Hey, anyone remember me in High School? I was the one with the “Stop Abortion” button on my lapel and my “Save the Baby Humans” bumper sticker. Hey, former member of “Operation Rescue” here.. So, why did I stay out of the recent Abortion conflagration on Barnson?
Because I’ve argued this point to death, and I’ve made some discoveries that might make us better understand each other.
Much of the abortion argument ends up asking a single question.. is Abortion Murder? I mean, its not a matter of a potential human.. in that case, birth control would be wrong.. because to have eggs and sperm that close and not let them conceive is destroying a potential human. Its not a matter of “personal responsibility” because you can be WAY irresponsible and still take the pill or pop on a condom – that just means you were bolder in your search for birth control and perhaps better educated. And if it were just that, well who are we to punish?
No, the question comes down to this.. is Abortion killing a baby? Or, why is it legal to abort a viable fetus and a potential capital offense to dump a newborn in a dumpster?
Well, its that question.. is Abortion Murder?
PRO-LIFERS: Yes, and that’s why the right to live supercedes a “woman’s right to choose”. They believe that a woman should have a right to choose, but it is less important than a baby’s right to live – and it clearly is a baby.. just a smaller one. And I understand it.. I’ve seen the sonograms of my kid so far.. and it looks really really human. It moves in a really human way.. and this was at 14 weeks. Now at 19 weeks, it has fingerprints and ears and sleeps and swallows and sucks its thumb. So I can see the point of view. Other than its stage of development (which is just about as fast as out of the womb) whats the difference between it and a newborn? Not much.. and a good number of Babies aborted could be potentially viable with hospitalization.
PRO-CHOICERS: No, its justifiable killing of a not-yet human. There are rights that women should have. The right to do what you want with your own body and not be forced against your will to undergo a huge body change and then a dangerous medical procedure should be fundamental. And yes, it is unfortunate a fetus has to die, but a lot of them do on their own, and they’re developmentally less advanced than like a small animal – the size of a hamster, with less personality.. and to keep this alive, despite its potential, should not supercede an American Citizen’s right to keep herself as she would see fit to do. And again.. I see the tumultuous nature of pregnancy firsthand.. (or secondhand, as its my wife, not me). If there was nothing being looked forward to, this would be like a horrible disease.. discomfort, eating restrictions, nausea, scarring, pain, and finally labor. All to save something with less brain than a ferret.
So, its easy to see how these two sides can’t agree. Weed is right that a baby has a right to live and should not be killed, especially after a certain point. Ben is also right that a fourteen year old who made a mistake (and knowing teenage girls, this happens half the time under pressure or duress) should not have her life completely screwed up. Adoption is always an important choice.. but then there’s the question of the Mother’s pre-natal behavior.. and again, it doesn’t negate the trauma of pregnancy. Then again, a baby shouldn’t die.
They’re both right. And really, neither one is really wrong.. they are both looking out for what is (for them) a hypothetical – both looking out for different victims. So we can agree that a really unwanted pregnancy is going to victimize someone.
If we can’t agree.. and we never can, because we’re both right… then what do we do? Legislation of compromise. The Pro-Choicers want choice protected, the pro-lifers want fewer abortions.. Perhaps there is a way (free birth control, morning after pills, illegalizeing third trimester abortions, and legalizing first trimester abortions with second trimester abortions yet to be discussed) – nothing will be compltetely acceptable to everyone, but we all get a little more of what we want.
Meanwhile.. the discussion is important.. because these sides need to keep pulling in opposite directions – its the only way to make sure both victims have some protection.
Frames of Argument
Over the last year, I’ve become aware of a thing called “framing the argument”, which means to present an argument in terms such that, if the terms are accepted, one’s conclusions are the only (or primary) logical ones. It seems as if the “gray areas” of the law, where ethical ambiguity reigns, is rife with opposing frames. The abortion debate is one example. War in foreign nations, and religion vs. secularism are two others.
All topics which we get pretty excited about around here 🙂
I think the framing of “Is Abortion Murder?” is too simplistic, vague, and partisan to be useful. A more pragmatic question, without implicit pro-life framing, might be “What is an acceptable compromise between a mother’s right to make decisions regarding her own body, and society’s stake in affirming the value of human life?”
In considering the question, I suspect that giving full weight to the extremist arguments won’t serve us very well. Appeasing extremists is not a recipe for a healthy society. A catch-phrase I find myself living by these days is “the nature of a compromise is that neither party is entirely satisfied by the outcome”.
We must compromise to survive.
This is an issue which I suspect will continue to be an ongoing exercise in compromise, despite deep moral misgivings by both sides to any solution which does not fulfill their criteria for “victory”.
— Matthew P. Barnson – – – – Thought for the moment: <Delenn> I wouldn’t make it through 24 hours before I’d be firing up the grill and slapping a few friends on the barbie. <spacemoos> Why would you slap friends with barbies, thats kinda kinky
Excellent
I think you do a great job of distilling the issue, although I also think Matt is correct that the question is too simplistic. But I think we all agree that the abortion issue is one that is nearly impossible to agree on.
I think one of the problems with the debate is that the two sides are actually arguing different questions. Personally, I am against abortion. I don’t know any pro-choicers who are in favor of abortion. We are simply arguing in favor of preserving the choice. Pro-lifers, on the other hand, take issue with the idea of abortion itself, and argue the moral issue rather than the rights issue.
Regardless, I’m sorry that I was so strident this past week. I feel very strongly about this sort of thing.
— Ben
Its an important issue..
But here’s the deal.. only the pro-choicers think the pro-lifers are arguing a moral issue. The pro-lifers (or most of them) don’t see it as just a moral issue.. they see it as the same issue as, hypothetically, a government saying it is okay for childen to kill their parents if they turn 60 and are a financial burden. The pro-choicers see the fetus as a baby, and the terminating of the pregnancy as taking a baby and killing it.
The pro-choicers often see the problem with ending a potential life, but see this choice as a moral one, and say, quite correctly, that no on ehas the right to impose their morals on another person.
So I restate that it comes down to that question.. is it a human life, or a potential human life. Is it an unfortunate termination of what could become human, or is it the murder of a baby?
It is difficult to soften the question or change it without making it less true. And it is not slanted pro-life, although I would be happy with “ARE THEY BABIES OR NOT” as a possible substitution. A pro-choicer can say “no its not murdering babies, they’re not babies yet, and that’s why we cannot legislate that a woman can’t have a choice”. A pro-lifer can say “They are babies, so it is murder, so it must be stopped”.
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
Morality
Well it’s basically the same thing — the pro-life argument is either “killing is morally wrong” or “killing is illegal”. While there’s an intellectual difference there, there’s not much of a practical difference. The main thrust of the argument is that a fetus is a baby and therefore an abortion is murder.
But not all pro-choicers are arguing that a fetus is NOT a baby. The main thrust of the pro-choice argument is that whether or not a fetus is a baby, the interests of the mother outweigh the interests of the fetus (in most cases), and that it’s not the purview of government to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body. (Because, from the pro-choice POV, the fetus is still part of the woman’s body regardless of whether it’s a baby in its own right.)
That’s what I meant about the arguments being in two different directions.
— Ben
I see what you’re saying…
I guess the pro-lifers would likely ask the question “Is it justified to kill a person who means you no harm, who does not pose a lethal threat to you, because you would find the existence of this person to be inconvenient and/or physically uncomfprtable?”
Its a loaded question, and I know that.. and there’s that underlying question.. does fetus = person? At some point, I think yes. When is that point? I don’t know.
Let me ask you (or whoever) – is there a point in fetal development that you would say “okay, yeah, its too much a person to let it be aborted for any reason except extreme danger to the mother?”
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
Inconvenient
That’s assuming that the only reasons (besides extreme danger to the mother) that someone would have an abortion would be because it was inconvenient or physically uncomfortable. If that were the case, I’d be a pro-lifer too.
Personally, I would support banning all abortions after the first trimester (except in issues of danger to the mother). However, that’s not my decision to make – nor to I believe it’s within the power of the state or federal governments to make that decision. The exception to that is that I understand that there are cases where a mother may not know that she’s pregnant within the first three months.
The law at the moment sets the point of fetus=person at viability, which is somewhere around 24 weeks.
— Ben
Acceptable compromise…
…which, I think, is an acceptable compromise.
I don’t think there is any argument in the pro-choice camp that you are terminating a human life. Absolutely, no question about it. That’s a little tiny human. People might argue that it’s not developed yet, or that the actual cost of such a termination is minimal, but nobody’s saying “that’s not human life”. It’s assuredly not alien, cow, or donkey-life.
That’s why I said the question “Is abortion murder?” is partisan and beside the point. The word “murder” is a loaded term, rife with unintended meanings, and it’s a mis-characterization of the pro-choice side to say that that’s the issue. It’s part of the frame presented by the pro-life side which “doesn’t compute” among pro-choicers as to what the issue actually is.
That’s why I made my suggestion for a more complicated question that accurately reflects the arguments of the two camps: “What is an acceptable compromise between a mother’s right to make decisions regarding her own body, and society’s stake in affirming the value of human life?”
Ran across an interesting video the other day which asks a fairly simple question: If abortion were illegal, what should be the penalty for women who got abortions illegally?. (Did I get that link here?) The first thing that occurred to me is that the pro-life activists in the video seemed to miss the obvious answer: punish the doctors who perform the abortions rather than the women who need them…
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Actually
I think there is a fair amount of argument in the pro-choice community about whether abortion is “ending a human life”. There are plenty of people out there who believe that “life begins at birth”. It’s almost a Schrödinger’s Cat problem — if a fetus can’t live outside of its mother, can it really be called “alive”?
In fact, NPR did a fascinating story this morning about the differences within the pro-choice community. I agree completely with Will Saletan:
While I don’t personally agree with abortion, I don’t think that banning it is the correct way to encourage people to change their behavior.
— Ben