To be clear from the very beginning, I am convinced that abortion may well be the most significant moral dilemma we have ever faced. And, it has proven to be just as intractable, perplexing, divisive, and impenetrable as resolving pi to the last possible digit. In fact, pi can’t ever be resolved. The abortion problem may prove itself to be as daunting and unsolvable. This essay does not seek to claim one side, or the other is correct or morally defensible. If anything, I am convinced both fall well short of the mark. So, if you think — or are inclined to think — that I am for one or the other, I am not. I am deeply troubled by the implications and ramifications of both.
This is new ground for me — most of my life I have leaned towards “Pro Choice” and have followed the standard argument — “My body. My choice.” I find, as I listen to the argument raging around Texas’ restrictive anti-abortion law, that neither position is tenable. To begin with the simplest point first: Were my daughter to be raped or be subject to incest, I would extend to her the right to have an abortion. Rape and incest are morally wrong. I cannot in conscience force a woman to carry to term the “fruit” of such an act.
If it came down to her life or carrying the fetus to end of term, I would urge her to terminate the pregnancy. If it were determined, beyond the shadow of a doubt, whatever that is, that upon birth the fetus would suffer one or more illnesses that would lead to financial catastrophe, emotional damage, and to a life of suffering for the child, I would ask her to seriously examine the possibility of terminating the pregnancy. Am I sure that terminating a pregnancy if the life of the mother were threatened, or if the fetus were to be born with life threatening and life ending deformity, are morally justifiable? No, I am not.
When it comes to the entirety of this debate, I am certain of only one point: As soon as conception occurs, the fetus has a complete set of unique human DNA. In theory and in fact, viable or not, a person or not, it is at that moment human. It might not be viable, and it might not be a person, but it is human.
As far as “Pro Life” is concerned, I am struck by the hypocrisy of claiming to uphold the sanctity of life when, after birth, that child would be left to languish in poverty. Without proper nourishment, access to a good education, that child would become another drain on society, by any number of metrics, including possibly living a life of crime, falling prey to drug addiction, potentially enduring a life plagued by poor health, or facing chronic unemployment or under employment, assuming he or she were even able to find a job which paid enough to make even minimal ends meet. The same people who proclaim the sanctity of life are in favor of the death penalty, stiff jail terms, diminishing, if not ending, welfare, and other crimes against humanity which render the fate of every fetus born to a poor family tragic. Children who are born in poverty often languish, unable to thrive.
I should also note that the sanctity of life does not extend to those who challenge our self-proclaimed right to everything, or to anyone we deem a potential threat to our “national security.” The same people who are pro-life will spend wantonly on weapons of mass destruction, but cannot find it in their hearts, or their logic, to spend on education, welfare, or health care.
As deeply troubled as I am by the Pro-Life position, I am even more deeply troubled by the “logic” of Pro-Choice advocates.
Abortion is not a constitutional right. Roe V Wade was a legal precedent and not a law. It overturned laws which barred women from getting abortions legally and safely. Roe V Wade did not amend the Constitution. It did not add the right to an abortion to the Bill of Rights, and there is no mention of the right to an abortion in the Declaration of Independence. Those three documents — the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — list all the inalienable rights we as Americans have. Additional alienable rights have been granted through the passage of laws, but the right to an abortion is not one. If we wish to claim access to abortion as a right, then we need to pass a law or amend the Constitution.
There is no reference to “reproductive freedom” in any documents which establish the limits of human rights in this society. Reproductive freedom has become an assumed right among some, primarily proponents of abortion. Assumptions don’t make laws. If assumptions did, then there would be no need for laws which guarantee all Americans the right to vote.
There are no human rights — not outside the social contract of a given country. For there to be human rights, it would be necessary that we be able to answer the most fundamental question of all — What does it mean to be human? We have tried since the dawn of human time, and we have yet to find a viable answer that we call can accept. Only when this question is answered will it be possible to claim that human rights exist. The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the only document which claims to answer the human question across the vast diversity of human society, and it does not mention or include reproductive freedom. The UN did eventually publish, in 2014, a document called “Reproductive Rights are Human Rights.” However, whether this document was intended to an addendum to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is unclear. In any event, like virtually every pronouncement made by the UN, neither the Declaration or the paper on Reproductive Freedom carry any weight. Even the US ignores the tenets of the Declaration and has not ratified it. The point is this — even if the Declaration and the paper of Reproductive Freedom are universally valid, they are not valid or legal in this society until and unless one of two things happen: We enact an endorsement of those documents into law, or we recognize them as replacements for or addenda to the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.
“My birth control failed,” or, “I didn’t intend to get pregnant.”
To begin with, the only 100% effective method of birth control is abstinence. We seem to have lost sight of that. The time to think about the possibility of ruining one’s life is before having intercourse, not after. But then, this is America. We are raised to do and not to think.
Since the early 1960s, we have worked hard to rid our society of any sense of moral obligation and responsibility. We can largely thank Situational Ethics for that. Pioneered by Fletcher, it simply stated that intention and consequence don’t matter, and if I really want to know what the moral course of action is, I need only ask what the most loving course of action is. Fletcher insisted that the check against immoral behavior and hedonism would be agape — dispassionate, spiritual, love of neighbor. Well, we’ve seen how well that has worked. Consumerism and the need for immediate satisfaction, itself created by and fueled by Consumerism, have seen to that. Nike said it all in 1988: Just do it.
Whether or not you intend what happens is not relevant. Fletcher was wrong. Intentions and consequences cannot be removed from moral deliberation. It doesn’t matter if you killed someone when you were driving intoxicated or having sex. If you are late for a job interview and take a shortcut through a residential neighborhood and, because you are speeding, hit and kill a child, you are guilty of manslaughter. Intended or not, you killed someone. You had sex, so you own whatever happens — both of you.
Pro-choice has made pregnancy a woman’s issue. It isn’t. It is an issue for both people. By making Pro-choice a women’s issue, we have released men from moral culpability. That serves only to absolve men of questionable behavior while it further objectifies women.
Objectification of women. What better way to objectify you than to convince you that self-objectification is the ultimate act of personal freedom? Whether or not we have chosen to do that, we do objectify women every moment of every day, and I would argue that appealing to “reproductive freedom” and to the liberalization and legalization of abortion follows the pill on the list of ways we objectify women. Think about it this way — if you get an abortion, I get to have sex with you without worrying about what is best for you, what will happen, and how what happens might impact my life. After all, if it feels good, we should just do it. I don’t have to think about my role in all this, whether or not we should have had sex, I too just do it. Except, unlike you, I just walk away.
“My body, my choice.” When it comes to a tumor, yes. Plastic surgery, yes. Tattoos, yes. Warts, hangnails, an unwanted sixth finger, yes. For any and all acts which impact only our own bodies, yes. What to pierce an ear? Go for it. However, when it comes to abortion, there are several problems:
As noted, whatever it is, it has a full, unique set of human DNA. It is not a tumor. It is not a hangnail. It is not a wart.
Sex is a social act — except masturbation when done in private. Conception involves two people and therefore it is a social act and falls under the domain of a given society’s laws and the rights granted there-in.
Viable or not, a person or not, by six weeks, it clearly has a heartbeat. Technology can and will change the definition of viability. A fetus that wasn’t viable 20 years ago is now.
If the fetus needs to be a person before it is allowed to complete development, what do we do with people who have dementia and no longer are persons? If the concept of person is linked to conscious awareness at more than a visceral level, then someone with dementia is no longer a person. Are we to terminate all humans who are not persons?
If those who are “Pro-choice” want abortion to be a human right, then they need to pass a law or amend the Constitution. Until then, they need to step back and take responsibility for decisions that they make. As far as “Pro-life” is concerned, the answer is not banning abortion and curtailing access to birth control. The answer is to build a human and humane society, one in which we can care more for humans than we do ideas or a book.
