Guest Opinion: Abortion rights activists sidestep the fact of humanity
On Sunday, July 31, the newspaper published several opinions on abortion. I commend Charles Dern for his excellent analysis of the Roe decision. I’d like to add three points of my own in answer to the advocates of abortion.
First, I never see any defense of abortion that acknowledges the humanity of the fetus. There is no question it is human life. As early as 1970, an editorial in California Medicine, the official journal of the California Medical Association (Sept. 1970, vol. 113, No. 3) brought out the fact that the old Judeo-Christian ethic, with its emphasis on the intrinsic worth and equal value of every human life regardless of its stage or condition, is being eroded and a new ethic substituted in its place. This new ethic separates the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, “which continues to be socially abhorrent.”
“The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but the taking of a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices.”
If abortion advocates would forthrightly admit that the developing human being in the womb is the one category of human life they wish to see no legal protections for, I would at least credit them with honesty, while opposing their position. But then (my second point), they often use hard cases as a pretext for unrestricted abortion on demand. This is morally problematic, to put it mildly, as well as intellectually dishonest. There used to be a legal maxim, “hard cases make bad law.” Liberalizing a law for the sake of hard cases opens up a Pandora’s Box of potential problems and abuses, as we’ve seen time and again, up to and including the scandal of Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia. If we want to discuss the hard cases, let’s discuss the hard cases. If abortion advocates want unrestricted abortion no matter what the reason, let them argue for that.
Finally, I would encourage anyone to read the newly published "Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing," by Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis. A relevant passage: “Abortion harms every single one of us by perpetuating deeply rooted falsehoods about what it means to be human. Abortion attacks the humanity and value of the child in the womb. Abortion strikes at the bond between mother and child, turning it into a conflict between adversaries and a justification for violence, a relationship not of love but of antagonism and mutual destruction. Abortion corrupts the relationships between man and woman and rejects the responsibilities that mothers and fathers have for their children and to one another. Abortion cuts at the fabric of marriage and of entire families, harming mothers, fathers, siblings, and grandparents.”
John L. Marshall lives in Abington.
This article originally appeared on The Intelligencer: Guest Opinion: Abortion rights activists sidestep the fact of humanity
