The Journal Star’s editorial today included this line: “…rather than seize on intentionally divisive issues, pro-choice and pro-life forces ought to be working together to reduce the number of abortions.”
Wishful, simplistic thinking.
Consider this quote from the National Abortion Federation: “Opponents of abortion often portray abortion as a negative problem that society should try to eliminate. While we work to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, abortion is a valid and acceptable reproductive choice.”
And now compare that to the mission statement of the National Right to Life Committee: “The ultimate goal of the National Right to Life Committee is to restore legal protection to innocent human life.”
It may seem at first glance that these two groups want what the Journal Star says, i.e. “to reduce the number of abortions.” But that’s not really accurate. Their positions are more nuanced than that.
NRLC isn’t satisified to simply reduce abortions from, say, 800,000 per year to 650,000 per year. They want to eliminate it as an option, and for this reason: they believe that abortion kills a person — a living human being with a constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Pro-life advocates often compare abortion to slavery, pointing out that just because something is legal and sanctioned by the Supreme Court doesn’t make it right. So to them, the Journal Star’s idea to work with pro-choice advocates to reduce abortion but not eliminate it is as morally repugnant as if they were living prior to the Civil War and were asked to reduce slavery but not eliminate it.
NAF, on the other hand, isn’t really interested in reducing abortions at all, per se. They want to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies. The thought is that if there are fewer unplanned pregnancies, then there will be less demand for abortion. But if unplanned pregnancies went down but abortion demand stayed the same, they would still feel their goal was achieved.
In the final analysis, there is a gulf fixed between pro-choice and pro-life forces — one sees abortion as a “valid and acceptable reproductive choice” and the other sees it as the destruction of “innocent human life.” Hoping for middle ground is a pipe dream.
Yay!!! Someone who gets it!!!
(Be warned, this is a really freaking long post. I have written a two-sentence summary at the bottom for those who prefer to read Cliff’s Notes.)
Not that I think such collaboration will ever happen, but I think there is still room for /some/ compromise. They key, I think, is for the Pro-Life camp to readjust their focus. If they don’t, we will be stuck in the how-can-you-condone-any-slavery-at-all situation that C.J. described.
Pro-Choice folks: The goal should be to reduce unwanted pregnancies. I’d imagine that would be best accomplished by improving sex education (we all know how effective abstinence-only programs are…), but I’ll leave the implementation details up to those who know more than I do. The ‘compromise’ part would be to include some things about how abortion should be a last resort for the termination of a pregnancy, rather than being just one more option. This way, they don’t say that abortion is wrong but they still work to reduce how often it is done.
Pro-Life folks: The argument needs to be refocused. Current debates and rhetoric seem to center around the act of abortion itself, defined as the killing and removing of a human baby from a woman’s womb. Strangely enough, almost all people are united under that definition! The problem arises around the definition of ‘human’ life, as opposed a to proto-human cellular organism that is about as valuable as a pet dog; sure, we don’t /want/ to kill it, but the only thing that really matters is the desire of the [dog] owner or [baby’s] mother. The Pro-Life camp could unite everyone if they could show that ‘human’ life starts much earlier than the currently-recognized ‘starting point’ (which I would define as the end of first trimester, after which I believe it is generally illegal to abort a fetus except maybe when the mother is in danger of dying).
The biggest problem with my suggestion is that it doesn’t account for the fact that Pro-Lifers are largely composed of religious folks who don’t define the ‘starting point’ of human life in scientific terms, but in religious terms. There is little hope (even relative to scope of the always-sticky abortion issue) of ever affecting such people’s beliefs through logic or reason.
Summary:
The best way to move the ‘abortion’ debate forward is stop discussing abortion! Instead, the debate should be ‘When does human life begin?’
Sorry, Ben, life starts at conception scientifically. Trying to say “it” – meaning he or she – “becomes” human at some arbitrary point (“trimester”; week; or whatever) is just nonsense. It was all concocted to justify abortion of inconvenient HUMAN life. Just as some want to kill inconveninent human life in the form of disabled people, old people, etc. and use similar language to justify it. Hitler at least was pretty consistent in what he defined as huuman life. Western leftists base their decision primarily on their own convenience. The issue is religious necessarily. Western leftists generally deny the existence of God, at least to the extent that there are any God-given moral laws; they think humans can make their own up (as long as they agree with the result, at least). Pro-lifers cannot compromise on the basic tenet that it is immoral to kill innocent human life. When you have a fundamental difference in both outlook (God vs. man) and approach (legal imperative vs. “outcome” based) there is not much room for compromise, but, in the end, there is still hope. Both sides have a pragmatic majority and nobody is totally closed minded. Most people, when it comes down to it, want good things to happen to the world rather than bad (the leaders of Iran excepted). Slavery was ended in the United States with a Civil War, but in most places its demise was much more peaceful (granted, slavery is alive and well in some countries today). Sometimes, those on divergent paths can come together.
I don’t care what each side believes, just don’t force your opinion on me. It doesn’t matter when life begins or if abortion kills or saves. None of you has the right to judge. Believe what you want, keep it in your heart and your mind but only GOD has the right to judge and only GOD has the final say.
Mouse:
You caught my mistake. Human life does, of course, start at conception. The part that separates humans from other life-forms (e.g. a sea cucumber), however, does not begin until much later. This ties quite strongly into something I will say a ways below here…
Emtronics:
Your comment about not judging is a good one, but you’re missing something. For Pro-Lifers, them ‘not forcing their beliefs on you’ is no different than doing the same about murder. Do you believe that we shouldn’t do everything we reasonably can to prevent murders, whether or not the perpetrator will be ‘judged’ in the afterlife?
Most people have no issues with the destruction of almost any individual organism. Certainly, we kill all kinds of plant life (e.g. weeds) for purely cosmetic (i.e. worthless) reasons. We do the same with most animals; moles, ants, and raccoons all share this status. Most ‘higher’ life is spared only when we have killed such a large part of the population that we are threatening the stability of ecosystems: dolphins, deer, gorillas, are probably good examples of these. Even pets, with which we form strong emotional bonds, get put-down if they are sick or even un-owned!
Why then, do we have such a problem with destroying a few ounces of non-functional cellular goo?
(Please note that this is meant to promote discussion, and is not a rhetorical question. I am neither Pro-Life nor Pro-Choice, and am always open to new ideas on the subject!)
I think, personally, and I mean this, the anti-choice crowd is scared to death of the MAP (Plan B – Morning After Pill) because if this medication becomes mainstream and easily available, abortion, as an issue, will cease to exist.
1: The numbers of these “abortions†will become impossible to track (which, ironically, always worked in the anti-choice arguments, as there was no way to show what the numbers were prior to RvW because people kept quiet).
2: The alleged detrimental psychological effects will be negated (women won’t ever know if they were even ever pregnant or not).
3: The stigmatizing of abortion providers, pro-choice politicians, and patients will be gone (no target enemy/victim to unite the anti-choice constituency).
I’m tellin’ ya’ – this will be the end of the issue of abortion.
Good riddance.
JMJ
Safe. Legal. Rare.
Ben: Because human life is still human life. It’s not a sea cucumber, or a weed, or a rodent, etc. At what point does that human life cease being “cellular goo” and become a human worthy of protection? And what would keep that definition from shifting? For instance, Princeton ethicist Peter Singer believes that people should have the right to kill their babies up to thirty days after they’re born, and physicians should have the right to kill disabled babies on the spot; he doesn’t believe babies are “persons” until they have self-awareness.
Jersey: MAP won’t end the abortion debate. It’s essentially a contraceptive taken immediately after the fact. I see no reason to believe that women who are not using contraception beforehand are anymore likely to use it after the fact.
Vonster: Would you be a proponent of “safe, legal, rare” slavery?
C.J.,
Humans, just like chimps, rats, and tuna, are nothing more than big lumps of carbon roughly organized according to their DNA. How do you consider human life ‘more worthy of protection’ than those other organisms if not because of our superior intellect?
It’s surely not because we’re morally or physically superior…
Ben, I believe human life is more worthy of protection because only humans are made in the image of God. Our founding fathers also recognized this when they wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Okay, well, you’re free to believe that if you’d like. (I don’t mean that to sound condescending, but I think it does.) Your ‘image of God’ belief doesn’t harm me, and my ‘lumps of carbon’ view doesn’t hurt you. Still, the discussion isn’t so simple; the following bits are not absolutely on-topic, but…
Religion has no place in American law. We should not allow religion to poison the state (see modern-day Iran), as we should not allow the state to poison religion (see every worthless medieval monarch ruling by ‘divine right’).
By the way, our founding fathers also allowed slavery. While there were great men and visionaries among them, we must learn to take their writings in context. Note that this is similar to how we must consider the writings in the Bible and other ancient religious texts! The main difference is that, because the Constitution and Declaration of Independence are much newer, there is more clarity about the intended meaning behind the words.
Lastly, even if somebody is going to legislate reproduction, that legislation should be at the state or local levels, not at the federal level. If it isn’t in the Constitution, it isn’t the Feds’ business!
While we’re on the topic of the National Abortion Federation, the clinics recently closed in Florida (the owner had his medical license suspended for endangering patients’ lives) were NAF members.
According to NAF’s site:
“In order to become a member, a clinic must complete a rigorous application process. Member clinics have agreed to comply with our standards for quality and care, updated annually in our Clinical Policy Guidelines, which set the evidence-based standards for abortion care in North America. NAF periodically conducts site visits to confirm that our clinics are in compliance with our guidelines.”
In other words, NAF membership is to an abortion facility what the UL label is to an electric appliance: a promise to the public that the entity in question has been tested and found safe. Yeah, so safe that the state yanks the doc’s license and shuts the place down.
If you spot an abortion clinic that’s in trouble, go to the NAF Clinic Finder to see if they’re a NAF member.