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diggAbortion: giving new life to the debate
Anniversaries of court decisions in the United States and Canada highlight the need for open discussion of this moral issue in the public square.
This week Americans marked the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion in the United States., Canada is also reflecting on one of the most persistent controversies of our time, as the 20th anniversary of our Supreme Court's contribution to the abortion debate arrives.
On January 28, 1988, the court struck down the country's abortion law as unconstitutional, ending the prosecution of Montreal doctor Henry Morgentaler. That left Canada in its present unique position among Western democracies of having no law governing abortion - it is legal until a woman goes into labour. Although the court made clear Parliament could enact law and a majority of Canadians polled believe there should be some law governing abortion, so far attempts to enact such law have failed.
In fact, the pro-life community also is wondering: What should be done about abortion becoming a prohibited topic of discussion and debate?
A recent spate of articles in Canadian newspapers by pro-choice supporters have lamented that abortion is "still kept very quiet" and argued that society should be more open in talking about abortion, not be embarrassed by it, and that women should feel free to talk openly about having had an abortion.
I agree. Let's bring the talk out in the open.
In fact, the pro-life community also is wondering: What should be done about abortion becoming a prohibited topic of discussion and debate? Just last week the city of Hamilton pulled LifeCanada's advertisement -- Abortion: Have We Gone Too Far? -- from its bus shelters after a handful of complaints. The ad showed a pregnant woman with the statement, "Nine months: The length of time abortion is allowed in Canada. No medical reason needed?" and a tag line, "Abortion: Have we gone too far?"
The city councillor who asked that the ads be pulled said, "For me, personally, it definitely was offensive." He did not explain why and, apparently, it was a sufficient justification that he felt offended.
In the past few months there have been hostile encounters between pro-choice student unions and pro-life student groups on several Canadian campuses. Pro-choice students want to restrict what pro-life students may say; they want to ban the posting of anti-abortion materials and refuse funding to pro-life clubs. One student justified this on the ground that "many students were upset by the [pro-life] poster campaign".
But what about respect for freedom of speech, especially in relation to law and public policy, and for freedom of religion and conscience?
A strategy for silencing pro-life supporters is to label them as religious and as proselytizing. It is unfortunate that abortion can be dismissed as a religious issue, because then we fail to identify and understand the full range of reasons why it is still a source of such major conflict.
Here are some of the reasons.
Moral intution
Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker reports how recent neuropsychology research is confirming that humans have an inbuilt "moral instinct" that seems to have some universal content. In ethics we speak of an ethical "yuck factor." When we face the facts about abortion honestly, no matter what our views, most of us have such a reaction.
Our moral intuition tells us that abortion is never a "nothing event". Some people deal with their disquiet by suppressing their moral intuitions. Seeing or hearing about what abortion entails makes that much harder to do.
Our choice of language also affects how we see the ethics of abortion. As Canadian columnist Judith Timson noted, in the movie Knocked Up ("a ribald comedy" about a young career woman who gets pregnant after a one-night stand) abortion is "coyly referred to [only] as 'shmashmortion'." The sound of this word could make us more aware, both factually and ethically, of what abortion involves. Or it could be a euphemism, which usually dulls ethical sensitivity.
Many use the term "therapeutic abortion" in explaining that 58 per cent of teen pregnancies in Canada end in abortion. "Therapeutic" puts a medical cloak on abortion, which reassures our moral intuitions and provides a possible justification for an act we might otherwise see as wrong.
Normalisation
In finding abortion to be a Hollywood "taboo", Ms. Timson cites an academic who says that Knocked Up "side-stepped the abortion option . . . which seemed out of touch with the modern hip audience that the movie was otherwise directed toward. Here's a movie…that can't include abortion as part of the decision-making process [about pregnancy]."
This statement confirms an important insight of the Reverend Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury: We have lost our sense that abortion involves "a major moral choice - it's been normalized," he said. "Something has happened to our assumptions about the life of the unborn child . . . when one third of pregnancies in Europe end in abortion."
The basic presumption that a pregnancy would result in the birth of a baby, unless, in rare cases, there was clear justification for preventing that, has changed to a presumption that there is a range of acceptable options in relation to pregnancy of which abortion is one.
Denial
Abortion advocates vehemently oppose any legal recognition that a fetus even exists. They want public square silence, legal silence and political silence in relation to fetuses in order to maintain silence on abortion. Their strong opposition to the passage of an Unborn Victims of Crime Act, currently before the Canadian Parliament, despite the act making clear that it does not affect abortion law, is a good example in this regard.
They are correct that shining a light on fetuses, rather than just on pregnant women who want an abortion, makes many people very morally uneasy about abortion (again, our moral intuitions respond). That is what happened when the young pro-life advocate in the movie Juno called out to her schoolmate who was about to enter an abortion clinic, "It's got fingernails." That also personalizes the fetus- we can identify with it, it's like us. The pregnant teenager changed her mind, deciding against abortion.
Surely we should deal with abortion by recognizing what it involves and then justifying whatever position we take. That is certainly the ethical approach.
The use of law
A recent Environics poll showed 62 per cent of Canadians (and two-thirds of Canadian women) think there should be some law governing abortion, at least at the point of fetal viability. In other words, they disagree with the current situation in which abortion is never a legal issue. But a strong majority also believes abortion should not always be a legal issue. So, while all abortions raise ethical issues that must be addressed, when and how we should use the law to govern abortion is a separate question.
Authentic choice
An authentic pro-choice stance requires all options to be on the table, not just that of abortion. It also requires that a woman give her informed consent to the option she chooses. Ethically and legally informed consent means having all the information that would be material to a reasonable person in the same circumstances in making her decision. Those circumstances include facts about the fetus and what an abortion involves, including its harms and risks. These are routinely played down and research demonstrating them is derided by pro-choice advocates.
Respect for women
Abortion has been treated by its politically correct advocates as the litmus test of respect for women. Even questioning the acceptability of abortion is seen as heretical by many. This reaction could be compared to that of a totalitarian religion in which it is heresy to question the existence of God. Sometimes, having an abortion (or, as a young woman physician, doing one) seems to be a required rite-of-passage to join the feminist cause.
A woman's right to choose an abortion is often presented as a dignity argument. Some scholars have defined two concepts of dignity: dignity-as-liberty, which favours individuals' autonomy and self-determination, and dignity-as-constraint, which preserves human dignity in general (the prohibition of sex-selection abortion is a good example). Abortion requires us to balance these two kinds of dignity, but since we don't agree where that balance should be struck, the least we can do is talk about it.
Margaret Somerville is founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, Montreal.
Judie Brown, the co-founder and president of American Life League made an interesting comment years ago. She stated that if every person of every race, gender, creed, color and philosophy was not allowed to destroy life from the moment of conception until natural death the problems we have now would not occur. In other words, as Paul VI stated in humane vitae, don’t touch, don’t touch! Leave all life alone from it’s beautiful beginning until its natural end.
If we listened to Christ on earth instructing His children we would not be in the mess we are in today ( decapitation and dismemberment of children until the ninth month, human embryos waiting to be born, euthanasia, sterilization, aborted babies born alive but a maybe future president not wanting the beautiful and helpless lives helped (Obama), death of women from supposed “safe abortions” (lie) and the rationalization that the means of conception may allow the destruction of life as if God did not will the soul to exist (which in fact it does), and the destruction of the psyche of the men, women and children. People know abortion is a terrible crime.
The Vikings, Huns, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. all had their methods of killing. However, the modern world has refined the terms for killing so that we have been led to believe it isn’t killing. Rationalization at its finest!
No sane and knowledgeable human can refute the position that no one, not one person ever born has the right to kill another human being. Not one single person. How sweet it sounds. How difficult to have occur.
Google the pictures of dismemberment and decapitation of our young. We wouldn’t allow this to be done to the panda bear, the pulp fish, or any endangered species and rightly so. However, the human womb is now the most dangerous place for life on the planet. Beautiful beings are being ripped to shreads.
As a civilization, we are on the verge of eventual extinction. It’s true.
Hypothetical here:
If a ten year old was raped by her father and became pregnant should she endure labor and becoming a mother because her father wanted that? Should his one act continue to dictate her young life from that point on? At some point he gets out of jail and unfortunately nothing could stop him from seeing the child because at that point he’d be considered reformed.
I’m not suggesting an abortion rather that there is something done to PREVENT the pregnancy from occuring in the first place. That, unlike the brutal horrid violation that is rape and incest IS completely preventable without ending a life, newly formed or otherwise with emergency contraceptive (NOT the abortion pill).
Of course, in the matter of rape and incest, one should never punish the innocent
baby for the crime of his or her father. In the case of incest - aborting the baby
eliminates the evidence of the crime perpetrated by the father on his daughter
and the criminal behavior continues.
Colorado is pursuing the only rational measure that has made sense in the last
40 years of allowing the blood of the innocents to be shed.
We are gathering signatures to place on the ballot a measure that will define who will
be protected under the law.
“The term “Person” or “Persons” shall include any human from the time of fertilization.”
http://www.coloradoforequalrights.com
Forcing a woman to not only endure the violation and pain of forced intercourse with a stranger but to carry HIS sperm inside her and share her body with HIS child is wrong. His parents don’t give up rights to that child because he was jailed or worse yet if he can’t be found but comes back in her life because of the pregnancy what then? Rather I think any woman who was raped should IMMEDIATELY have a thorough examination that includes medication to prevent fertilization (as it can take up to 72 hours before sperm finds and fertilizes egg) of her eggs by a MONSTER from the depths of hell.
On the issue of silencing the facts of abortion:
I think it is VERY interesting how a woman will announce with glee the growth of her 7 week old embryo when maybe just a year ago she aborted an embryo and thought nothing of it. TO think there are doctors who are there for pregnant women and rejoice and ensure the health of her and her child (because the mother’s health is just as important as that of the very dependant fetus) could in turn leave their obstetrics office to enter an abortion clinic and end the life of another fetus at the mother’s request. Does that not seem highly contradictory?
How could a woman who has been pregnant and given birth to her own little blessings aid in the destruction, albeit via request of the mother, of another woman’s unborn child?
Who are we as humans who have ourselves once been embryos and fetuses belittle the significance of other little humans in the making who started life just as we once did?
Readers may be interested in this excellent article by a Canadian doctor in the National Post.
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=291603
Somerville says we know instinctively that abortion is a huge moral decision (after all, we wouldn’t be having the arguments about it if we didn’t know that) Naturally, arguing that abortion is wrong from the point of view of the destruction of the foetus is obvious and logical.So one wonders after so many years of argument all over the western world why abortion has not been relegated to the same benighted moral universe as the practice of infants exposure?
It is because feminists have hogged the other side of the argument, the woman’s side, and (like germaine greer and naomi Wolf)have managed to overcome any innate scrupules by adopting the necessary evil argument.
But here too they are falling flat on their faces, because as Somerville also points out pro choicers usually deny any risks abortion poses to the woman.
Some years ago i wrote a review of an interesting book called ‘Giving Sorrow Words “ by Australian researcher Melinda Tankard Rheist It was based on interviews with over 200 women, some of whom had had multiple abortions and it is clear that post abortion syndrome , which many pro choicers simply deny, is real and caused by guilt even though abortion has been ‘normalised.’
In fact normalising it and trying to deny the guilt, which is current practice , actually makes it worse causing long -term psychological damage. Somerville is quite right . Few women are blase about it and instinctively know exactly what they are doing.
TL - punishing women who have abortions. I don’t see this as the solution to anything. It is in any case quite impractical until you have public opinion behind it - and public opinion in many countries is quite the opposite. First you must change public opinion. When you have done that, so that no self-respecting woman will willingly contemplate an abortion - nor will her partner dream of suggesting it (and it’s too often the partners who coerce the woman’s ‘choice’) - the problem is solved, and sanctions (against women) become unnecessary. But sanctions against those who carry out abortions for money would still be worth while. It’s a very profitable business in the UK.
Oops, that should be the other way around, the “intolerance of tolerance”. Julie
Michelle, I am in Halifax, another city that is very hostile to any pro life groups. There is a very worrisome agenda afoot to silence anyone who speaks of traditional values of any sort, pro life, defence of traditional marriage.
The political correctness in Canada amounts to allowing certain groups to dictate what others can and cannot say. Yet, who says that they are right? Who is setting these people up as the ones who decide what we can and cannot say, what we can and cannot do?
This so-called “tolerance of intolerance” is totalitarian in its very nature. Julie Culshaw
Julie-- I recognize you from the city newspaper discussion thread on this topic (are you from Hamilton?) Dr. Somerville above has also written about the hostility of pro-choice groups toward pro-life groups on university campuses. We know that happens here, and I also know that happens in the U. S. from what I’ve read in First Things and other publications. It is interesting to note that the pro-life advertisements removed in Hamilton (mentioned above by Dr. Somerville) were up in the neighbourhood that surrounds the university campus (and so has a great deal of student housing), if not actually right on campus (my student son reports he saw one there). They were actually defaced with graffiti before someone complained to the city councillor about their presence.
Yes, that would probably be true.
But I meant, and you understood this I’m sure, that citing rape as an example of why abortion should be legal is always used. It is used to divert attention away from the real issue and people argue it in order to try and trip up anti-abortion supporters.
Yesterday I read an article by John Neuhaus on First Things which he wrote in 1992! about how abortion was made legal in the US by the decision of court judges, while the polls indicate that the American population is decidedly against abortion on demand. We are living with laws brought down by individuals who were never elected by the people, yet they decide how the people will live. Same thing in Canada.
Since this article is about freedom of speech, where is the democracy in the abortion laws, which are not supported by the majority of the people in both Canada and the US, yet we have to live with them?
It is time to bring law making back to the people, not put it in the hands of appointed judges, who have their own agenda and are persuaded by certain groups to decide in their favour. Julie
Julie makes the point that the number of abortions because of rape is not great. You can be sure, however, that an abortion law with an exception for rape would certainly cause the number of cases claiming rape to multiply!
I’ll be quick; I missed something in an earlier post that now catches my attention.
Tim Roberts:
You disagree on me on the idea of jail time for women who aborted their child.
I cannot see how women will be deterred from seeking an abortion if the -doctor- is the only one punished.
“So many people tell them that there’s no harm in it, and when they find out this is a lie, they are to be pitied rather than blamed.”
Pity them if you like, but they still need to face the consequences of their actions. They -should- be blamed; -they- made the choice to have an abortion, not their doctor. (I will agree, however, that the doctors should be punished as well.)
As for Pat S and Dominic G…
I’m getting the feeling we’re not going to reach a consensus. Rather than clog the posting arena with more debate that’s not getting anyone anywhere, perhaps we should ‘truce’, as it were. Agree to disagree etcetera.
You know, the case of rape is always cited as a reason to have abortion legal. But the number of instances of a child being conceived through rape is really not that great. But it is always used as a reason to legitimize abortion.
One does not make rules because of the exception; the exception needs to be considered, but it is never the reason for making a rule or eliminating one. Julie
I agree with Pat S.
While there may be more complications involving a woman who was raped and conceived a child, one thing remains. That child is, and will always be, human. Besides, aborting the child is not the only way to solve a possible source of emotional stress. The mother could put the child in an orphanage or have him adopted.
There really is no need to resort to the murderous act of abortion.
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