Expanded Information on the ‘Three Evils'.

 The new research shows why the traditional approach has had so little effect, and what can be done to change things.

The summary report of the study bears the intriguing title: ‘Abortion: The Least Of Three Evils – Understanding the Psychological Dynamics of How Women Feel About Abortion'. The report suggests that women do not see any ‘good' resulting from an unplanned pregnancy. Instead they must weigh what they perceive as three ‘evils', namely, motherhood, adoption, and abortion.

Unplanned motherhood, according to the study, represents a threat so great to modern women that it is perceived as equivalent to a ‘death of self'. While the woman may rationally understand that it is not her own literal death, her emotional, subconscious reaction to carrying the child to term is that her life will be ‘over'. This is because many young women of today have developed a self-identity that simply does not include being a mother. It may include going through college, getting a degree, obtaining a good job, even getting married someday; but the sudden intrusion of motherhood is perceived as a complete loss of control over their present and future selves. It shatters their sense of who they are and will become, and thereby paralyses their ability to think more rationally or realistically.

When these women evaluate the abortion decision, therefore, they do not, as a pro-lifer might, formulate the problem with the radically distinct options of either ‘I must endure an embarrassing pregnancy' or ‘I must destroy the life of an innocent child'. Instead, their perception of the choice is either ‘my life is over' or ‘the life of this new child is over.' Given this perspective, the choice of abortion becomes one of self preservation, a much more defensible position, both to the woman deciding to abort and to those supporting her decision.

Even those women who are likely to choose life rather than abortion do so not because they better understand foetology or have a greater love for children, but because they have a broader and less fragile sense of self, and they can better incorporate motherhood into their self-identity.

Adoption, unfortunately, is seen as the most ‘evil' of the three options, as it is perceived as a kind of double death. First, the death of self, as the woman would have to accept motherhood by carrying the baby to term. Further, not only would the woman be a mother, but she would perceive herself as a bad mother, one who gave her own child away to strangers. The second death is the death of the child ‘through abandonment'. A woman worries about the chance of her child being abused. She is further haunted by the uncertainty of the child's future, and about the possibility of the child returning to intrude on her own life many years later.

Basically, a woman desperately wants a sense of resolution to her crisis, and in her mind, adoption leaves the situation the most unresolved, with uncertainty and guilt as far as she can see for both herself and her child. As much as we might like to see the slogan ‘Adoption, not Abortion' embraced by women, this study suggests that in pitting adoption against abortion, adoption will be the hands-down loser.

The attitude of those women toward abortion is quite surprising. First, all of the scores of women involved in the study (none of whom were pro-life activists and all of whom called themselves ‘pro-choice') agreed that abortion is killing. While this is something that is no doubt ‘written on the human heart', credit for driving home the reality of abortion is also due to the persevering educational work of the pro-life movement. Second, the women believe that abortion is wrong, an evil, and that God will punish a woman who makes that choice. Third, however, these women feel that God will ultimately forgive the woman, because He is a forgiving God, because the woman did not intend to get pregnant, and finally, because a woman in such crisis has no real choice – again, the perception is that the woman's whole life is at stake.

In fact, while abortion itself is seen as something evil, the woman who has to make that choice is perceived as courageous, because she has made a difficult, costly, but necessary decision in order to get on with her life. Basically, abortion is considered the least of three evils because it is perceived as offering the greatest hope for a woman to preserve her own sense of self, her own life. This is why women feel protective towards the abortive woman and her ‘right to choose', and deeply resentful towards the pro-life movement, which they perceive as uncaring and judgemental.

Note that the primary concerns in any of the three options revolve around the woman, and not the unborn child. This helps to explain the appeal of the rhetoric of ‘choice'. It offers the sense that women in crisis still have some control over their future, and it allows women who may dislike abortion themselves to still seem compassionate towards other women in crisis.