In the aftermath of the L.I.F.E. Club panel, a good portion of the resulting conversation has been devoted to whether or not the question “When does life begin?” was properly addressed. No matter the speaker’s opinion about the panel as a whole, all voices seemed to agree that this is vital question that needs to be addressed before any dialogue concerning abortion can occur. I have to say, I think this precondition is incredibly damaging, regardless of which position you take.
The motives of those who ask this question are the same: to determine whether or not abortion can be considered morally wrong, and therefore punishable by the law. Pro-lifers push toward conception. Pro-choicers push toward birth. Each wants to feel justified in their argument. They want to feel irrefutable. And so they seek out ultimatums. Is abortion murder? From each side comes either a resounding yes or no. The problem is that this becomes the beginning and end of the conversation. No middle ground can be reached. And few people have realized that this is perhaps the most irrelevant question anyone could be asking.
To begin with, let’s look at what’s being said. There are those who are pro-life. They see abortion as a definitive act of killing. Something was created, and abortion destroyed it. They want abortion to be completely illegal. They are “anti-abortion.” If that’s one side of the argument, then the other side should be… “Pro-death”? No, that’s not it. Are they “pro-abortion”? No, that’s not it either. Pro-lifers are anti-abortion, but they are facing off against those who identify themselves as pro-CHOICE. Is it just me, or are “life” and “choice” not exactly opposites? Perhaps the reason the arguments between the two camps haven’t been going anywhere is that they aren’t actually arguing about the same thing.
No one, I can guarantee you, no one besides Daniel Tosh is out there in the world swinging a sign that reads “We should have abortions!” Rather, the appeal is this: “We should have the RIGHT to have abortions!” Most of you reading this will likely believe that abortion is killing, and that killing is wrong. You’ll also most likely think that no one should have the right to kill. But since there’s also no one out there (I’m guessing) with a sign that says “We should have the right to murder!” there must be something different about abortion. There’s clearly a reason that anyone would fight to allow this action, or to contradict its immorality. So, these are the questions that we should be asking, to replace the extraneous question of life: What are the reasons for abortion? And, what can we do to eliminate those reasons?
A person’s choice to have an abortion is, of course, inspired by any number of unfortunate factors: poverty, rape, incest, age, violence, medical issues, mental instability, and any number of extreme situations— there are babies born into slavery and prostitution, babies born destined to end up abandoned. Whether or not you agree that all of these circumstances merit an abortion, certainly you can see how some of them do, or at the very least, you can recognize the need for a system that can be responsible for the infants it prevents from being aborted. You can recognize the need for improved sex education. You can recognize the need for a change.
So, is abortion murder? Who cares? The truth is, abortion does not matter. It doesn’t. If the main bone you have to pick is simply a question of the beginning and end of life, you need to broaden your focus to include any kind of death—death from war, death from starvation, death disease. All of these deaths, including death from abortion, grow out of the same causes—poverty, power and control, lack of education, terrible situations. Untimely deaths will not cease until these causes are eradicated. So in the meantime, yes: women should have the right to have an abortion. And, no: we should not talk about whether or not that’s wrong. Because the way to prevent abortion, and war, every other kind of injustice in the world is not to tell people to “just stop.” The way to prevent it is to make it unnecessary. That’s an enterprise I think everyone can support, be they pro-life or pro-choice.
3 replies on “Why I Don’t Care About Abortion”
“All of these deaths, including death from abortion, grow out of the same causes—poverty, power and control, lack of education, terrible situations. Untimely deaths will not cease until these causes are eradicated. So in the meantime, yes: women should have the right to have an abortion. And, no: we should not talk about whether or not that’s wrong. Because the way to prevent abortion, and war, every other kind of injustice in the world is not to tell people to “just stop.” The way to prevent it is to make it unnecessary.” …This.
There’s a silver lining to the abortion debate…It gives us the chance to address the issues that lead so many women to getting the procedure done. These issues include sex-education (after all, attitudes toward safe sex, consent, and human desires begin at home and in schools) because sex is still a touchy subject in the US, healthcare for contraceptive access, and maternal and paternal leave during/after a pregnancy. All three of these are still largely unaddressed and overlooked in the United States. Tackle these first and we will begin to see a chain reaction that will include a decline in abortions, let alone unwanted pregnancies in the first place. But hey, that’s probably too much work, so I guess it’s easier to just shut down abortion services, as if that’ll make them disappear.
I like your style. Nice opinion piece.
The Star’s recently published article entitled Why I Don’t Care About Abortion by Lydia Wilson is cause for concern. There are some grave problems with the author’s reasoning that call for serious intellectual reflection and accountability in light of her unsound, unfounded and damaging arguments. I believe that this article is a very poor reflection on Houghton’s English, Philosophy and Theology departments for the following reasons.
Our author opens her article by lamenting that both sides are talking past each other and that “no middle ground can be reached” in the pro-life/pro-choice debate. The fact that the author could lament that there is no middle ground is disturbing. Abortion can only be either right or wrong: there is no alternative, no compromise available. If life begins at conception then abortion is by definition murder. By and large, the present controversy is not concerned with the question of when life begins but rather whether the fetus is a person. A pro-choice advocate would say that personhood is a degreed property, something that is gained over time. Since a fetus is not fully a person, as our pro-choice advocates say, abortion cannot be considered murder. The problem with this is that if personhood is in fact a degreed property, a human could conceivably lose their personhood following a traumatic injury, illness or old age. This line of reasoning, also espoused by eugenicists, is particularly dangerous. (Interestingly enough the ties between Planned Parenthood and the American Eugenics Society are frighteningly close.)
The writer goes on to draw up a rough sketch of both camps eventually coming to the conclusion that “Perhaps the reason the arguments between the two camps haven’t been going anywhere is that they aren’t actually arguing about the same thing.” She argues that pro-choice is not the opposite of pro-life without realizing that the CHOICE in pro-choice involves choosing death for another human being. This implies that the groups are not talking past one another at all. Is not the ‘choice’ in ‘pro-choice’ a conversation about life or death? How is it possible to get around such a distinction? Titles necessarily serve a rhetorical function. No one can read a party’s title without looking at what the party actually says and proceed to argue, as the author has done, that “choice” and “life” are not opposites. Of course they are not opposites, but the philosophies they represent are opposites.
We agree that murder is an act of the highest injustice. Therefore, assuming that a fetus is a person, no one has the “right” to kill that person. Arguing that someone should have the “right to have an abortion” is the same thing as saying they have a “right to murder.” This issue runs deeper than the mere question of choice. Naturally a person has the “right” to make bad choices – even sinful ones. However, when those choices affect another person we cannot always indulge an individual’s desires. A rapist has a desire that affects someone else’s dignity and we justly deny him the right to make that choice.
The author argues that we need to look at the underlying causes of abortion rather than address abortion as an issue. She states:
“All of these deaths, including death from abortion, grow out of the same causes—poverty, power and control, lack of education, terrible situations. Untimely deaths will not cease until these causes are eradicated. So in the meantime, yes: women should have the right to have an abortion. And, no: we should not talk about whether or not that’s wrong. Because the way to prevent abortion, and war, every other kind of injustice in the world is not to tell people to “just stop.” The way to prevent it is to make it unnecessary.”
If abortion is murder, something we have already established, then NO reason is sufficient for justifying abortion. She has just stated that we shouldn’t talk about whether abortion is wrong and then goes on to say how we should prevent it! This makes no sense. If abortion isn’t wrong, why prevent it?
Although she makes a valid point that injustices occur on many levels, this does not logically lead to the conclusion that abortion is a non-issue. The author’s argument could apply to pimps and sex trafficking as well. By her line of thought, underlying causes must be dealt with before surface issues. Therefore, considering that many pimps and gangsters were victimized and traumatized as children, we should not deny them the right to be involved in sex trafficking. Would she say “in the meantime, yes: men should have the right to engage in sex trafficking. And no: we should not talk about whether or not that’s wrong. Because the way to prevent sex trafficking, and war, every other kind of injustice in the world is not to tell people to “just stop.” The way to prevent it is to make it unnecessary.” Clearly the author has not followed every possible logical outcome of her position – we surely cannot bless an injustice because its causes were themselves unjust. As followers of Christ, we must love and understand all the victims involved without condoning any of the injustices committed.
Our author goes on to write “So, these are the questions that we should be asking, to replace the extraneous question of life: What are the reasons for abortion? And, what can we do to eliminate those reasons?” How can the questions of life be extraneous? Is not life the business of living things? No one chooses their own existence, no one choose the existence of another. Life is both the most sacred and the most fragile feature of a human. The author brushes off the matter of life as a mere triviality – as if dead humans were somehow also part of the conversation and therefore that life is of no great consequence in the question of existence. Surely the question of life and how we define it is the very highest importance in a discussion surrounding a humans’ right to this luxury.
The author continues “Whether or not you agree that all of these circumstances merit an abortion, certainly you can see how some of them do…” This is merely begging the question, and here is something the author should also think hard about: How a fetus is conceived—whether in rape, poverty, incest, and so forth—is wholly irrelevant to the personhood of the fetus. Rape, poverty, incest, and so forth, are horrible things which all people ought to work to overcome. But when she states that, with respect to the aforementioned situations, “certainly you can see how some of them do,” she offers no good reason on behalf of her case. So, what justification does she propose for rape, for example, warranting abortion? This is a premise she must defend. Two wrongs never make a right.
The author begins by saying that she does not care then claims that abortion does not matter, only to wind up suggesting that women do, in fact, have the right to abortion. So, there is no real thesis or argument in this article, and her readers are left in the dark by what she is actually up to. Is it that she does not care? Is it that she does care but is seeking middle ground? Or is it that, deep down, she truly minds whether someone is pro-life or pro-choice? Next, if the fetus is a person, then none of her arguments hold up, for, again, how a fetus is conceived (whether in rape, in poverty, etc.) is irrelevant to the personhood of the fetus.
So what should a Christian response be? The author is right that we do not solve the world’s injustices by shouting, ‘just stop!’ at the top of our lungs; we solve the world’s injustices by spreading the Gospel, and we give each person—whether conceived in rape, poverty and the like—the fighting chance to both hear as well as to respond to the Gospel. I only hope Houghton students will think this very important issue through carefully and not compromise their values as they seek to serve this broken and hurting world.