I do a lot of woodwork, so my overall k/d ratio could use some improvement, but it was nice to spend the day only thinking about what was directly in front of my eyes.

In the end, it really was a fantastic discussion, and I am glad that Ken and I essentially agreed on the overall takeaways — we hope the Supreme Court maintains the post-Roe status quo (oh well, that didn’t quite work out did it), that a fetus does not achieve “wholeness” (viability as a separate organism) until 22-26 weeks, and that multiple studies have demonstrated that the very best way to prevent abortions is to emphasize sex education, personal responsibility, sex positivity, and easy access to birth control. Hey, that’s one for each quadrant :wink:

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I find the topic of abortion a very high energized topic that neither side does well in defending.

From the point of view of respecting life … if we had a neighbor killing puppies we on the “Left” would likely be lined up in outrage for the brutality. While from the "Right’ imagining that we will outlaw abortion certainly seems like a step backwards to the dark ages for humanity.

Respecting life, for animals or a human fetus, sets a tone that I think most civilized people would agree is deserving of preserving and defending. This respect is abandoned when the debate devolves into politics.

Certainly a more integral format of discussion would be in support of positive constructive conversations around the topic rather than fighting a battle that’s already been decided. Abortion will never be completely banned that legal battle is OVER.

Perhaps an honest discussion on how to minimize this heinous procedure would be better? A decision that needs to be made by a woman with her doctor exclusively. There is already great suffering for a woman who actually selects to undertake such a personal trauma as the lesser of two evils.

There is so much suffering and pain around this issue that lasts a life-time for the woman, something men will never fully understand. Let’s love and care for those who are faced with such an intense decision. Let’s not undermine it to an unconscious decision like having a tooth pulled. As an integral community we are bigger and better than the petty politics of left vs right. ~ Peace :slight_smile:

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Many thanks @corey-devos for the energy and thought in response. I think our biggest disconnect is that you quite often start off your podcasts by stitching together out of fringe hypothetical sliver demographics/concepts your “opponent” which you can then spend the next hour decomposing and debunking. Just as in your response most recent response you “pile on” with references to anti vaxxer, qanon. Only you can answer, but this is seemingly intended to stuff a little more into your straw doll opponent.

Would you mind posting your references to your abortion statistics?

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@excecutive Integral Life needs more of this type of thinking. I do see this as highly “Integral”.

@corey-devos Doesn’t the Catholic Church have multiple services to support alternatives to abortion and also emotional/mental health for those involved in abortions? Or would these services by definition by low altitude, perhaps Amber or lower, given that they are part of a low altitude organization?
It just might be a highly educational exercise and help demystify (integrate) that stuffed doll opponent a bit if you could list out what these services might be. Have you considered volunteering with these groups? It would perhaps be an amazing “integral experience” you could share with the community.

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Ummm, Corey doesn’t come across as a PR operative for a far left agenda to me.
The major problem I have with “Right” and “Left” is that they are redundant as terms to describe and encompass a political view in today’s nuanced world.
We have a small Integral discussion group over the pond in England where politics often comes up for discussion. Whilst I can’t speak for the others, if our conversation ever heads towards Left versus Right or vice versa, I immediately feel the discussion loses all depth and we soon get bored and so move back to a deeper discussion of the issue at hand.
In broad terms, to me it appears democracy in its current form and content has passed its sell by date. One of the progressions from Green to Teal will be to develop a new structure and content to deal with the changes society is creating/suffering/enjoying.

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Actually, I have a different view — I think our biggest sense of disconnect is that every time you engage with me, you do so with a fair amount of aggression, judgment, and admonishment. This has been true ever since the very first private message you sent me. (Hell, you’ve even made comments about my anxiety, for some reason, as if that has any bearing on my credibility or the work I’ve done with Ken over the last 20 years.) You do exactly what you are accusing me of here, trying to push me into some narrow preconceived frame of “wokeness” or being a “far-left spokesman”. Brother, if I am far-left to you, you must be miles to the right of any conceivable “center” (not that I give that frame very much regard, as it is entirely too narrow in order to capture the many nuances and subtleties of our political views and discourse. However, because we currently use a “first past the post” LR voting system here in the US, all of that complexity gets inevitably reduced to a simplistic two-party “left vs. right”. I try to keep that in my awareness for the sake of my own ongoing sense-making, without allowing myself to fall into a “both-sides” Golden Mean fallacy/argument to moderation.)

To answer your question — yes, the Catholic Church and community does in fact offer those services, and I am grateful for them — for the women who choose that path. These services are not, however, a substitute for that choice. That is my view, and it is a view that I feel adequately integrates amber, orange, and green stages of moral reasoning. Personal agency and bodily autonomy are exceptionally important concepts, whether we are talking about abortion, vaccines, or organ transplants. And as Ken himself says, a woman’s bodily autonomy should be seen as paramount — up until the point the fetus achieves viable “wholeness”, at which point we need to consider the autonomy of both mother and child in our moral reasoning. It is never black and white, despite Amber’s largely belief-based insistence that it is.

You also seem to think that I have negative judgments of anything that could possibly fall into the “amber” stage. This is false. Amber as a stage is absolutely fundamental to civilization, and many of our current challenges are a result of Green deconstructing these amber structures. However, while amber is more fundamental than later stages, it is also less significant. It is best suited for certain levels of complexity, and less suited for other levels of complexity. In today’s world Amber is particularly effective on a more local community level, but has rapidly diminishing returns when applied on a more global geopolitical scale. But Amber itself is an absolutely gorgeous stage — particularly in the ways it can “straighten us out” and help us regulate our own base red impulses (I also view Red as a tremendously beautiful stage, for what it’s worth). Hell, the AA program is an essentially amber program, and it does people a ton of good. I celebrate amber. But not when it tries to assert itself on other people (as any ethnocentric system will try to do), or tries to override/undermine the dignities that have emerged from orange and green stages.

A couple other things I should clarify: I don’t believe that all conservatives are amber, and I don’t believe that all amber individuals are conservative. However, amber messaging does tend to dominate much of the discourse on the right, especially when it comes to culture war issues like abortion, immigration, etc. Less so when it comes to the intellectual leaders of the right, who in many ways I think excel the current intellectual leaders of the left. The problem is, I don’t see much evidence that the intellectual leaders of the right are actually influencing our elected GOP leaders or the majority of their electorate in any significant way. I wish they were. But alas, Fox News and OANN continue to have far more influence on Republican voters than, say, John McWhorter, Glen Loury, or Coleman Hughs. The intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals of the left, meanwhile, I would argue have too much influence on the rest of the left.

As for the rest of your comment, yes I mentioned that I talk to Q Anon folks. That wasn’t “piling on”, that was me responding to your question about my informational terrain.

And yes, I mentioned anti-vaxxers/maskers, because I quite liked your “triviality of scale” comment, and it has direct and immediate relevance to the pandemic we currently find ourselves in, and the sort of messaging that surrounds it — and that pandemic + messaging is ironically ravaging the same state that enacted one of the most regressive abortion policies in the developed world, supported by a state-sanctioned vigilante system.

Now, to get us out of the left vs. right foodfight, I purposely did not frame the abortion discussion with Ken as a low-resolution binary. We need to take partisan divisions into account in our overall sense-making, but if it’s integral, the conversation should both transcend and include that frame.

Which is why I framed this largely as a metaphysical issue, with a spectrum of metaphysical assumptions that range from amber to turquoise. We can talk about where some of those assumptions come from, without being limited to the stages that produce those assumptions. So I posed the Christian fundamentalist assumption that “life begins at conception” at one end of that metaphysical spectrum, and orange nihilism/green essentialism at the other end, so that I could clear a space with Ken where we could have a somewhat more nuanced conversation that used integral ideas to help us navigate these controversial discussions. If you want to try to disparage or discredit me by calling that “milking the KW franchise”, well, you do you dawg.

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IMHO, we need discourse between members of the Integral community. I love witnessing it and from time to time being part of it. I find it stimulating, edifying and from time to time it confirms to me that I’m on track with where I’m going in my life. Equally from time to time it disabuses me of my fallacious notions - that is, it helps me see where I’m wrong.
For example I’ve been really helped in seeing and dealing with my inherent hidden racist attitudes through discussions with others during integral practices. However there is no way I would choose to open up to the degree necessary to achieve that growth on this platform.
I am mindful of the limitations of this platform.
My particular gripe is where a discussion on this platform descends to overt or covert ad hominem attacks. Also when it descends into straw men attacks. The shame is that there may be a flurry of good stuff which I miss because I can’t be bothered to go beyond the first ad hominem or straw man.

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Corey, I kept seeing the “we want your feeback” request on IL so sent you a polite yet direct, Private message with what in my professional and also personal opinion would help IL. I had NO idea what your personal challenges are/were or your hot buttons. If you perceived my requested feedback as an ad homenim attack, I apologize for it landing that way back in June. Also know that whatever you shared with me privately has and will continue to remain private

Peace out, be integral and do more of what lights you up!

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I had an abortion and I’m fine. We women need neither your sympathy nor your permission. Abortions, like miscarriages, are very natural and a part of life and are, yes, sad and sometimes traumatic, but also ok.

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Hey FermentedAgave, just to be clear, I am always happy to talk with you, even/especially when it’s things we disagree about. I enjoyed responding to you in this thread, I enjoy taking time to clarify my views, and hopefully helped you better understand my point of view. I would simply appreciate it if you left your character judgments out of the conversation. This is a space to explore multiple perspectives. Sometimes those perspectives might align, and sometimes they won’t. Let’s find a way to keep ourselves from over-identifying with our own political views, which are by definition partial and incomplete, and are usually in reality the least interesting thing about us.

And when it comes to this particular issue, I just want to clarify that I am in no way am I “pro-abortion”. But neither am I willing to impose my own metaphysically-defined morality on others. I believe the goal, as excecutive put it above, should be to find the strategies necessary to minimize the number of abortions that are occurring, in a way that is as humane and as safe to all human beings as possible. The good news is, we know how to do so, and banning abortions altogether does not seem to be part of that solution — banning is an example of “direct causation” thinking, but an issue like this requires a more “systemic causation” mindset, in addition to emphasis on interior virtues, family values, and healthy self-respect.

Here in Colorado, we ran a program that successfully reduced abortions in a state that is very permissive around abortions – it was a program that gave young women free access to IUDs.

"Nationwide, the number and rate of abortions have declined to the lowest levels since abortion became legal in 1973, according to the latest report from the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion across the country. In Colorado, there were 12,390 abortions in 2017, the most recent year included in the report released this fall. That compares with 14,710 abortions in 2011.

Not all of those abortions were for Colorado women. An unknown number of women traveled from other states to have abortions here. Regardless, there was a 10% drop in the abortion rate for Colorado from 2014 to 2017 — that is 12.1 abortions per 1,000 women in 2014, compared with 10.9 abortions per 1,000 women in 2017."

"Over the span of the program from 2009 to 2015, birth and abortion rates in Colorado both declined by half among teens aged 15 to 19 and by 20% among women aged 20 to 24, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

But how else did this greater access to contraception benefit women?

With help from a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Stevenson and collaborators at CU Denver and the U.S. Census Bureau sought to find out.

“This was the biggest policy experiment ever conducted in contraception in the U.S. and its impacts had not been fully assessed,” said Stevenson, a fellow at the Institute of Behavioral Science.

Closing the graduation gap

Using anonymized data and detailed surveys from the U.S. Census, the team examined the educational attainment of 5,050 Colorado women and compared those whose high school career occurred before and after the policy change.

To parse out what differences in their lives were due to the family planning initiative vs. other factors, the researchers also looked at the same changes in the outcomes of women of similar age in 17 other states.

The paper, the first of several expected to come out of the research project, found that overall high school graduation rates in Colorado increased from 88% before CFPI was implemented to 92% after, and about half of that gain was due to the program.

Improvements in graduation rates among Hispanic women, specifically, were even greater, with graduation rates rising from 77% to 87%, about 5% of the increase attributed to CFPI.

In all, the program decreased the percentage of young women in Colorado who left school before graduating by 14%.

Put another way, an additional 3,800 Colorado women born between 1994 and 1996 received a high school diploma by age 20 to 22 as a result of CFPI.

“Supporting access to contraception does not eliminate disparities in high school graduation, but we find that it can contribute significantly to narrowing them,” said Stevenson, who believes the Colorado results translate to other states."

Unfortunately, this program has been under attack by conservatives for years, who demand that the state stop funding it. But in my view, programs like these should be a fiscal conservative’s dream — it’s an economic multiplier, one of those “spend $1 in order to save $5” deals.

So to me it’s a no-brainer — make abortion safe and legal for all women who chose or need the procedure, using a sensible cutoff period before the fetus achieves a reasonable viable “wholeness” (with exceptions for rape, incest, and medical emergency), while simultaneously implementing programs like the above that successfully reduce overall unwanted pregnancies, and therefore reduce the number of women who need to make this choice in the first place. More sex education, no more of this “abstinence only” stuff. Give women more control over their own reproductive organs, not less. This to me is the best way to bring the greatest depth to the greatest span, and to decrease suffering for as many human beings as possible.

Not only does it lower unwanted pregnancies, but it also results in more graduations, more economic mobility, more productive members of society, and less strain on the social safety net.

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Another aspect that needs attention is male birth control. While it should the woman’s choice whether to abort (although the man will in cases affect this choice - e.g. whether he’s prepared to make sacrifices to bring up the baby), it’s both the man and the woman’s responsibility not to create a foetus in the first place.

There’s ongoing research into male birth control but currently the only options are condoms and vesectomies, partly due to a lack of funding in this area. Soon however, there should be more available: https://mashable.com/article/male-birth-control-gel-pill-injection

This is another area people can find ethically difficult however, because it is a man making alterations to his body to protect the woman from becoming pregnant. I think the foetus needs to be brought into this discussion however, as it is not only him protecting the woman from becoming pregnant, but also the as yet uncreated foetus.

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Welcome @PIPPA_AREND and thank you for sharing your personal moving experience! ~ Peace :slight_smile:

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If we are to try to create a wholistic discussion inclusive of the broad population there is some additional complexity (we knew it wouldn’t be easy right? :slight_smile:) to weave into the picture:

  • Minors - Should parental consent be a requirement? Is inform sufficient? Counseling minors without parental consent?
  • Should public schools be funded and tasked to teach contraceptive and abortion topics to minors ?
  • Should parents have the option to “opt out” of programs for their minor children?
  • Should the mother’s receive a percentage of fetus and stem cell revenues from the abortion?
  • Is this a State or Federal issue?
  • Black Fetus’ Matter? (stats linked here - I don’t know if accurate): Blacks represent 18% of population but have 38% of abortions. In absolute terms that’s 237,000 fetus destroyed, or a disproportionate 124,000 Black fetus aborted. All 2016 #‘s.Black abortions kill 237,000 fetus’ which is greater than the next top 9 killers of Blacks combined.
  • Father’s support obligation - Should the father have a legal support obligation when he has no legal standing in decision to keep/abort?
  • Should Federal/State funding be used for abortions if it violates a taxpayers Religious beliefs?
  • Should Religious affiliated hospitals be required to perform abortions in violation of their religious tenants?
  • Should medical personnel be required to perform abortions in violation of their religious beliefs?
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I personally found the pro-life stance absurd to the point of nausea in and around 2001 when the exact same people in my family and social circle who were against killing unborn fetuses tried to pressure me to go to Iraq and kill whatever got in the way of oil revenues and the Big Lie of Weapons of Mass Destruction - whether was to kill soldier, pregnant woman or baby - to a single person - every single person I knew who was pro-life was also pro-bomb & invade Iraq. They were completely unconcerned with the “collateral damage” or if it was a moral cause. Not to mention they were completely unconcerned with my life, lmao.

We have a completely immoral modern society that does not respect ANY life.

If people are pacifists and consistently respect ALL LIFE - I have a great respect for that.
It’s when people are selectively moral or selectively pro-life with one group then support mass murder of another group - that’s when I have a complete abhorrence of the morality.

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I’ll offer my own views.

Let’s do a really grisly worst case scenario, because we kind of need to for these things — a thirteen year old girl is raped by her father, and her mother is either in denial, or refuses to do anything about it. In this case, I think the 13 year old girl should absolutely be able to terminate this pregnancy.

Public schools should be funded and tasked to teach comprehensive sex education, which would include both contraceptives, as well as educating about the potential traumas of abortion. Yes.

No, if they are attending public schools, then I do not think parents should be able to opt their kids out of sex education, which should be a cornerstone of any secular education. Private schools can do whatever they want, and parents are free to choose to send their kids there if they want to.

No, that to me would be like trying to profit from organ donation. We certainly wouldn’t want abortion to become a source of passive income for people.

My sense is that this is more of a class issue that a racial issue, but there are surely some LL cultural elements here, as well as some LR challenges as well. I personally think it is especially important for impoverished women to have control over their own reproductive organs, which has been correlate with both increased economic mobility (can finish school, pursue a career, etc., which are options that are far more limited if a woman has to raise a child and pay $2k+ per month for day care), as well as diminishing crime rates (fewer children being born into poverty).

I am not sure what exactly this means. Are you asking whether child support should be eliminated if a woman chooses not to have an abortion, since the woman has final say in her abortion? If that is the question, then I say no, because mothers and fathers do not share the same physical and psychological consequences for carrying a fetus to term.

Yes. My own “religion” says we should not bomb foreign countries in order to secure access to resources. But no one gives a shit when it comes to violating these sacred religious principles. Religious beliefs should have no bearing whatsoever on legislature, other than to protect the right to believe whatever we want to believe, and to maintain the separation of church and state.

No, I don’t think they should. Other secular hospitals can pick up the slack here.

No they should not. But I think this is a bit moot, because presumably the procedure is being performed by a medical specialist who devoted his/her life to women’s reproductive health, the vast majority of whom have already grappled with the moral/ethical quandaries around abortion. If one doctor doesn’t want to do the procedure, I’m sure there are three more right behind them who will.

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An additional thought came to mind: What might be unintended (not comprehended systematic/metasystematic) consequences in LL quadrant when creating societal normalization of abortion?

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I could see people being concerned that a “normalization” of abortion would further remove us from an active intrapersonal and cultural appreciation for the sacred, which would in turn make the overall number of abortions increase.

I for one am not too concerned about that, however, because abortion has essentially been “normalized” since the 1970s in America and across the majority of other developed nations for longer than I’ve been alive, and yet if I recall correctly, we’ve been seeing a year-by-year reduction in total abortions as our strategies of education, access to contraception, and family planning continue to ramp up. Plus, I think it’s a matter of “amber sacred” being transmuted into a form of “orange sacred” (e.g. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in that order) which expands our sense of the sacred to include the life, welfare, dignity, and freedom of the mother to control her own reproductive organs.