I found this video fascinating. Some anti-abortion protesters were individually asked whether abortion should be illegal. Well, duh, they said yes. Then they were asked what sort of punishment a woman should get for having an illegal abortion. The results …
The vast majority appear never to have considered or faced the question. Others, uncomfortable, recommend only prayer and counseling — but can’t answer why that sort of “murder” should not have a punishment. The one person willing to opine on a prison sentence wasn’t comfortable with dictating how long. “I’m not a lawyer,” as though they think only lawyers should determine sentences (I’m sure they’d disagree with that proposition).
I’m not making light of this, though I’m sure some folks would. Indeed, this points out the tension in the whole question of abortion in American society — everyone, pretty much, agrees that abortion is not a Good Thing, but everyone, pretty much, understands that women are not seeking abortions for flip or facile or evil reasons. They’re willing to see “abortionists” go to jail, and try to keep it from being available to women as an option — but somehow the issues driving women to abortion are tacitly (never explicitly) acknowledged and women who are “killing babies” are given sympathy, not the lash. Perhaps that’s because they know women who have had abortions, and know that they are not cruel or petty or uncaring — or because they, themselves, have been faced with those sorts of situations in their own lives. It’s easier to hate “abortionists” and “clinics” than to hate your sister, your mother, your daughter.
The unexamined part of this debate, though, is group-think. This particular video was all one-on-one. I suspect that, in a group, they would be more willing to see penal consequences for women who have abortions, and I think that becomes even more true when it’s abstracted into big speeches by pundits, preachers, and politicians. Though, even there, the proposed penalties tend to be focused on doctors, not on the people who seek out their services.
There are two elephants in the room when it comes to the abortion debate. I think most people do in fact think that it’s wrong, or at least undesirable from the ideal, that it is, if not exactly the same, uncomfortably close to killing a baby. I think most people also — in a society where it has, in fact, been legal — know how difficult and painful a personal decision abortion usually is, and are unwilling to trivialize that by dictating penalties for those who decide to end a pregnancy. Because of discomfort over both those elephants, each side of the debate tends to play down one in favor of the other. That dishonesty from the most shrill in the conflict tends to dehumanize the debate, and will keep this issue from every being resolved until we are all both individually and societally willing to face the matter.
(via Pharyngula)
Yeah, that Vid’s from several years ago and it still cracks me up that these anti-choice idiots give no thought to the outcome of their actions.
Chile
El Salvadore
Nicaragua
No wonder these folks keep trying to get the Handmaid’s Tale banned out of Libraries and Schools.
The anti-abortion movement has for years coopted the term ‘pro-life’ for their stance.
I truly respect those whose principled stance is TRULY pro-life, opposing not only abortion, but alos capital punishment and social injustice that cuts too many lives short, too.
But those are few and far between. Most of the so-called pro-lifers are also pro-death penalty and would apply that ‘justice’ to anyone they don’t like no matter the offense.
It is those Pro-baby/Anti-adult whack jobs that need to take a breath, put down the signs and sit down to think about what their stance really is.
Dave, great point on the group think issue. Group think is responsible for most of the worst atrocities of our age.
Frankly Government must keep abortion legal, those who stand opposed to it then have the responsibility to provide alternatives (other than shaming and finger waving) for those women considering the procedure.
We cannot, and should not legislate morality. Making any potentially life saving procedure, that can also be used by a small number of people for reasons other than health management, illegal is a BAD idea.
If they weren’t the same people who oppose sex education, contraception, public health care, a social safety net, and education and equal rights for women (all things that are proven to reduce abortion), I might be able to take them seriously. As it is, they make pregnancy harder to avoid, and make it an economic and personal catastrophe, and then cry foul when women have abortions.
You are much kinder than I am: they deserve mockery. They are the living embodiment of Matthew 23:4.
For me the answer is simpler. The developing brain does not begin to reticulate until early in the 6th month of pregnancy. Prior to that, there’s no cerebral cortex to speak of, just (undeveloped) autonomic and brain-stem responses. In any case most abortions take place when the brain is the size of a peanut.
Ahh, but they’re so sure of dualism.
While I suspect most of them haven’t thought the dichotomy out well, I will note that it’s generally acceptable to punish or act toward adults in a far harsher fashion than children, and to punish the guilty more than the innocent. But that’s a different argument than being pro-life.
Actually, a great deal of law has to do with morality. Justice and other codified restraints of violence and rapine are pro-survival (which most people consider moral) and often stem from moral codes.
The balancing point is to what extent non-consensual morality should be legislated (i.e., when what I consider moral and the “greater good” is different from what you do), and to what extent the majority’s morality should trump the minority’s.
Well, honestly speaking, so am I. But, then, my concept of the meaning of life and the afterlife is such that my feelings about the “crime” of abortion are different enough to make me not quite as concerned as they are.
I love Matthew 23 in general. I think if more Christians (self included) read that passage more often and considered how we were reflected in it, there would be a lot more better Christians. Unfortunately, the “whited tombs” tend to be the last to feel it applies to them.
OK, I’ll quibble: Yes, much legislation is, in fact, codifying morality. But there are issues of morality that impinge on other members of society, and morality that does not.
So, thou shalt not kill (murder prosecution) is an extreme version of this. The major reason, socially, to enforce this moral rule is that the act of murder is non-consensual by the murderee.
This becomes fuzzy when one starts discussing things like assisted suicide. The consensual nature of this makes it less socially dangerous, so outlawing this makes no sense. Now it DOES make sense to REGULATE it to ensure that it is consensual before final, ahem, executuion. But the moral arguement ‘thou shalt not kill’ remains and should remain as a guidepost for those who care to follow it.
On the abortion question, the when human life begins question is entirely a moral one for any date prior to the end of the 2nd trimester (the only true test of a child being ‘alive’ being whether they could survive outside the womb). The government should regulate the procedure to make sure that it isn’t used under duress and against the will of the mother, but should ensure that it’s legally available. It’s up to moral leaders to convince people not to use the procedure and ensure that resources are available to back up their moral stance.
Here’s another area of current contesting: smoking. While I hate this habit and the scientific data shows it’s deadly to use I’m not going to call for the entire product to be outlawed. Nope, you want to kill yourself in private, go for it. The regulation that SHOULD be in place across the entire nation is keeping a smoker from exposing non-consenting persons from imbibing the smoke. Smoke free public spaces.
Look, I got all rambly! =)
If I glibly play devil’s advocate here, bear in mind it’s because all these arguments play out in my head all the time. It gets noisy up there …
Really? If I can only survive with an artificial life support system, does that mean I’m not really passing the true test of being “alive”?
If a baby is born unable to survive without life support, is it really alive yet?
For that matter, a “normal” born infant cannot “survive outside the womb” without care for more than a very short time. Does that matter in judging whether it’s really alive?
Is viability outside the womb a magic binary switch, such that there’s a magic date where one day it’s okay because the kid isn’t really alive and the next day it’s not okay because the kid really is? Are trimesters gauged that exactly? Does fetal development draw that close a time table? Would it make more sense to choose an “average” and advance the date by a few weeks, just to be sure?
Now … there are answers I’m comfortable with in all of these questions (or less uncomfortable with), but they are a moral call. And I can imagine moral judgments on these questions that are quite different. The social debate then becomes whose morals prevail, when, and with what consequence.
I certainly agree with the first part of the statement — and I think the latter part is a good (even moral) idea, but not a requirement. I can tell people that certain actions are wrong without taking responsibility for alleviating the conditions that incline them that toward those actions.
On the other hand, while I think that moral suasion is better than authoritarianism — if you really believe that this is murder on a mass scale, to what extent would you rely on simply moral suasion, vs. trying to harness the power of the law in your favor?
And I have no problem with people who protest abortion as murder . . .IF they are opposed just as vocally to other things that end life also.