Wednesday, March 31, 2004

‘Beyond Choice’ examines morality of reproductive issues

Alexander Sanger to appear at Iconoclast

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By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

Alexander Sanger has written a book titled "Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century" that proclaims abortion as "a necessary and moral option."

Sanger will discuss the book at Iconoclast Books in Ketchum Friday, April 2, from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

If his name seems familiar, given the context, it’s because his grandmother was Margaret Sanger, the foremost proponent of reproductive rights in the early 1900s, and a founder of Planned Parenthood.

Sanger currently chairs the International Planned Parenthood Council and serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund.

Abortion continues to be a hot button issue on the political front, with renewed emphasis this election year.

Beyond Choice by Alexander Sanger, $26, Public Affairs, 303 pp.

Dismayed by the issue’s stalemate, Sanger explains in the book that advocates of pro-choice and pro-life are simply not on the same page. He says it’s crucial to shape a conversation about the morality and immorality of reproductive freedoms.

He argues for "open access to abortion based upon the demands and benefits of evolutionary biology." Sanger makes his claim that abortion is moral and needed because it helps ensure human survival, guaranteeing that wanted children have a chance to be raised to adulthood.

Sanger maintains that all children should be wanted children, and all mothers should have made the decision by choice.

"I am trying to reframe the issue, to look at it in a new way," he told the Palm Beach Post. "Abortion is part of the human condition."

In reframing the issue, Sanger uses compelling antidotes and thoughtful analysis while re-thinking the positions of the last 30 years since Roe v. Wade. Importantly, he begins by citing his grandmother’s legacy.

"Margaret Sanger … argued that the foundation of a women’s liberty was her right to decide whether or not to become a mother," he writes.

"She elevated the individual desire to control one’s reproduction from being a crime to be a fundamental component of the constitutional right to privacy," he adds. "It didn’t matter to her that the word ‘privacy’ did not appear in the Bill of Rights. The word ‘liberty’ did. She brought common sense, fairness and human dignity into constitutional law in a new way."

So, what does biology have to do with morality?

Sanger explains that moral laws can shift depending on changes in religion and science. Human experience can change moral laws as well.

"If a moral law helps community survival, the rule will last. If it does not, it will whither away." Think of human sacrifices, beheadings, arranged marriages, miscegenation and Prohibition.

"Such is the case against birth control and abortion," he continues. "These practices help humanity survive and reproduce successfully and many humans use them. Moral rules forbidding them will not stand."

The book is not a one trick pony. Instead, Sanger works both sides, whittling away at arguments, political and otherwise. It’s a highly intelligent and well-written piece of work and one worth perusing, no matter on which side of the fence one stands.

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