The abortion of truth at the Democratic National Convention

Hendrik van der Breggen
August 27, 2024 30 Reactions

 When the topic of abortion came up at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, truth got dismembered.

How so? By lots of talk about justifying abortion as “reproductive freedom,” “reproductive rights,” and “reproductive health care.”

Thinking people should, well, think.

Reproductive freedom justifies abortion?

No, it doesn’t.

Reproduction, i.e., the creation of a child (pre-natal human being/person) conceived via sex, occurs before abortion takes place. Reproductive freedom is exercised before abortion takes place.

The late Michael Bauman, Professor of Theology and Culture at Hillsdale College, observes: “When pro-choicers have unforced sex, they are choosing. That is freedom of choice. When they decide to kill the child conceived during that sexual encounter, that is freedom from choice. They chose; now they want to be free from the consequences of that choice, even if someone has to die.”

In other words, justifying abortion via “reproductive freedom” is a ruse.

Note: The hard cases — rape, incest, threat to life of the mother — to which many abortion-choice proponents point as justification for abortion account for fewer than 5 percent of all abortion cases. In his 2015 book The Abortion Wars ethicist Charles Camosy reports that the number for the hard cases is 2 percent. But here (and at the DNC) we’re not talking about the hard cases, so don’t get sidetracked.

Again, to justify abortion — i.e., 95–98 percent of all abortions — via “reproductive freedom” is a ruse.

Reproductive rights justify abortion?

No, they don’t.

Every adult has a right to reproduce. That is, every adult has a right to reproduce via consensual sex if they are biologically capable and, preferably (for the sake of the children), if they are married.

But, again, reproduction occurs before abortion takes place. This means that the exercise of one’s right to reproduce occurs before abortion takes place, too. (If this is unclear, re-read previous point about reproductive freedom.)

So justifying abortion via “reproductive rights” is also a ruse.

Reminder: Along with reproductive rights come reproductive responsibilities. Parents have duties to their children. The first duty is to care for children, not kill them. Other duties include provision of food, clothing, shelter, education — and lots of love.

 

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Reproductive health care justifies abortion?

No, it doesn’t.

Dr Kendra Kolb, a neonatologist, states this: “There is no medical reason why the life of the child must be directly and intentionally ended with an abortion procedure.”

Kolb adds: Yes, treatments for ectopic pregnancies occur, but they’re not abortions per se, if we use language accurately. Yes, treatments for heart disease or cancer can involve pre-term deliveries that might result in the death of a child, but they’re not abortions per se, if we use language accurately. When we accurately define “abortion” as the direct and intentional ending of a pre-natal human being’s life, abortions are not medically necessary.

Abortion, then, is not health care at all, let alone reproductive health care.

So justifying abortion via “reproductive health care” is yet another ruse.

Don’t be fooled

That the premeditated killing of pre-natal human beings via abortion is justified by reproductive freedom, reproductive rights, or reproductive health care is simply not true.

Folks, don’t be fooled by the falsehoods.  

What do you think about politicisation of abortion in this year’s American election?   

Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is a retired philosophy professor (formerly at Providence University College, Manitoba, Canada) and author of the book Untangling Popular Pro-Choice Arguments: Critical Thinking about Abortion.  

Image credit: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz at the Democratic National Convention last week / Wikimedia Commons 

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  • mrscracker
    Senor Juan, as a Catholic I agree with your perspective, but liberal propaganda in the States claims contraceptives are difficult to come by especially for low income women & that’s just not the case. We’re awash in contraceptives & so are health clinics in the developing world. I’ve heard from folks in Africa that all kinds of birth control is donated to them by Western interests but little donated as far as basic, life saving medications. The message given is that the world needs less Africans.
    And I think the message is the same for Americans of colour and/or low income. Marriage & family for me, but not for thee.
  • Juan Llor Baños
    commented 2024-08-30 04:02:11 +1000
    In my opinion, what is propaganda, and what is more cheap, is contraceptive methods, which are rooted in not differentiating between animal and human conception. What a shame!
  • mrscracker
    And just a PS, every US state health dept. clinic I’m familiar with offers contraception on a sliding income scale or gratis. Our state gives away prophylactic contraception at every public health clinic.
    Georgia health dept. offices also offered sterilizations last time I checked. Perhaps they still do. And Texas has similar public health dept. policies re. contraceptives. There may be a health dept. in some state that doesn’t follow those guidelines but I’m not aware of it.
    I think I’ve commented previously that the difficult thing for American lower income women isn’t being able to locate contraception but rather to be aggressively offered it at every occasion even to the point of harassment. Everyone knows what’s best for you when you’re a woman, someone of colour, or low income.
  • mrscracker
    Mr. Bunyan, the only conservative state I see on that list is Florida. North Carolina, Virginia, & Georgia are no longer “Red” states though they still maintain rural conservative voting blocks.
    We are each entitled to our own opinions but we can’t dictate to adults when to marry or begin families.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2024-08-30 01:04:15 +1000
    Many of the states from that article are conservative states. It’s not a guarantee, of course, but many conservative states don’t fund contraception or sex education. That’s what leads to unintended pregnancies.

    Abstinence-only education isn’t education – it’s propaganda. It’s also unrealistic, since red states have the highest teen pregnancy rates.

    https://www.nolandalla.com/facts-and-data-religious-red-states-rank-at-the-bottom-on-teen-pregnancy/

    I don’t think anyone should be having children until they’re in their 20s and have stable incomes. That’s the only way they can afford to raise children. If their parents need to pay for everything related to their new children, they clearly aren’t ready to raise a family.
  • mrscracker
    Mr. Bunyan, I see some pretty “liberal” states on that list. Are you sure this was the link you intended to share? California appears to be #1 as having the most feticides committed .Our state here has had zero legally enshrined feticides since Roe was overturned & we’re one of the most conservative states in the nation.
    “Teen pregnancies” really aren’t as much of an issue today. Long term contraceptive use & the fact that fewer teens are even having face to face relationships are factors. When teen pregnancy data’s collected it includes adults 18 & 19 years old.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2024-08-29 14:39:36 +1000
    Jurgen, liberal states tend to have fewer abortions and lower rates of maternal death. This was true even when Roe vs Wade was in effect.

    https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/states-with-the-most-abortions

    If you aren’t concerned about reducing teen pregnancies, you aren’t pro-life.
  • mrscracker
    Free school lunches are now afforded to every single student in school districts with certain average income levels. That means a free lunch for the affluent & the low income alike. Which to my mind is not a good way of handling finite nutrition resources intended for those in need.
  • Roger Symes
    commented 2024-08-29 07:09:29 +1000
    Anon, you pick a few issues around welfare benefits and broadbrush all pro-lifers as lacking compassion for poor children. Welfare benefits are paid for by taxpayers and some (prof-life or not) rightly ask if some of the money is not better spent on something else. mrs cracker points out that school lunches are a one-size-fits-all solution in search of a problem, that parents are better off packing a nutritious meal for their kids and that most parents can afford to do that. Might the money be better spent on a lunch pack subsidy for household below a certain income threshold?
  • mrscracker
    “Don’t all Christians believe that unless you are baptized, you suffer in purgatory for all of the afterlife because of the sins of Adam and Eve? "
    *********
    No Mr. Mouse, that’s not what we believe. That’s not Christian teaching nor even a proper understanding of Purgatory. It’s not an eternal destination, but a temporary one.
    You know, Archbishop Fulton Sheen said something about how people only hate what they think Catholics believe. A little understanding of other faiths goes a very long way.
    And not all Christians even believe in Purgatory.
    But here’s an explanation from the Catholic Catechism:

    “The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines purgatory as a “purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven,” which is experienced by those “who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified” (CCC 1030). It notes that “this final purification of the elect . . . is entirely different from the punishment of the damned” (CCC 1031).”
  • Jürgen Siemer
    commented 2024-08-28 23:29:41 +1000
    Should I vote for Kamala Harris instead, if I was a US citizen?
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-08-28 22:13:07 +1000
    Jurgen – how many abortions do you think Trump has paid for over the course of his life time and why are you willing to overlook his complicity in what you deem to be multiple murders?
  • Jürgen Siemer
    commented 2024-08-28 21:33:35 +1000
    Paul, I am not talking in terms of “rights”.

    If there is no money in the bank, you “right” to get your money bank is worthless. A society without children is going to have, a few years down, simply not the resources to honor the financial “rights” if the elderly (I am 59).

    Some countries in Europe alreadx finance pension payments partly with debt.

    A ticket to bankruptcy.
  • mrscracker
    Mr. Bunyan I can’t speak for anyone else but I believe in the Judeo Christian instructions about caring for your own parents, grandparents, and the disabled.
    If one doesn’t have children that’s more difficult .
    I have traditional Mennonite friends who take care of their elderly at home and who have fostered and adopted children with disabilities.
    Ideally, that’s a better option than warehousing people in facilities.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2024-08-28 17:50:08 +1000
    Jurgen, if you’re not willing to support the elderly and disabled communities, then you’re not pro-life. If you’re pro-life, then everyone has the right to live, even if they are unable or unwilling to work.

    And there’s no need to cut pensions. Most people in their 60s and 70s would prefer to work than simply sit at home and watch TV all day. Endless leisure quickly gets boring.
  • Jürgen Siemer
    commented 2024-08-28 15:35:30 +1000
    Let them marry young, do everything to support and strengthen the Institution of marriage, help especially our sons earn a decent income, that can support a family, early in life, in their early 20s, so cancel all the useless college and university studies, cut taxes on lower incomes and on sales taxes, and finance that with making the government smaller, including all the secret services and the military. And, unfortunately cut pensions, we, our western societies are broke and we simply cannot afford them any more.

    The most effective means to lower the rate of abortions is the institution of marriage, especially when the families and their members are happy and can earn a decent income from the work of their own hands.

    Teach the truth not some woke bs.

    And never vote people like Paul or Anon into any government office.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2024-08-28 13:06:17 +1000
    The easiest (and best) way to reduce abortion is to reduce unplanned pregnancies. That means making sex education and birth control free, up to and including permanent options (vasectomies and tubal ligation).

    Women aren’t obligated to produce children just to keep the population and economy growing. It puts their lives at risk. It’s an unfair expectation.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-08-28 10:27:35 +1000
    “No child should suffer capital punishment for the sins of its father. "

    Don’t all Christians believe that unless you are baptized, you suffer in purgatory for all of the afterlife because of the sins of Adam and Eve? Seems a shame.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-08-28 10:26:37 +1000
    Roger,

    In my years I’ve found “pro-life” to be a misnomer, as many people are just “pro birth”. They argue against things like free school lunches for children, a child tax credit, after school programs, to name a few. But they have no problem dictating what other people’s children can learn. It’s quite sick, actually.
  • Roger Symes
    commented 2024-08-28 09:32:40 +1000
    Anon, “pro-choice” is a misnomer, as Hendrik reasons here. Except where sex is coerced, our reproductive choices are made when we choose to engage in activity that could lead to the creation of new life.
  • Hendrik van der Breggen
    commented 2024-08-28 05:16:47 +1000
    Thanks very much to Mercator readers for comments concerning my article “The abortion of truth at the Democratic National Convention.” I’ve got some other matters on my plate which require my attention at the moment, so I can’t spend much time here (though I’ll check back from time to time).

    In case readers are interested, I set out some additional thoughts about abortion and the hard cases in my article “Abortion and the hard cases”:

    https://apologiabyhendrikvanderbreggen.blogspot.com/2018/03/abortion-and-hard-cases.html

    For my thoughts on viability as a criterion for the right to life (I think it’s a failure), see chapter 13 of my book Untangling Popular Pro-Choice Arguments: Critical Thinking about Abortion:

    https://www.amazon.com/Untangling-Popular-Pro-Choice-Arguments-Critical-ebook/dp/B08LTYDQ52/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

    Cheers.
  • Juan Llor Baños
    commented 2024-08-28 00:14:41 +1000
    Extraordinary article, for true!!!
  • mrscracker
    Peter DeMarco , thank you for your comments. I didn’t know that about Jesse Jackson.
    The wonderful singer Ethel Waters said she was born after her mother was raped at 12 or 13 years old. Imagine never hearing her sing “His Eye is On the Sparrow”? When we destroy a life in the womb we destroy a part of our future.

    “I sing because I’m happy,
    I sing because I’m free;
    For his eye is on the sparrow,
    And I know he watches me.”
  • Susan Rohrbach
    commented 2024-08-27 22:56:20 +1000
    Here’s the twenty first century solution to rape. Use DNA test to identify and garnish the father for life to support mother and child.

    What do you want to bet rapes diminish to vanishing with that measure. (All this time, legal abortion has been a man’s right to rape and run).
  • Peter DeMarco
    commented 2024-08-27 22:31:46 +1000
    Great article. The hard cases of rape and incest test the principle of life having priority over the principle over liberty. That said, we can never undo an unjust act of violence against us by committing an even greater unjust act. Killing the innocent unborn child conceived from rape is a greater injustice. Progressives forget that civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson, admits that his mother, Helen Burns, was a teenage girl who became pregnant with him as a result of rape.
  • mrscracker
    No child should suffer capital punishment for the sins of its father.
    Feticide violates the mother a second time and destroys her innocent child. For goodness sakes punish the perpetrator, not his victims.
    No one should be judged by the circumstances of their conception, much less killed for that.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-08-27 21:08:57 +1000
    No, I’m very pro choice. I would never force a woman to carry a reminder of the (presumably) worst moment of her life to term in something she did not freely choose. My limit is viability of the fetus, think around third trimester. Allow exceptions for life of the mother (because who wants another sibling at the cost of the mother?
    .
    Hendrik,

    A follow up. How many abortions do you think Donald Trump has paid for in his lifetime? The man who claimed avoiding STDs in New York was his personal Vietnam?
  • Roger Symes
    commented 2024-08-27 20:34:47 +1000
    Anon, I accept that, if a woman has been raped and freely chooses (not coerced by family or friends or the likes of Planned Barrenhood) to take the life of her unborn child, she should not be prevented from doing what is allowed under the law. I also believe that, given a balanced picture of what is at stake (eg by having access to an ultrasound of her baby’s heartbeat), she would not choose to abort.

    Now, a question for you: are you prepared to limit abortion to the small percentage of cases involving rape or incest?
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2024-08-27 19:21:42 +1000
    Hendrik,

    Do you believe women who are raped are able to receive abortions? They didn’t choose to be raped, but the life or the child is sacred.
  • Hendrik van der Breggen
    published this page in The Latest 2024-08-27 14:55:47 +1000

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