Too Few Abortions
Lest there be any misunderstanding, I am "pro-life." "Anti-abortion" also works for me, but it sounds so negative, don't you think? There's not much difference between a week-old baby, and a 3-day-old baby. Nor between a 3-day-old baby and an hour-old baby. Nor between that hour-old child and the same person 90 minutes before. Same person. So any argument or philosophy that suggests that this last person -- 30 minutes before birth -- may be killed on a whim, while the same person 30 minutes after birth can't, is pretty apparently on the wrong track.
And, of course, I keep moving back from the time of birth week by week, and I don't find anything truly dramatic and different in kind that happens until conception. So there I am.
The orthodox argument about "viability" has always seemed silly to me. The baby isn't particularly "viable" even after she's born. The poor thing can't even feed herself, and if the temperature is outside of a rather narrow range, she's toast. Nor is my grandfather, with the bad heart valve, particularly "viable." He requires millions of dollars worth of medical technology, along with a dozen highly skilled doctors, nurses, technicians and such, just to stay alive, and fix the problem. Without all that unnatural intervention, he's a goner.
So, as you see, I don't even get to Jeremiah 1:5 before I know what I think. And Jeremiah's my favorite book of the Bible.
Anyhow, that all being said, I am often corrected and admonished as being willfully obnoxious and provocative when I describe those who disagree with me as "pro-abortion." "They're not in favor of abortion," I'm scolded, "They're in favor of personal freedom and choice. A person's right to choose!"
But, of course, the bartender who "Don't serve your kind around here," is also just trying to "choose," and we don't find much respect or admiration for his choice. Similarly, when I choose to shoot dead the unarmed burglar who's broken into my house in the middle of the night, there will be much weighing, and considering, and judging, and not much "respect for my right to choose." And that guy's even a felon, which is less than can be said of the soon-to-be-born.
So I was taken up short by THIS ARTICLE that appeared yesterday in Slate. It is written by William Saletan who is, in my terms, pro-abortion. So it was somewhat surprising to me that he opened his article thus:
Friday morning, leaders of pro-choice and feminist groups gathered at the Center for American Progress to debate the movement's future. One of the panelists reported that the latest annual tally of abortions in this country was 1.295 million. The most recent comparative numbers, detailed in an article I brought to the meeting, indicated that our abortion rate exceeds that of every Western European nation. "Raise your hand if you think that number is too high," the conference moderator told the 50 people in the room.Saletan's view is that there's something not quite right with that reaction.
I saw one hand go up. The woman next to me said she saw another. The two hand-raisers used to work for pro-choice groups but no longer do.
You think?
If these folks don't think that 1,295,000 abortions every year in America are too many, what is it that they do think? What number would they be more comfortable with? Would 2,000,000 be enough? Would 3,000,000 be about right? Is there any number that the true believers would recognize as too many?
Read the article. And think about it. How many do you think would be just right?
Presented for your delectation by the Gentleman Farmer at 6:15 AM
Comments on "Too Few Abortions"
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post a commentAs many as it takes to create uniformity of thought among the survivors.
I agree that the pro-choice movement has painted itself into a corner by being so relentlessly non-judgmental. If anything, they would probably be more politically successful if they just came out and admitted that choosing to have an abortion is weighty, non-trivial, and often borderline traumatic. And that therefore, everyone’s common goal (whether you are for or against legal abortions) should be to reduce the number that occur.
That said, do you really think a two-day old embryo is morally equivalent to a newborn infant (or a full-term infant, for that matter)? I’m not trying to be provocative, just curious how this is seen. Should a woman who has aborts a fetus at four weeks answer to the same legal consequences as someone who murders, say, a five-year-old or an adult?
Yes.
Do I really think that a 10-year-old with Downs Syndrome is morally equivalent to a 35-year-old medical researcher on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer?
Yes.
And, while the law is very, very good at making distinctions between crimes and criminals, I can't see that the victim's age should play much of a part.
Would that mean that a really stupid and obnoxious 80-year-old's murder would draw only 30 days in jail?
Think logically and with discipline, and ignore whether your answer is hard or popular.
I'm right there with you on all but the embryo one. Because all the others have in common: feelings, thoughts, the capacity for pleasure and pain (physical and otherwise). Embryos, potential people, are important, but they have none of these things, and that makes them different.
What of the fact that some two-thirds of fertilized eggs never make it past the eight-cell stage, never implant and become babies? I don't make light of this phenomenon -- for a woman trying to get pregnant, knowing the source of that extra day in last month's cycle can be heartbreaking... but by your definition it's a humanitarian crisis that dwarfs all wars, famines, and epidemics combined. Should we invest as much (or proportionally more) effort in fighting it as we do in fighting these other things?
You're getting side-tracked again. That a part of the natural process of pregnancy results in many failures tells us nothing about what sort of outside intervention might be morally repugnant. Much morality and law depend upon the nature of the action, and the nature of the relationship.
Many people will die today from starvation. Neither you nor I is criminally answerable. Whether we will be asked about it at our Judgment is a scary question.
But if my infant child dies of starvation, then I am criminally responsible, and will most certainly be questioned at Judgment (unless already forgiven by that time). And if my neighbor's child dies of starvation because I sneak in and replace the nutritious baby formula with a nutrition-less look-alike, then I've again clearly got a criminal and moral problem.
Be careful how you define personhood. Certainly it cannot depend upon physical sensation, else the blind and deaf are less than persons (a conclusion reached by the Nazis, of course). And as for "feelings and thoughts," we need to wonder about autism, or psychosis. The autistic seems not to be connected to our world, and the psychotic can't tell whether he is or not.
OK, but I don’t think I am getting sidetracked. I mean, the whole point of worrying about abortions is in the saving of innocent lives, not in the punishment of purported murderers, right? People don’t seem all that bothered by the “natural” wastage of embryos. But DO seem pretty bothered by other “natural” causes of premature death, say malaria or whatever (to the point of feeling a strong moral obligation to take active steps to reduce the problem on the ground – or at least I HOPE they do!). This therefore suggests that they feel SOME level of qualitative difference between an embryo and an actual person.
As far as defining personhood, OK, I admit I haven’t gotten it fully worked out yet. Because I think it’s pretty thorny and complicated. It’s certainly straightforward to draw a bright line based on a conception, a noticeable biological event (although if you really want to drill down, there is no biological “moment” of conception… but you probably don’t want to hear my thoughts on potassium gradients right now), but it feels like an exercise in convenience to me, on a matter that by all rights SHOULD be somewhat murky and complicated.
(I’m going to awkward lengths here to underline my perspective as a person who feels a strong moral obligation to devote active energy to increasing the well-being of others, so I don’t seem like some cackling villain looking around for fresh victims. In other words, I like embryos just fine, but it strikes me as unjust to, by one stroke, make protecting and preserving them equally as important, conceptually, as protecting and preserving other people.)
I'm not sure that's it's merely "expendience" to pick the "moment of conception."
When I'm hunting, if I'm sure it's a turkey in the bushes, then I shoot. If I think it's a person, then I don't. And if I'm not sure? Of course, I don't shoot.