We all know the circumspect pro-lifers who will endorse restricting abortion only to rapidly follow their statement with a modifier. It goes like this:
But if you plan on telling women they can’t abort babies, then you’d better be ready to establish orphanages, pay for healthcare, add welfare benefits, etc.
For a long time, I accepted this as sage advice. On first blush, it seems to be clearly true.
A friend brought up that point to me earlier today. I suddenly realized it is in many ways a cop out.
In order to demonstrate, consider a similar position on theft, which does not of necessity entail the ending of someone’s life. Here we go:
If you plan on making theft illegal, then you’d better be ready to remove the sources of material deprivation. You’ll need to be ready to provide healthcare, food stamps, welfare, etc. Until you remove the incentives for theft, you had better be ready to live with theft.
Do you see the problem? Abortion is an evil. Theft is an evil. Both are sometimes resorted to because people are desperate and don’t know what to do. At other times, the act is chosen in a more cynical fashion and without the tragically beautiful wrapping of travail.
I think we should do things to make abortion less attractive to women. But I do not think that we should propose to people that they may not legitimately oppose abortion until they are willing to enact a host of social welfare reforms. The evil is the evil. We can seek to prevent the evil by making it less attractive through palliative measures, but we may also seek to prevent the evil by making it unlawful. The second does not logically depend on the first.
June 18th, 2010 | 3:46 pm | #1
For an analogy that begs the question in the opposite direction, here we go:
June 18th, 2010 | 4:21 pm | #2
Janice,
Are you honestly comparing blood transfusions and abortion? Aside from both being surgical procedures, where is the comparison?
June 18th, 2010 | 4:25 pm | #3
Odgie, take a hint from my introduction of the analogy:
“For an analogy that begs the question in the opposite direction…”
Try asking yourself, “What’s the (main) question that’s getting begged here?”
June 19th, 2010 | 1:05 pm | #4
Janice:
“Abortion” is the name we give to the killing of unborn human beings in utero. If, of course, the unborn is not a person, then there is no need to justify it, just as there is no need to justify blood transfusions. On the other hand, if the unborn is a person, then the benefit of having an abortion requires that another person be killed. That requires justification.
Making blood transfusions illegal would be analogous to abortion in this regard: forbidding people to receive blood to save their lives is like forbidding the unborn to receive sustenance, shelter and nurturing, which are precisely what are ripped from the unborn in an abortion.
What a strange world we live in. It is in one in which otherwise intelligent people think that it is the height of sophistication to believe that we ought to allow the most vulnerable, defenseless and dependent members of the human community to be killed at the sole discretion of the only person who has absolute power over him or her.
Perhaps the solution is to rename the womb “Guantanamo Bay” and abortion “water boarding.”
June 19th, 2010 | 1:20 pm | #5
Francis Beckwith,
It’s nice to see you back. I’m wondering if you ever got a chance to consider my reply to you here:
http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2010/06/gay-rights-aggression-distortion/#comment-11221
As for your present comment, I’m sure many people appreciate it. As do I. However, the language you use strikes me as tendentious. Do you think that it’s possible to approach this important and highly emotional topic in a more “objective” way, and to characterize the issue using terms which are less biased?
I ask you these questions with sincerity, recognizing your expertise on the issue.
June 20th, 2010 | 8:34 am | #6
Janice: “As for your present comment, I’m sure many people appreciate it. As do I. However, the language you use strikes me as tendentious.”
Soooo, you do appreciate “tendentious” language?
(BTW, I don’t agree that Dr. Beckwith’s comment was tendentious.)
“Do you think that it’s possible to approach this important and highly emotional topic in a more “objective” way, and to characterize the issue using terms which are less biased?”
Does saying “abortion is murder” count as a more “objective” way of approaching the topic in a less biased way?
June 20th, 2010 | 10:48 am | #7
The counter argument, of course, is to say that merely because action is evil is not sufficient reason in and of itself to refrain from performing the action.
June 21st, 2010 | 1:45 am | #8
What is the point of this post?
It doesn’t reinforce the evil of abortion.
It doesn’t give an substantial new answer to the problem.
It doesn’t do much at all…
Other than make the point that you can be a Republican and that’s fine. (Oppose abortion, but don’t seek government intervention to stop why abortions happen.)
This is a ridiculous post that isn’t pro-life so much as anti-social reform. Reminds me of the pro-life people that oppose any kind of legislation that doesn’t completely outlaw all abortions. It’s ridiculous and getting us nowhere.
June 21st, 2010 | 9:18 am | #9
John, I thought the point of the post was quite clear. There are those who argue that opposition to abortion must be predicated upon the enactment of a variety of social welfare measures. I offered a reason why I think that argument is wrong. The “point” is what some people call communication.
June 21st, 2010 | 11:39 am | #10
The point of this post is very clear, abortion advocates commit a logical fallacy that often goes ignored, even by those on the prolife side. To make abortion a crime doesn’t logically necessitate any other requirements to be placed on society. “If abortion is illegal, then prolifers need to financially care for the needs of these children.” While people of the prolife persuasion would love to assist in these areas if it were financially feasible, requiring women not to kill their unborn children means simply do not kill your unborn children.
June 22nd, 2010 | 3:18 am | #11
Opposition to abortion and a spirit of caring and advocacy are actions that should run absolutely parallel for followers of Jesus Christ. Not to say we should wait for intricate social reforms to be enacted before we can oppose abortion, not at all; but we have to realize that babies born into situations where their mothers were not ready and toddlers are also vulnerable. So many members in the church, such big conferences and sometimes so little readiness to be there for them.
June 26th, 2010 | 8:30 am | #12
Maybe if we spent less money on salaries and buildings we’d have more to spend on these and other more important issues?
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