The screening of My Foetus was a moment of honesty, but the battle is far from over, writes ANDREW CAMERON.

The recent screening by the ABC of the controversial documentary, My Foetus, was met with a barrage of opinion, and has unveiled a surprising shift in feminist thinking about abortion.

Documentary film-maker Julia Black, while still pro-choice in her stance on the debate, traces the change in her thinking about the abortion of late-term foetuses. The documentary showed 3-D ultrasound images of foetuses in wombs at nine, twelve, eighteen and twenty-three weeks, sucking their thumbs, jumping, and tumbling. It also showed the abortion of a four-week foetus taking place, foetal remains being rinsed through a sieve, and pictures of ten, 11 and 21-week-old aborted foetuses. The images in the documentary make it impossible to avoid the truth about these deliberate baby-killings.

In response, some pro-choice feminists have called for a reappraisal of late-term abortions. Citing medical advances that allow doctors to keep babies alive younger, they think there is reason to revisit the abortion debate.

Australian States vary in their late term abortion legislation and practise. Northern Territory law permits abortion up to 14 weeks (although in at least one case, abortion was permitted at 22 weeks); and South Australian law focuses on gestation and restricts abortion beyond 22-28 weeks. No other state or territory has laws which restrict abortion on the basis of gestational age of the baby. There appears to be less than 100 abortions per year at 20 weeks or more.

The documentary
Up to 100,000 abortions occur per-annum in Australia, but this is the first time this common procedure has been depicted on screen. In contrast, heart transplant surgery, for example, is equally bloody and far less common, yet has often been screened. Why this disparity? It is easy to suspect that we haven’t seen abortions for the same reason that a developing baby is called a ‘foetus’, a ‘product of conception’, and even ‘the embryonic implant’. Likewise, not watching encourages no thinking; but as with images of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, seeing something usually forces us to do business with it.

Babies look like babies very early in their development, and on viewing the deliberate dismemberment of one, Britain’s Daily Telegraph journalist Lauren Booth – a ‘pro-choicer’ who has also had an abortion – recoiled. “My hand flew to my mouth in shock. I swallowed. I didn’t want to say it, but the word ‘murder’ came to my lips.” But prior to an abortion, many women are under the impression that only an unidentifiable blob of tissue is being dealt with.

To have shown, then, what actually happens, is at least a moment of honesty. But moments of honesty can go one of two ways. As we have noted, one response is the very welcome call for a reappraisal of abortion. But equally, to see an abortion up close may simply enable people to swallow their feelings and think up new arguments as to why the deliberate dismemberment of a developing baby is not murder.

Responding
What should we make of the feminist call for a reappraisal? The Christian community’s response is often ‘We’ve been condemning this Bad Thing for years. Why didn’t you listen!?’ But such a response can be unkind and self-righteous. We risk the resentful cry of ‘I told you so’.

We might also fail to understand what is actually being said. Access to abortion itself remains non-negotiable for feminist thinkers. The current debate mainly surrounds the propriety of late-term abortions. We are still playing on the same field; only the goalposts have moved. Science and technology is still being used to determine what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in this situation. ‘Truth’, as defined by the dictates of medicine or science, still only pivots on the technical possibility of keeping alive, say, a 19 or 20-week foetus. But to make a moral judgment only on the basis of a medical advance, misses a deeper question. Why has our culture, even with its 3D-ultrasound, lost King David’s awareness that God creates our inmost being, and knits us together in our mother’s womb? (Psalm 139:13)

Unlike David, we now think ‘uncontrolled’ fertility is a curse. The basic presumption of the pro-choice position is that “if we can’t control our fertility, we can’t control any other aspect of our lives,” as Sarah Maddison (UNSW academic and spokeswoman for the Women’s Electoral Lobby) puts it. Fertility control, she says, is “the most fundamental aspect of women’s equality and freedom”. Control is offered here as the path to freedom and equality. Feminists value control because so many women have been subject to horrible conditions not of their own making, in which childbirth and childrearing seem impossible and unbearable. (Now, to have a less-than-ideal baby is increasingly considered ‘unbearable’, so the number of abortions rises, and abortion is used to control the disabled population.)

In discussions with feminism, it can of course be difficult to mention the God of the Bible. Even so, Christians long to point women to God’s deep desire for societies where pregnancy may always be rejoiced in as an unmixed blessing. God’s most lethal wrath is in store for tyrannical men who destroy motherhood and developing little ones (e.g. Amos 1:13-14). In a most poignant outburst on the way to his cross, Jesus exclaims: Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore!’ (Lk 23:28-31) The same world that can kill the Christ, makes infertility seem necessary and good. Only in such a world does ‘fertility control’ turn into something good.

What might it be like for women and their babies if communities were full of committed, faithful, loving men; and full of neighbours who supported and cared for young people with disabilities; with economic conditions where no child need starve or want for clothing; and where motherhood is honoured and considered to be easily as impressive as any other career?
Perhaps our response to feminists might look something like this: “We realise your view remains different to ours, but we also realise that in your own context, your call for a reappraisal of at least late-term abortion, is courageous and new. Would you imagine with us what might have to happen to restructure society so that women do not have to be pregnant and raise children alone and unsupported? Can we imagine how to make the decision to abort a baby unnecessary, and not the only available choice?”