Gun control, abortion restrictions each respect life

I don’t want to hear any more empty calls to action in the aftermath of the latest school shooting, this time with 17 dead in Florida. I want us to show courage to finally do something, and it means doing things we don’t want to do – if the “sanctity of life” is as much a principle as we claim.

That’s why I propose a modest compromise to get us out of our emotional, intellectual and political bunkers: an abortion ban after 20 weeks that includes exceptions for medical reasons, packaged with comprehensive gun control.

I’ve spent years listening to those on the left and right decry the pattern of unnecessary death; it’s just that one side focuses on things such as gun violence, and the other on abortion. Liberals believe we are losing too many people, and that we can stop the bleeding by finally dealing with a culture and country saturated by guns. Talk of gun control erupts after every high-profile shooting, then fades once the headlines do. And those liberals are right.

Conservatives have made reducing, or eliminating, abortion a key goal. How we treat the pre-born speaks volumes about how we view the already-vulnerable. And those conservatives are right.

Each side has long been so blinded by its own form of righteousness they can’t see beyond their own immediate concerns. It’s why we have been stuck for years, if not decades, on how to even define when life begins, how society should deal with distressed lives that are in full bloom, or when our bodies waste away during our final years and hours. We’ve convinced ourselves that screaming loudly enough about our priorities to drown out our opponent’s is necessary, even virtuous. We can do better. We must do better.

I don’t raise this issue lightly. I’ve had loved ones taken by gun violence. I’ve lost a daughter – Fabrice McKenzie Bailey – to a miscarriage that caused my wife to undergo an abortion-like procedure. I know the complexity of the issues well and why so many of us reflexively rush into our corners when they are discussed.

I also know that the U.S. is an outlier in the developed world when it comes to both abortion rights and gun rights. There are plenty of more progressive countries in Europe who have 20-week (or earlier) abortion bans that only have exceptions for medical emergencies. And just about every other developed nation in the world has found a way to keep gun violence at a minimum by effectively regulating guns while not stripping people of their freedoms.

I know our Constitution makes us stand out. But our Constitution is not a barrier to the kind of compromise I propose. Abortion would still be legal, and in the rare event a woman needs an abortion after 20 weeks because of medical concerns, that option would still be available. Comprehensive gun control would not take away a person’s right to protect his home or person or family or go to the shooting range or in the woods with friends. That’s true even though the most passionate on both sides of the aisle have long convinced too many of us otherwise.

Better access to health care – prenatal and mental health – coupled with new restrictions that preserve cherished American rights would reduce gun violence and abortion.

These problems seem intractable because we haven’t found the courage to change them. We know what to do; we’ve just refused to do it. We need to stop pretending we care about preserving vulnerable lives, because we haven’t proven we really do.

This story was originally published February 16, 2018 at 12:04 PM with the headline "Gun control, abortion restrictions each respect life."