This is a response to a blog entry by Julie Wallace posted on The Mommypotamus blog. To get the full effect, you should read her blog first. I wrote this addressing her because originally I was going to post it as a comment under her blog, but it got too long, so I'm just going to post it here and provide a link there.
Hi Julie. A friend of mine on Facebook linked to your blog, and one of her friends suggested that we pro-life people read it with an open mind, so I did the best I could. I had a few disagreements with it that I wanted to mention, but before I do, I wanted to mention a couple of points of agreement.
First, I totally agree that the differences between the pro-choice and the pro-life camps should not prevent us from working together to reduce the number of abortions. Both sides seem to agree that adoption is a good alternative and ought to be encouraged. Second, I also agree that encouraging interracial adoption would be a good idea.
I could be persuaded if I had more facts, but I'm a bit skeptical that encouraging interracial adoption will do anything to reduce the number of abortions. From what I understand (and I could be wrong), the black children who have trouble finding homes are not newborns. There are more people willing to adopt newborns than there are newborns, and I've never heard of anybody, black or white, who had a difficult time finding somebody to adopt their newborn. But I'm open to correction on that.
Regarding the first misconception, I've never thought that "pro choice" meant "pro abortion," but I can understand how this confusion might come about. Maybe if pro-choice people tried a little harder to understand the pro-life position, they would also understand where these misconceptions comes from. And once they understand where the misconceptions come from, they can do a better job of straightening them out.
I'll give you an example of where this misconception comes from. Typically, people think of Planned Parenthood as a pro-choice organization, and they think of Crises Pregnancy Centers as being pro-life. It's understandable that, being pro-life, Crises Pregnancy Centers would try to help pregnant women with options, such as adoption, that would discourage them from resorting to abortion. But if Planned Parenthood were really pro-choice, we should expect them to help women who choose life just as much as they help women who choose abortion. But that isn't the case at all. Planned Parenthood does far more for women who choose abortion than for women who choose life. It is hard for some people to believe that Planned Parenthood is really pro-choice when they seem to only support one option--abortion.
You say that it is a misconception to equate "reproductive rights" with "abortion rights," but you don't do anything to explain where the misconception lies. What is the difference? You appear to contradict yourself later in your blog when you say, "The pro-choice movement is not about trying to convince women to have abortions; it is about empowering women to be able to make their own reproductive choices, free from state interference, regardless of their belief system." If the pro-choice movement is about reproductive choices, doesn't that include "abortion rights"?
I think it is disingenuous for you to say that abortion being about the life of the unborn is a misconception on the part of pro-life advocates since it is the linchpin of their argument for the pro-life position. This is the argument:
1. It is wrong to take the life of an innocent human being without proper justification.
2. Abortion takes the life of an innocent human being without proper justification.
3. Therefore, it's wrong to have an abortion.
Everybody agrees that it's wrong to take the life of innocent people without justification. And everybody agrees that abortion takes the life of something. There are only two relevant questions remaining: 1) What is the unborn? and 2) What is the justification for taking the life of the unborn?
From a pro-life perspective, if the unborn is anything other than an innocent human being, then no justification for abortion is necessary. If it's just a lump of tissue, an organ, or an appendage of the mother's body, then we don't need to offer reasons for why it ought to be legal. Just have the abortion; it's no different than having your appendix removed. But if the unborn is a distinct individual human being, then the only justification for taking its life that is adequate is to save the life of the mother. The reasons pro-choice people typically offer to justify abortions would never be used to justify killing somebody outside the womb. For example, you'd never condone infanticide just because it would spare the child grief later on in life. You'd never condone infanticide just because it relieves the mother of trauma, grief, or a financial burden. And for goodness sake, you'd never condone infanticide just to make it safer for mothers to kill their children! If the reasons pro-choice people offer would not work to justify killing a child, and if the unborn are just as much human beings as children are, then those reasons do not work to justify abortion either.
Now, granted, there are pro-choice people who think the unborn are just as much human beings as the born are, but who still think abortion ought to be legal. I can fully understand why such people would think it's a misconception that the debate is about the life of the unborn. Obviously, it's not about the life of the unborn for them, since they think abortion is justified anyway. But I think you are badly mistaken to think the life of the unborn is not a relevant factor in the debate.
I am skeptical that the debate is really about choice, per se. Nobody, on either side of the debate, supports any choice in any situation. We all support choice in areas where the options are all morally neutral or good. We all think people ought to have the freedom to choose their own doctor, whether to get married or not, what do to do for a living, etc. But none of us support the choice to drown our own children in the bathtub, to rob banks, to vandalize cars, etc. Before any of us are going to be pro-choice about anything at all, we first need to answer the question of whether the options under consideration are acceptable or not for a civilized society.
You are mistaken to say that nobody disputes what abortion actually is. I've debated the issue enough and seen enough debates on the issue to know with a high degree of confidence that most pro-choice people do not believe that an individual human life begins at conception. Many of them attribute personhood to the fetus at some later point during the pregnancy, and quite a few of them don't attribute personhood to the unborn until it is born. And, as you seem to recognize, some people use viability as the cut-off point. So you are very mistaken to say that there is no dispute about what abortion does--whether it takes the life of an innocent human being or not. Pro-choice people typically refer to the unborn as a "mass of cells" or a "lump of tissue" prior to when they consider it an individual human life. I've seen this first hand.
Your radical idea that we all stop talking about the moral issue struck me as extremely odd when just a few sentences earlier you said, "The debate is about whether or not the act of abortion is morally okay." And your rationale for why we should end the debate was almost just as odd--that we are never going to solve the dilemma satisfactorily. What, in your mind, would constitute "solving the dilemma"? Does that entail getting everybody to agree with each other? If so, then all debate is futile. Do you expect to convince everybody who reads your blog to be persuaded by your radical idea? If not, then why write it? You yourself are making an argument in this blog that will not convince everybody. If our inability to convince everybody is any reason for why we should end a debate, then you should never have written this blog entry.
But, you see, you don't need to convince everybody before it's fruitful to engage in debate. The fact is, people on both sides have been persuaded by arguments. It is because of arguments that you and I both hold the positions we hold. If you had not been given any reasons to change your mind, you probably would never have become pro-choice. Debate is fruitful whether it causes everybody to agree or not. It clarifies things for us. It forces us to think carefully about our own positions. It gives us an opportunity to understand why people disagree with us. It gives us the opportunity to change our minds. Heaven help us if we ever stop debating!
One of your reasons for why we should not ban abortions is because banning abortion will not reduce the demand for it. I think this is a bad argument for two reasons. First, because it is factually untrue. Abortions became far more prevalent after Roe v. Wade than before. And simple psychology should tell you that any sort of discouragement for an activity will reduce the incidence of that activity. Making abortion illegal certainly will not stop all abortions, but I'm confident that it will reduce them. Think of all the women who struggle with their decision, or vacillate, who sit on the fence trying to make a decision. In their cases, it wouldn't take much to push them one way or the other. If abortion were illegal, those people would be far more likely to choose life because they would have so much extra incentive to do so.
Second, even if banning abortion wouldn't reduce the demand for it, is that any reason to keep it legal? Assume, for the sake of argument, that abortion is no different than infanticide, as the pro-life camp thinks. Should we keep it legal just because people are going to do it anyway? Would you honestly use that same reasoning for any other issue? Laws do not prevent crimes. We all know that. Should we therefore make what we ordinarily consider to be crimes legal just because the law hasn't stopped them? Should bank robbery become legal just because the laws haven't stopped them? Should rape become legal? Hopefully you will agree with me that the notion is absurd.
You said, "In fact, many of my pro-choice friends believe abortion is immoral and have stated they would never do it themselves." This is an area worth pursuing because, as a pro-lifer, this is one area of the pro-choice movement that I confess to not understanding. Maybe you could clear this up for me, but first let me explain where my lack of understanding lies.
Why would anybody think abortion is wrong? Well, as I've said before, whether it's wrong or not depends on whether the unborn is a human being and whether there's adequate justification for it or not. If it's not a human being, then I see no reason why anybody would think it's wrong. So I can only assume that these pro-choice friends of yours fully acknowledge that the unborn are human beings just like everybody else. Now if they think it's wrong to take the life of innocent human beings, they must also think there is no adequate justification for it (because if there were adequate justification for it, then it wouldn't be wrong). But if there's no adequate justification for it, then why be pro-choice? To be pro-choice, don't you have to offer some sort of justification for why you ought to have the legal right to have an abortion in spite of the fact that your unborn is a human being? And if you have such a justification, then why think abortion is wrong? Abortion is either justified or it's not justified, so people who think abortion is wrong but that women should have the right to do it anyway strike me as being wildly inconsistent. It reminds me of what Abraham Lincoln said in the Lincoln/Douglas debates when Douglas argued that even if slavery is wrong, people should still have the right to do it. Lincoln said, "You can't have a right to do a wrong."
Being an attorney, you are no doubt aware of the difference between a causal slippery slope and a logical slippery slope. One is a fallacy, and the other is not. Your slippery slope argument is the former because it is a causal slippery slope. If abortion is a serious moral wrong, we cannot go ahead and allow it just because of what we imagine might happen next. But do we even have good reason to think your grim scenario would result if abortion became illegal? I think your imagined scenario is far-fetched, which is evident in the fact that abortion once WAS illegal in most states, but it did not result in the scenario you imagined. Your scenario is nothing but a non-sense scare tactic designed to persuade your readers to be pro-choice.
You ended your piece with the following questions: "Are you willing to give up your rights just so women can’t procure legal abortions? Or is there another way for you to protect the unborn, one that leaves both your rights and your conscience unharmed?"
My answer is that I don't think it has to be either/or. We can do both. If pro-choice people want to reduce abortions because they think abortions are bad or because they have some desire to preserve life, then why stop at just one method of reducing abortions? Adoption reduces abortions, but does not prevent them altogether. Giving up the right to abortions is exactly the same. So let's do them both!
8 comments:
Hey Sam! Your response was well worth the click over. Thanks for sharing!
"Before any of us are going to be pro-choice about anything at all, we first need to answer the question of whether the options under consideration are acceptable or not for a civilized society."
This was my favorite sentence! Thanks for the response..
Once again, an enlightening read. You are carefully thought out, a characteristic of Greg Koukl, whom I know you are familiar.
Abortion to me does not seem to be as complicated an issue as people make it. It seems the vast majority of people are willing to acknowledge what the unborn is, with the proper information. It is my experience, that when presented with the information from medical science, that a fertilized egg is a unique, seperate, living organism.
It is at this point when the objections that women will be in basements with coathangers, that it will remind them of the rapist, financial instability. etc. all come out. Of course "trotting out the toddler" adequately answeres all those objections. You may disagree here, but I believe the responses by Klusendorf and Koukl really resinate with people.
Unfortunately, I think even though people are privately convinced, abortion is an issue that one makes a part of their identity. Once they form an opinion they are unwilling, in most circumstances, to change it. I believe this is because of the terrible admission they would be forced to make, that they supported the killing of babies for vacuous reasons. In turn they dig their heels in to avoid what they know is true, but dont want it to be true of themselves, so it is repressed.
That's how I see it anyway.
John
Sam I like the way you write, you are very clear, and you are interested in understanding opposing views. Also you avoid dogmatism, which aids discussion. I like discussing this issue because my views are not fully formed.
sam said: "One of your reasons for why we should not ban abortions is because banning abortion will not reduce the demand for it. I think this is a bad argument for two reasons. First, because it is factually untrue. Abortions became far more prevalent after Roe v. Wade than before. And simple psychology should tell you that any sort of discouragement for an activity will reduce the incidence of that activity. Making abortion illegal certainly will not stop all abortions, but I'm confident that it will reduce them. Think of all the women who struggle with their decision, or vacillate, who sit on the fence trying to make a decision. In their cases, it wouldn't take much to push them one way or the other. If abortion were illegal, those people would be far more likely to choose life because they would have so much extra incentive to do so."
I think you are factually mistaken here. This study published in the Lancet shows that the legality of abortion does not affect the abortion rate.
Making contraceptives redily available reduces the abortion rate.
Making abortion illegal makes the procedure unsafe, but does not change the rate.
Each year, about 70,000 women die due to unsafe abortion and an additional five million suffer permanent or temporary disability.
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2007/10/11/index.html
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61575-X/abstract
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21255186/
Thank you, Boz. I heard about that study. Somebody else brought it to my attention. I can't help but remain skeptical, though, for a few reasons. First, because of the reasons I already gave. Second, because abortion became more prevalent after Roe v. Wade. Third, because it seems like it would be difficult to count illegal abortions. Since they are illegal, I suspect the records wouldn't be that great. But I suppose if there were more independent studies done on this same subject, and it survived peer review, I'd have to concede the point, but I would be surprised.
here is another one:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2991869
Boz, all of these links appear to be referring to the same study. It looks like they just compared abortion rates in different countries, both where abortion is legal and where abortion is illegal. What needs to be done (in my opinion) is look at countries where abortion laws have changed. That's the only way to tell if a change in law affects the abortion rate. After all, there are a number of variables between countries that could skew the results. For example, with all else being equal, developing countries might have a higher abortion rate than developed countries just because there are a lot more pregnancies per women in developing countries than in developed countries, but the abortion rates turn out to be roughly equal because abortion is illegal in the developing countries, but not in the developed countries. Since there are all these other factors contributing to abortion rates in different countries, the only way to eliminate them as relevant factors in order to isolate the legality/illegality of abortion as a factor is to compare individual countries with themselves before and after changes in abortion laws. That's the kind of study I'd like to see done.
But we already know the results in the U.S. Abortion rates jumped dramatically when abortion became legal, so we know that in the U.S., abortion laws affect the abortion rate.
Good read, but i just wanted to see if my two cents could add a layer to the discussion.
ive read most of the responses, but other than the main post, i skimmed the larger responses, so forgive me if i repeat a point.
which is, ive yet to see anyone bring up the idea that the party that stands to lose the most in this discussion, doesnt have a spokesman. which is the unborn.
here is a simple fact. NO TWO PEOPLE with opposing opinions on abortion can agree with any degree of certainty when a fetus "becomes" a person. one can hold the stance like i do, that the minute the egg is fertilized, it ceases to be what it was before, (dna is locked) and from that point forward branches off into a different direction that eventually leads to becoming a fully developed human. just because it is dependent upon the mother for development, doesn't change its existence. if a human is dependent upon medical machines to live as a vegetable, are they no longer human?
Time is the only factor that is really being argued. since the only difference between the newly fertilized egg and the newly born child, is essentially time. yes now there are physical differences, but to argue that these differences prevent one from becoming human, one would first have to show without doubt which differences mark the transformation from non-human to human status. not just conjecture, but proof everyone could agree on, is this possible even? i say no. the born child is still DNA wise, the same as it was upon conception right?
OR, you could have the stance that the baby is not a baby until it can survive outside the womb. still, the only factor being argued is time.
However, since the nature of this argument lends itself to unknowns, which no one single person can definitively have the authority to answer, then i believe that we should prevent abortion from being legal in the broad sense, because the decision of one person (a judge) would be enforcing his will upon the rest of the people (in the US). this person is not elected or subject to, an election. i would be willing to compromise and have states decide for themselves, but not a federal law that blankets the nation.
when the actions of one person directly affect the well being of another, then it could be viewed that the other persons inalienable rights are infringed upon. i do not see taking the chance, that a fetus being aborted on purpose, stands a good chance of being viewed as a murder. there are reasons for abortions, like saving the mothers life, but these reasons will not be discussed here, it is understood that sometimes, for medical reasons, abortion is an option, in life or death situations.
other arguments ive seen, that revolve around privacy, or that the act of abortion is a matter of what a woman does with her own body (private property), does not hold up to debate in my opinion.
a persons pet is considered private property, yet is it legal if i wanted to torture my pet in the privacy of my own home? does privacy negate any illegal infringements upon another? NO. what if a person of legal age got consent from a person under age to have sex? would this act done in privacy negate the law? No. What about rape, rape is usually not a public action, its done privately, does this privacy protect the rights of the victim? NO. inalienable rights are still being infringed upon. therefore privacy, nor the state of private property, negate the rights of the unborn. one could argue that the unborn has no rights, but the burden of proof would be on those with this opinion. ive already shown how i think this would be impossible to prove, therefore risking the chance the unborn DOES have rights, is a chance no one should be willing to take.
it still bothers me that the unborn have no voice or say in the debate. they would be sharing the same absence of opinion, until they reach near adulthood, where their brain could comprehend the topic, and form an opinion of their own, yet they would be considered very much human at that point.
-dogbyte
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