Abortion - a Liberal Morass of Arguments

After blaming pro-lifers for unnecessarily dragging this issue through the courts, Richards opines that abortion will remain a waste of the courts as long as abortion remains a political question rather than a medical one. Of course, doing a medical procedure on any human and killing him or her in the process does not remove the issue of its morality to the sterilized nonjudgemental world of medicine. Neither can one simply assert that because an issue is political, it is therefore invalid. Abortion is unique in that it is a medical procedure and a murder, but one cannot simply cast off the procedure into the arena of medicine to settle the debate. The fact is, even Richards must realize that even partial-birth abortion is murder because there is little difference between a baby that is out of the birth canal and still in the birth canal seconds before birth.

Her finishing argument centers on the tremendous fees associated with fighting abortion in the courts. If only we could channel those legal fees into sex education programs for teenagers and expanding choices for women, she thinks. This assumes fighting abortion is not a noble task worth the cost. It assumes the point in question. If abortion is terribly wrong, then the court costs are worth spending (assuming the cost is creating some benefit, of course). If abortion is morally correct, then any court costs are outrageous and a waste of time.

Carl Sagan, well-known naturalist and atheist best known for his book Cosmos, jumps into the debate. Sagan has said, among other things, that "Our ancestors worshiped the Sun, and they were far from foolish. And yet the Sun is an ordinary, even a mediocre star. If we must worship a power greater than ourselves, does it not make sense to revere the Sun and stars?" ⁽⁴⁾ His book was made into a public television series which prompted Richard Baer Jr., a professor in the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, to complain. ⁽⁵⁾ "Sagan presents much more than science to his television audience. He also shares his religious testimony," Baer says. Baer then goes on to state:

Sometimes tilting the ethical compass just enough to make it spin your way is the preferred method of the pro-choice. Joseph Fletcher, a former Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in Cincinnati and professor of social ethics, argues for his situation ethics which is supposed to be an offshoot of Christianity. ⁽⁷⁾ While most Christians might believe in what we would call "moral absolutes" - absolute codes of conduct we can't change - and adjust their lives accordingly or at least try to live within these precepts, Fletcher tries to bring about a "new morality." Fletcher's disdain for moral absolutes can be shown in his statement, "The old morality with its classical absolutes and universals is a form of Pharisaism." ⁽⁸⁾ Fletcher seeks to ground his philosophy in the Biblical concept of love; certain problems demand unique solutions we may entertain if our philosophy is based on love. Fletcher is quoted by euthanasia advocate Derek Humphry as saying "We should look at every case on its merits and refuse to be bound indiscriminately by universal rules of right and wrong, whether they claim to rest on religious or pragmatic grounds." ⁽⁹⁾ From reading Fletcher, it is clear that the absolutism of the Biblical "thou shalt not kill" is giving him fits. He proceeds to sketch out how this problem impacts the abortion debate. ⁽¹⁰⁾ In 1962 an unmarried girl who was a patient at a mental hospital was raped and impregnated by a fellow patient. Shall the fetus be aborted? Fletcher tells us, "The legalists would say NO [his emphasis]," and this bothers Fletcher who thereafter heaps scorn on Catholic moral theology for even denying the use of therapeutic abortions. The Church appears merciless, Fletcher states, but it is not the Church that is merciless. It is the Church's logic that is merciless. Fletcher would depart from the Church's theology to embrace and present a philosophy that is not so rigid.

I appreciate the impetus behind Fletcher's reasons for thinking as he does, but I look with suspicion on where he's going with his philosophy. The situationists, he informs us, would support the decision to abort this girl's baby (Not surprisingly we are told many humanists agree with Fletcher). The problems start when Fletcher states that situationists would also favor abortion for the sake of the patient's physical and mental health and also for the sake of the victim's self-respect or "simply on the ground that no unwanted and unintended baby should ever be born [his emphasis]." There can't be many reasons not to abort a baby now, especially when Fletcher leaves this wide a philosophical hole to drive a truck through. He even goes on to say abortion can't be killing because no person exists and furthermore "The embryo is no more innocent, no less an aggressor or unwelcome invader!" Termination of the pregnancy is considered a loving act, but loving for whom? Fletcher won the Humanist of the Year award and also, according to William Donahue, favors infanticide if newborns don't measure up to fifteen "indicators of personhood." Newborns are not "persons," just "human lives." ⁽¹¹⁾ That Fletcher won Humanist of the Year award is not surprising, but I was surprised that he was described by Gloria Lentz as being sympathetic to the Communist cause. Writing before 1972, Lentz cites undercover FBI agent Herbert Philbrick who states that Communist parties used numerous churches for their business. Fletcher, of the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, worked with the Communists on several projects. Fletcher was also a big supporter of the sexual relativism of SIECUS (the Sexual Information Education Council of the United States). ⁽¹²⁾ Fletcher wants to base his philosophy on love, but the only time love seems to become important is when it's love for personal autonomy devoid of responsibility for a young life or for control of one's sexual actions.

Notice Fletcher's logic described before: He would have us do away with the fetus even if we might suffer embarrassment, as if that is ever a justification for killing. We know that nowhere else in society do we claim that one's worth as a human being depends on whether others want that person. As Gregory Koukl points out, those who claim someone's worth is dependent on the degree to which others want that person really mean this person will be treated as if he or she is not worthwhile if he or she is thought of as not worthwhile.⁽¹³⁾ It is here that relativism shows its ugly head as the tip of a careless and loveless monster and this exposes Fletcher's philosophy for at least one of its shortcomings. Koukl says:

Actually what Hoffman is doing is equivocating. Hoffman is comparing the beating of the fetus' heart, which keeps that being alive, with the beating heart of the woman whose beating heart appears hear only symbolically to represent maintaining her livelihood, not her life.

Changing the Nature of the Fetus

One way of discounting the seriousness of abortion is by changing the nature of the fetus. C. Everett Koop, famous pediatric surgeon, notes that in the 1960s people spoke of abortion as killing an unborn baby. Today abortionists do not speak of "babies in the womb," Koops says, unless they have a slip of the tongue. They prefer to speak of "fetuses." Joseph Sobran's suggestion there may be some nebulous association between the word "fecal" and "fetus" bears careful thought because abortionists would have us discard the fetus like so much waste. ⁽¹⁵⁾

I think of other efforts to degrade the existence and humanity of the fetus, or infant, such as that which appeared in an issue of my local paper. A woman sought to literally "drink" her fetus to death by consuming large amounts of alcohol. She said she only wanted to kill "this thing," as if the fetus were some lawn furniture or a pet rock. This pro-abortion logic, or illogic, also was subtly displayed in the movie The Truman Show where Truman, played by Jim Carrey, was snatched from the hospital and raised on a television show. We were told Truman was picked from several "unwanted pregnancies." Pregnancy is a condition whereas Truman was a person. Labeling a person the name of a bodily condition has the effect of diluting the person's humanity and this is what abortion and infanticide is about - diluting one's humanity for the sake of casual killing. Whether the writers intentionally slipped this Orwellian verbiage about Truman being an "unwanted pregnancy" into the words of the narrator I do not know, but I am not surprised it would slip in there.

Other word-play is more unique. William Brennan cites a paper presented before a meeting of Planned Parenthood Physicians entitled "Abortion as a Treatment for Unwanted Pregnancy: The Number Two Sexually Transmitted Disease." ⁽¹⁶⁾ I'm not quite as surprised by this view since pro-contraceptive and pro-abortion writer Betsy Hartmann writes of the future of contraception as including an "antipregnancy vaccine" which "immunizes" women against pregnancy for one to two years. ⁽¹⁷⁾ The comparison is obviously faulty because a disease is caused by bacteria and viruses whereas a pregnancy is caused by sperm and egg. A pregnancy is a condition where a tiny human emerges and grows to become an adult. A disease knows no such development.

The pro-choice seem to approach this issue the same way as those Thomas Sowell calls the "anointed." Sowell suggests the anointed use words and phrases to avoid personal responsibility. The non-anointed would refer to how teenagers act irresponsibly and hence become pregnant by such behavior while the anointed might refer to an "epidemic" of teen pregnancy - as if the epidemic was unavoidable and not caused by premature sexuality. ⁽¹⁸⁾ Since, for Sowell, the pro-choice would be the anointed because they seek to enlarge personal rights at the expense of the rest of society, it would be no surprise they would use words and phrases to avoid personal responsibility when it comes to how and why women get pregnant. Thus, the life of the fetus becomes something like a disease or epidemic which needs to be controlled or exterminated. Women, to abortionists, have not become pregnant by irresponsible sexual behavior but are, instead, victims of an external cause much like a disease that seeks to control them.

Some pro-choice not only claim that the fetus is not a "person" but also claim it is "potential life." The fetus is alive; that is obvious and denied by none. It's alive, but only a potential life to abortionists and this obviously begs a question from a skeptic of abortion rights. "What, to you, signifies the existence of a life?" The answer marks the dividing line between what, to the pro-choice, makes something a "person" and something a "nonperson." The answer shows up in Vincent Barry's narration of a debate between the pro-choice and pro-life.

Michael Tooley tries his hand at this argument and interestingly not only argues for abortion, but also for infanticide. Something can have a right to life "only if it possesses the concept of a self as a continuing subject of experiences and other mental states, and believes that it is itself such a continuing entity." ⁽²⁰⁾ Apparently to him neither a fetus nor a newborn have this continuing concept of self. Tooley finds a reason to give animals a certain right to life which means, possibly, that while we may kill our newborns we may not kill our cats or dogs. What makes Tooley's logic so dangerous is his lack of clarity for while he complains about linking the humanity of the fetus with its personhood, he brushes away fears of practices like incest as originating from some internal compulsion. He really doesn't give us any tangible borderline by which to know where the killing field stops because basing your moral laws on what kind of self awareness a human has can be extremely tricky, to put it mildly. Newborns certainly have a continuing concept of self (I know I did). Any objections to abortion would probably be what he calls visceral reactions anyway. I believe Tooley wishes to justify sacrificing a young life on the altar of personal autonomy. Tooley's pivotal argument appears in the following paragraph:

What the pro-choice miss, though, with this argument is the fact that the fetus whose personhood is in dispute cannot be killed when the very act of killing it presupposes its lack of personhood. Imagine a claim that a dove reaches "personhood" at its eighth week of existence. If I killed it one day before its "birthday," one might suspect I killed it in a hurry to avoid the ethical dilemma of killing a person. Pro-choice do much the same thing with their criteria. The fact is I can't justify killing a human that is a nonperson by assuming it's a nonperson because I have managed to kill it before it reaches the status of a person. Actually, the dove in my example and the fetus both are considered nonpersons by abortionists because the powerful have managed to prevent them from reaching the point of personhood.

Another example will do. Suppose I took from my coworker a small sum of money she briefly left on a counter, and since I have taken the money I considered it now mine. She would undoubtedly complain because, to her, that money was clearly in her possession. I could respond by saying that it was left untended and thus I could take it. Clearly, in arguing thus, I would be assuming that one must be holding money in their hand to legitimately own it; they cannot set it down and pick it up later while continuing to legitimately own it. This would be a dubious assumption, of course, but notice this: I cannot legitimately hold that my theft is proper acquisition of property unless my female coworker has been given the chance to acquire and keep the money. By taking the money, I have precluded her from exercising the very act which allows her to own that money and keep it from me. Likewise, one cannot hold that the fetus is a nonperson if we prevent it from being a person. But abortionists kill the unborn child before it acquires this worth and hence it cannot fulfill the very properties they demand of it. Hence, the fetus is only a nonperson, in some respects, because it has been prevented from becoming a person.

There is another counterargument to pro-choice arguments revolving around the personhood criteria and it comes from the pen of Robert Bork. His qualms about abortion first began to rise when he read about fetal pain. Bork says that the question of whether abortion is the termination of life is a simple one, yet many will attempt to get around this somber truth. They attempt to redefine what a human life is, something Bork says proves to be dangerous in contexts other than abortion. Bork brings in an argument from his wife that should close out any further debate on this subject. If you had a father who was in a vegetative state, but it was known that he would recover very soon, would it be right to kill him while vegetative? Most would say no. Yet, this is not different than what occurs in a pregnancy. The fetus becomes a viable organism and becomes functional later, something we know will in most cases occur. So why not save it? ⁽²¹⁾

Don Sloan puts another spin on this personhood argument. The fetus is not a baby because it is in a certain stage of development and because we call this entity a different name at that stage, we are justified in destroying it. In an August, 1996, edition of the Watertown Daily Times, an editorial appeared from one calling himself/herself "One who Cares." This person said:

A simple question to anybody who is pro-choice will disarm a great deal of his or her bravado. Simply ask the pro-choice how they would have felt if they had known their mother was thinking of aborting them while they were in the womb. They would no doubt feel queasy about such a suggestion because they would wonder why their mother would have wanted to abort them. They would have to realize they were present in the womb also and the fetuses they were back then were human fetuses which were human beings in another stage of life.

Abortion Bias

Much of the advocacy for abortion stems from bias against men, misleading biased labels, or bias toward certain freedoms that are tenuous within a greater cultural outlook. Of these freedoms, the nebulous "choice" is paramount. NARAL (the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League), cited in an editorial in Glamour magazine, displayed this tendency. Commenting on legislation introduced by pro-lifers to limit access to abortion clinics, NARAL stated "These laws are a dangerous new front in the ongoing campaign by anti-choice groups." ⁽²⁴⁾ However, consider this. As conservative Mark Landsbaum ⁽²⁵⁾ has pointed out when criticizing senator Barbara Boxer, pro-abortion essays refer to the lose of "choice", but this "choice" contains two freedoms, the right to have a child and to not have a child. Landsbaum states women always had the right to give birth, but the Roe decision now gave the woman the power to kill the child she carries in her womb. The concept of "choice" refers to two freedoms, one of which was already present before the Roe decision and is not threatened in any way by Roe's upheaval although it is made to appear this way. Though one may dispute this, pro-abortion advocates so highly prize freedom to do as one pleases that they massage their arguments to get what they want. Pregnancy and motherhood are seen as impinging on one's freedom, especially freedom of sexuality. If there is a baby that gets in the way, that is too bad. I have been reminded of this fact time and time again by other authors who have reinforced this truth. For example, Paul Swope ⁽²⁶⁾ explains that research on the psychology of pro-choice women "suggests that modern American women of childbearing age do not view the abortion issue within the same moral framework as those of us who are pro-life activists." The error pro-lifers make is assuming that women subscribe to the same moral principles pro-lifers find self-evident. Actually, they don't because many women see abortion as the lesser of three evils: motherhood, adoption, and abortion. Unplanned motherhood, Swope writes, represents a threat so great to modern women that it is perceived as the same as a "death of self." Many women do not have self identities that include motherhood.

Robert Bork reflects on an evening when he "naively" remarked that those who favor the right to abort would likely change their minds if they could be convinced that a human being was being killed. Bork was startled at the anger this comment provoked and one of the feminists there informed Bork that the issue of abortion had nothing to do with the humanity of the fetus but everything to do with their own personal freedom. ⁽²⁷⁾

M. J. Lyle Smith writes in to Ms. Magazine that women who go to graduate school to pursue professional careers are a "dedicated, hard-nosed" group. Five of the graduate and faculty members at her university had abortions due to contraceptive failure and all were single except one. The issue was simple as Smith tells it: "Do you want to be a scientist - yes or no?" Smith concludes "Insisting that a woman cancel or seriously cripple her life goals because of contraceptive failure is not, in my view, a `moral' position." Notice the flow of logic in Smith's reasoning. Did it not occur to Smith that the women had made a choice to engage in sexual activity that carries with it the risk that contraceptives may fail and that, if they do fail, the resultant child may be one a parent may be obligated to sustain? ⁽²⁸⁾

Betty Steele, in her study of the feminist movement (or more particularly the radical feminist movement), quotes Mary O'Brien as saying that "it is not within sexual relations but within the total process of human reproduction that the ideology of male supremacy finds its roots and its rationales." ⁽²⁹⁾ Hence, abortion is not so much seen as murder but self-defense against male supremacy.

This single-minded fixation on personal autonomy has as its enemy those who would control its disciples. The abortion movement's devil is man who wishes to control women, especially women's bodies. Often this caricature assumes that men are the only people who are pro-life, but this is anything but true. Even arch-feminist Gloria Steinem who, in an introduction to a book describing why numerous women chose abortion at one time, tries her best at supporting her fellow feminists' struggle against oppressive males.

Also common is an attempt to extrapolate all pro-life demands into a call for totalitarian rule, as if once we give pro-lifers the right to deny abortions they will control everything else we do. (The pro-life also do this and extrapolate abortion into a much wider death movement, but at least they have a bit of history on their side.) This was a tactic of "One Who Cares" (cited earlier) and Bioethicists for Privacy who argued for abortion in the 1989 Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services debate where the Supreme Court came close to overturning Roe.

Again, the bias against men plays a part when Marxist liberation philosophy enters the fray. Here, repressions of individuals for the sake of morality become repressions of individuals by the ruling class - usually men, in this context. This is the method of argumentation by an essay in The Revolutionary Worker.

Of course pro-life arguments don't assume women are property any more than seat belt laws assume it. If the writers of this article were consistent, they'd realize that the fetus could just as well be considered a property of the woman and hence in need of liberation. What the writers seek to accomplish is to totally liberate women to do as they please without dealing with those who are affected by their choices. To do this they must portray the debate as a struggle between women who wish to be liberated against men who wish to keep women in bondage. Society is now recast in a new Marxist paradigm of proletariat vs. bourgeoisie or exploited vs. exploiter. This serves their purposes but leaves us unable to cope with the public good since any debate over any moral or immoral behavior can be cast in the image of a struggle for liberation. Even efforts by feminists to make men responsible for the children they father can be cast in the form of this paradigm since men can say they are victims of a society that represses them and makes them support children they do not wish to support.

What these feminists seem to miss is the fact many women are against abortion and do not see abortion as a fix for male dominance, nor do they see the fetus as some "attachment" to the woman that mankind wishes to preserve so as to control women. They see the fetus as an unborn child and abortion as a grave wrong. There are many pro-life feminist groups around that counter the pro-choice feminists.

For instance, the web site of the Feminists for Life group ⁽³³⁾ boasts a photo of Patricia Heaton, award-winning actress and honorary chair of this group. She is quoted in the photo as saying, "Every 36 seconds in American a woman lays her body down, forced to choose abortion out of a lack of practical resources and emotional support. Abortion is a reflection that society has failed women." The group says "We oppose all forms of violence including abortion, infanticide, child abuse, [and others]." There are others from Carolyn Gargaro's web site ⁽³⁴⁾ to the "Rightgrrl's" pro-life articles. ⁽³⁵⁾ The point here is that it is erroneous to assume that the majority of woman back abortion and that abortion is without a doubt something women must want.

Arguments from Health and Safety

Abortion advocates have amassed a dizzying array of arguments centering on the health of having an abortion and the effect of prohibitions of abortion on doctor-patient relationships. Neville from Fox Point, Wisconsin, weighs in with this line of reasoning in a letter to the Milwaukee Journal when he says "Patient-doctor relationships are sacrosanct. This [anti-abortion] law interferes with this right. The legislation is not only about abortion but is about medical and surgical decisions that must be left to physicians and professionals, not to unskilled lawmakers." ⁽³⁶⁾ Yet, an article in National Review asks why we speak of the importance of the right to privacy between the patient and her doctor when "the latter [is] an abortionist who has never met the woman before and who has a financial interest in her decision." ⁽³⁷⁾ National Review is right, of course, to argue this way because abortionists have generally made good money off abortions and putting pregnant, and vulnerable, women in the hands of these abortionists is like putting a deformed baby in the hands of a eugenicist.

Abortionists and pro-choice advocates ruminate that abortion is just between the woman and her doctor. I've even heard one politician say the choice should be between the woman and her god. The tendency here is to push the debate into the realm of privacy in order to protect the issue from being debated. I even had an atheist say to me that the abortion issue was not a moral issue at all, but a legal one (as if we don't debate the legality of our laws using moral concepts). The point has already been made that the fetus is not part of the woman's body, so the issue is not about some minor surgery which removes some irritating tumor. We should also mention that many times a surgery is not just between the patient and the doctor. Often, family members are counseled and their views are considered before surgery is performed.

There is a reason to doubt whether the abortionist doctor is that qualified to give an honest opinion. Traditionally, abortionists have made huge money doing abortions. Abortion has become a five hundred million dollar a year industry in America and over ten billion worldwide. One physician said that an abortionist working 30 to 40 hours a week can earn 3 to 10 times the income of an ethical surgeon. A report in the Chicago Sun-Times reports that counselors are paid to recruit people to have an abortion - to sell abortions through deceptive tactics ⁽³⁸⁾ and there have been other attempts at keeping women from making anything but a "pro-choice" [read "pro-abortion"] choice. It is surprising that those who are for abortion would even make the argument that abortion should only be between the woman and the pregnant woman's doctor - insinuating the doctor is only concerned for her health - when they really know the abortionist is biased toward the abortion alternative.

Former abortionist Carol Everett reveals how she was seduced by the power and the money that abortions provide and shows that, if anything, abortionists are preying on their female victims. It's not the "cozy" relationship the pro-choice claim - a mutually medically caring and satisfying relationship. Everett's abortuary used marketing tactics to get women to have abortions: "Our yellow page advertising, plus our discount coupon promotions, continued to pay big dividends." Women would come back for repeat abortions, she reveals, and states that there was a 45 percent repeat rate. "They began to refer their friends and bring their sisters in because of the good job we did for them the first time," she states. Everett obviously saw dollar signs. She set herself a personal six-month goal of four hundred abortions and ten thousand dollars a month take-home pay and planned to reward herself with a new car. In order to reach that amount, she had to increase business. She pushed for "bigger" abortions and says "I was hooked by the love of money." The botched abortions continued, but she was at least able to remodel her house. ⁽³⁹⁾ She relates:

Despite all the hoopla over contraceptives, they continue to be ineffective. About 28 percent of women who have abortions have used the condom for protection while 26 percent used the pill. ⁽⁴²⁾ A brochure advertising contraceptive practices using the pill and condoms says that condoms are only 88 percent effective. ⁽⁴³⁾ It may also be possible that many teenagers don't want to take the time to learn how to use them. With the contraceptives unable to perform their task and a growing biological evidence for humanity of the fetus, what would be the acceptable course of action? Is it to save life or is it to destroy it?

Consider also William Donahue's linking of the use, or lack of use, of a condom with the ability to control one's body. Unwed fathers (who in Donahue's context seems to be mostly unwed teenage boys) know about condoms, he writes, but they seldom use them because that assumes they have the foresight to plan ahead and understand the ramifications of their actions. In order to use the condom, one has to have the ability to interrupt the sex act to put it on, and this excludes such males because it is the lack of discipline that has led them into irresponsible sex in the first place. ⁽⁴⁴⁾ I also know from experience that wearing a condom does not maximize the sex act and hence males would be less likely to wear a condom anyway. Hence, the only really feasible method to prevent unwanted pregnancies is to practice abstinence, although it is certainly difficult (but not impossible). Former president Clinton has vetoed efforts to ban partial-abortion procedures - the closest thing to infanticide. He and his abortionist allies have insisted on exceptions to protect the woman's health. Republicans have said this exception would render the ban meaningless.  ⁽⁴⁵⁾

It's because of what the term "health of the mother" has been taken to mean. The phrase "health of the mother," as used in the abortion debate, has become a rather elusive term. Francis Beckwith has revealed that abortion has been permitted at any period in pregnancy and Clarke Forsythe has said, "a `health' abortion, for all intents and purposes, means abortion on demand." The word "health" has been defined in Doe vs. Bolton as reading "all factors - physical, emotional [etc.] . . . relevant to the well-being of the patient." In other words, restricting abortions to those that protect the "health" of the mother are not restrictive at all. ⁽⁴⁶⁾ Mary Ann Glendon has said, of Roe and later court decisions, "In effect, a system of abortion on request, covering the entire nine months of pregnancy, was put in place for any woman who could find a doctor to agree with her assessment of the degree of her distress." ⁽⁴⁷⁾ Lynn Wardle and Mary Anne Wood reveal that, while abortion was meant to only be used to preserve the life or "health of the mother," a district court dismissed a case against an abortionist doctor because the word "health" was so broadly defined. The United States Supreme Court reversed the decision, arguing that in a previous decision "health" had been interpreted to include mental health. This fact is well known to those who are pro-life and this is why they oppose any legislation that allows abortion for the "health" of the mother and that is why they insist that the only reason abortion should be allowed is to preserve the life of the mother.  Wardle and Wood go on to say:

Although abortionists might argue their case for abortion because of the need to protect the health of the mother, very few abortions are done for this purpose. A 1987 survey given by the Alan Guttmacher Institute reveals that 76 percent of women surveyed who had an abortion did so because they were concerned about how having the baby would change their life. Only one percent did so due to rape or incest. ⁽⁵⁰⁾

An abortion is not necessarily more healthy for the mother than getting an abortion. Both former abortionists Bernard Nathanson and Carol Everett have written of the botched abortions and perhaps one might think that deaths from these replaced deaths from illegal abortions. There have also been claims that breast cancer is linked to abortions, although this is widely debated. A third health hazard is post-abortion stress syndrome (PAS), a syndrome that can surface even after five to ten years. ⁽⁵¹⁾ It might possibly be better to help the mother go through the pregnancy and give birth than abort the baby.

Jeanette Vought reveals that abortions may produce complications ranging from infections which occur in 30 percent of all elective abortions, endometritis which occurs in 5 percent of all abortions (younger women are affected twice as often as older women), and uterine perforation, sterility, cervical damage, placenta previa (where the placenta is implanted abnormally low in the uterus) in future pregnancies, and even death. As far as emotional damage, as many as 90 percent of women in a Conquerors post-abortion recovery program recognized guilt and shame feelings related to their abortion. Feelings of anger and isolation also follow and, not surprisingly, men are also hit heavily for, among other things, not having a voice in the decision. ⁽⁵²⁾

Abortions Ugly Side

Roe vs. Wade has turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg and this makes conservative worries of a slippery-slope very justified. Lynn Wardle and Mary Wood say, "So revolutionary have been the effects of Roe and its progeny that the public controversy over abortion no longer concerns whether broader exceptions to the old rule prohibiting abortion should be recognized by state legislators, but whether any [their emphasis] exceptions to the rule of legalized abortion on demand will be permitted by the federal courts."

  We have come down the slippery slope from allowing first-trimester abortions to legitimizing partial-birth abortions. And we have come down the slippery slope from allowing abortion to funding it as well. When it was argued that Medicaid would not pay for nontherapeutic abortions for indigent women, it was considered discrimination violating title XIX and thus was illegal. One court argued that since Pennsylvania paid for deliveries and therapeutic abortions, it was plain that pregnancy was a "medical treatment" that was "necessary" within the meaning of title XIX and thus hospitals cannot refuse to provide elective abortions funded by Medicaid.  What was once unthinkable has become a right and now an entitlement.

Abortion has been hailed as capable of furthering "family" decisions, but abortion could never be supportive of family relations because of the central teaching of the philosophy behind abortion: "my body, my choice, no problem." As Wardle and Wood explain, "similarly, in no other context are the paternal rights of a man regarding his living offspring as constitutionally restricted as they are in the context of abortion. There is no other aspect of the father-child relationship in which a married women has so much power unilaterally to cut off the paternal rights of her husband. Even the passing philanderer who unintentially fathers an illegitimate child constitutionally must be accorded substantially greater legal protection . . . for his rights of paternity than . . . constitutionally may be accorded the husband/father whose pregnant wife wants an abortion." ⁽⁵³⁾

Abortion denies men a role in the future of their progeny and encourages males to shirk their duties since the future of the unborn child has been determined to be the woman's responsibility alone. Too many irresponsible males are ready to learn that lesson. Phillip Johnson has written:

We usually, for the most part, allow other people to deal with the results of their actions or the ailments on their bodies. If you buy a car, it is your responsibility to fix it and no other's responsibility. If you have a mole on your body, you are entitled to seek a doctor to remove it and pay him the appropriate charge for his service (minus any insurance money he gets, of course). My car; my money; my problem. My mole; my money; my problem. When it comes to abortion, feminists would prefer women be granted rights to do away with the fetus as she pleases with no regard to the husband's, or boyfriend's, wishes. Yet, as soon as the child is born the feminist will expect the man to share the funding to support that child. Why not treat the child as a mole the woman is entitled to keep or remove, at her own expense, at her own will, instead of making the man pay for part of the expense if indeed it is so easily cast aside in abortion? The reason is clear; the fetus is a human being growing in the womb, not some impersonal lump of flesh, like a tumor. If feminist reasoning was illogical and feminists not honest with their own philosophy, we might see them not looking for equality of the sexes. They'd be looking for inequality to exaggerate the morality of their actions at the expense of others. This is what the pro-abortion movement does. Actually, pro-choice feminists are not as merciful as they appear but more selfish than one might realize.

What about siblings and the damage abortion has on them? I have known that children, like those of me and my wife, understand a living baby exists in the womb of a pregnant woman. Our oldest son understood this when my wife was pregnant with our youngest child. If a second child is aborted, but not the first, that gives the first child the message the parents can disrespect their child's life at a whim. That, of course, makes the child wonder why the parents love him but not the baby in the womb and must also make him wonder if they might, in the future, decide to disregard his life as well.

Jeanette Vought writes that "Young children are often aware that their mother is pregnant or that she has had an abortion, even when they are not told about it. Many times children overhear their parents talking about having an abortion or about an aborted child." She tells of Andrea who was thirteen and affected by her mother's abortion. Andrea wrote a paper for school about it and tells that she cried when finding her mother aborted what would have been her sibling. Andrea's words are recommended reading and I won't produce them here, but I will say that Andrea's mother had taken up ministering to other women by helping them through their post-abortion trauma.  ⁽⁵⁶⁾ Vought links sexual activity with abortion so that once again abortion appears as a fix to fornication.

Another feature of the abortion movement is fetal-part harvesting. The Alberta Report ⁽⁵⁹⁾ published details of the work of Life Dynamics Inc., a "renegade pro-life group" in the words of the article, which has admitted to having spies work in abortion clinics to uncover the ugly activities that go on there. A former technician at an abortion clinic who goes by the pseudonym "Kelly" worked for a Maryland Planned Parenthood clinic which was a member of the National Abortion Federation and was interviewed in the May issue of the "Life Talk" video magazine released by Life Dynamics. Kelly's job was to procure fetal tissue for research.

Life Dynamics has dozens of order forms from researchers requesting fetal parts and Life Dynamics plans to release documentary evidence it has gathered since Kelly approached them two years ago. Scientists have used fetal tissue before, the article notes, but experimentation exploded after the decriminalization of abortion in the 1970s. The article quotes from a 1993 book by Suzanne Rini (Beyond Abortion: A Chronicle of Fetal Experimentation). Dr. Karen Holbrook of the University of Washington received a large grant for her work on fetal skin biology which seems, in the context of the Alberta Report article, to concern itself with the grafting of fetal tissue onto people. Holbrook told Rini, of the fetuses, "Hopefully they are not born alive. It's better to avoid that. The skin is taken after fetal demise." Some experiments chronicled by Rini concern experiments done on beating hearts which means possibly some of the fetuses could have been saved. But this obviously means nothing to the utilitarian philosophy of dissecting and using parts of people like you would recycle car parts - used engines and so forth.

The article continues. Life Dynamics' Dzintra Tuttle says, "These researchers don't want to see the whole baby. That's gruesome. That would freak them out. They think they're about higher medicine that is serving a cause-not about dead babies." This sounds true, and it sounds like what a philosopher and ethicist might call avoidance. Perhaps deep down, submerged inside their consciences, lies the knowledge that these are small human beings who are being exterminated and seeing them whole would either awaken submerged guilt or force them into delicate rationalizations for what they do. Apparently abortionists and the researchers aren't above coercion to achieve their parts. Kelly says sometimes you could hear women in the halls saying they wanted to change their minds, but they were sedated in what Kelly calls a "Nyquil nap" which made it difficult to protest. In any case, the woman would eventually have the abortion. Mark Crutcher, president of Life Dynamics, is convinced that research demand for intact late-term fetal organs is the hidden truth behind partial-birth abortions. Partial-birth abortion bans have been opposed by pro-choice groups and Crutcher believes this is about "maximizing profits." You sell the woman the abortion; then you sell the dead baby. Carol Everett shows clearly how motivated by money abortionists can be. We also know how monetary gain can distort our moral compasses.

Even the Milwaukee Journal brought this issue to light. ⁽⁶⁰⁾ Fetal parts would sell for at least $75 apiece; pituitary glands sold for $300 and brains for $999. The article notes that "nobody quarrels with the goals of research on fetal tissues - to find cures for the likes of Alzheimer's disease, juvenile diabetes, and Parkinson's disease." Yet there are accusations that businesses are looking at supplying fetal tissue as a moneymaker. Under federal law it is legal to use fetal tissue for research as long as it is donated, not sold, by the woman. As usual, as shown before, greed dominates this issue instead of concern over what is actually being done. Miles Jones, head of an Illinois company named Opening Lines, when asked how much he charged for a fetal liver or kidney, said, "It's market forces. It's what you can sell it for." Obviously capitalists like Jones will attempt to maximize their profits sometimes at the expense of moral common sense.

This is called "strip mining" the dead and those who wish to use fetal tissue and organs for experimental purposes, supposedly humane goals, justify their pursuits by utilitarian precepts. There may be bad times ahead, though, if we adopt this rationale. Gilbert Meilaender writes of this pursuit and doesn't primarily address using fetal tissue but does apply his arguments mostly to the buying and selling of the organs of dead adults. "It's not hard to understand our national reluctance to permit the buying and selling of human organs for transplant," he says, "for it expresses a repugnance that is deeply rooted in important moral sentiments." That is because it alludes to, or reminds one of cannibalism. It is also rooted in a sense that some things are not for sale. Although buying and selling, using money as the unit of exchange, is wholesome, the selling of body parts may turn people into a commodity. Hence, we may lose our moral bearings. Now it is true that "strip mining" the dead may create some good for experimental purposes. Although the dead may not be a person, the remnant body parts may be one person's mortal remains and, as Meilaender says so brilliantly, there is no way to think of a person apart from them and no way to gaze upon them without thinking of the person as anything but a commodity. ⁽⁶¹⁾ In abortions, we are asked to think of the fetus as a commodity. Because of the tendency for our morals, in issues like life and death in the abortion and euthanasia debates, to degrade into killing more people who are innocent, the tendency will be to turn others besides fetuses into commodities. If we can believe the fetus is our's to do with as we please, like we use animals as we please for various experiments, why not infants and others as well? Meilaender received a reply from Daniel from Chicago, Illinois, in a subsequent issue of National Review, which argued that maybe it's good to subject organs to the laws of capitalism. "Organ shortages would disappear overnight if people were permitted to sell their organs upon death, to include them as part of their estate with the proceeds going to the heirs," he claimed. Meilaender responded, "Selling bodily organs as commodities would help to create a society in which we ought not want to live - no matter for how long." I agree more with Meilaender than with Daniel. We could market our organs, but the temptation is always there to purposely degrade the value of humanity so to harvest organs for the next group of people who may be deemed unfit to live as well.

Conclusions

The abortion movement only has a sliver of good philosophy behind it. Most, if not all, pro-abortion arguments are rooted in poor logic and bias that pleases those whose ears are "tickled" by such illogic. Abortion is about destroying a young life before it has a chance to mature and hence any justification revolving around it degrades everything it touches. The sad truth about abortion is that so many people wish to believe the movement's lies and haven't the common sense to, at the very least, subject it to its deserved scrutiny.

Jeffrey Stueber

1. The Onion, (December 3-9, 1997)

2. from the video tape Live in Washington D.C., 1994

3. Dennis Miller, Ranting Again, (New York, Doubleday, 1998)

4. Carl Sagan, Cosmos, (New York, Random House, 1980), p. 243

5. Richard Baer Jr., "They Are Teaching Religion in the Public Schools," Christianity Today, (February 17, 1984)

6. Gloria Bird and Michael Sporakowski ed., Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Family and Personal Relationships, (Guilford: CN, Dushkin), p. 155

7. Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: The New Morality, (Philadelphia, Westminster Press)

8. Harvey Cox, The Situation Ethics Debate, (Philadelphia, Westminster Press)

9. Derek Humphry, Final Exit, (Eugene: OR, The Hemlock Society, 1991), p. 101

10. Fletcher, p. 37 ff.

11. Quoted in William Donahue, The New Freedom: Individualism and Collectivism in the Social Lives of Americans, (London, Transaction Publishers, 1990), p. 62

12. Gloria Lentz, Raping Our Children: The Sex Education Scandal, (New York, Arlington House, 1972), p. 23-24

13. http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/abortion/everych.htm

14. Tamara Roleff ed., Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints, (San Diego, Greenhaven, 1997), p. 55

15. Joseph Sobran in Michael Biskup and Karin Swisher ed., AIDS: Opposing Viewpoints, (San Diego, Greenhaven Press, 1992), p. 48

16. William Brennan in Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints, p. 35

17. Betsy Hartmann, Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control and Contraceptive Choice, (New York, Harper & Row, 1987), p. 264

18. Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulations as a Basis for Social Policy, (New York, BasicBooks, 1995), p. 198

19. Vincent Barry ed., Applying Ethics, (Belmont: Ca, Wadsworth Publishing, 1982), p. 161-162

20. Ibid

21. Robert Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, (New York, HarperCollins, 1996)

22. Don Sloan in Tamara Roleff ed., Abortion, p. 42

23. Gregory Koukl, Problem of Heaps, 1996, www.str.org/free/commentaries/abortion/heaps.htm

24. Glamour, (Feb. 2002)

25. In an essay formerly at www.conservativelyspeaking.com, but which no longer exists as a separate web site. You can search for this site at www.archive.org, but you will not be able to find the essay I mention.

26. Paul Swope, "Abortion: A Failure to Communicate," First Things, April 1998

27. Bork, p. 183

28. Mary Thom ed., Letters to Ms., (New York, Henry Holt and Co., 1987), p. 233-234

29. Betty Steele, The Feminist Takeover, (Canada, Tercet Publishing, 1987), p. 53

30. Angela Bonavoglia, The Choices We Made: Twenty-Five Women and Men Speak Out About Abortion, (New York, Random House, 1991), xi

31. Barbara Hinkson Craig and David O'Brien, Abortion and American Politics, (Chatham: NJ, Chatham House, 1993), p. 313

32. Revolutionary Worker in Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints, p. 54

33. www.feministsforlife.org

34. www.gargaro.com/abortion/myarticles.html

35. www.rightgrrl.com

36. Milwaukee Journal, (June 4, 1998)

37. National Review, (January 26, 1998)

38. Randy Alcorn, Pro Life Answers to Pro Choice Arguments, (Sisters: OR, Multnomah, 1992), p. 159

39. Carol Everett, The Scarlet Lady: Confessions of a Successful Abortionist, (Brentwood: TN, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991), p. 154, 158

40. Ibid, p. 135

41. Quoted in USA Weekend, (January 9-11, 1998)

42. Joan Nelson, Abortion, (San Diego, Lucent, 1992), p. 29

43. "AIDS and the Condom and the Pill," 1992, Warner-Lambert Co.

44. Donahue, p. 120

45. I also used for my information my local paper, the Watertown Daily Times, (October 9, 1997). The front page article on this topic says, "Clinton and abortion rights groups have insisted on the exception to protect a woman's health, but Republicans say it would render the ban meaningless." The reason is because "woman's health" could mean anything including emotional health and therefore abortion could be allowed by the woman claiming her emotional health was in danger.

46. Clarke Forsythe in Christian American, March/April 1997.

47. Mary Ann Glendon, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse, (New York, Free Press, 1991), p. 59

48. Lynn Wardle and Mary Anne Wood, A Lawyer Looks at Abortion, (Provo: UT, Brigham Young University Press, 1982), p. 35-36

49. Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Willke, Abortion Questions and Answers, rev. '88, (Cincinnati, Hayes Publishing), p. 89

50. Bork, p. 180

51. Joe Gulotta, Pro-Life Christians: Heroes for the Pre-Born, (Tan Pub., 1992), p. 21

52. Jeanette Vought, Post-Abortion Trauma: 9 Steps to Recovery, (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1991)

53. Wardle and Wood, p. 53, 56, 89

54. Phillip Johnson, Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law & Education, (Downer's Grove, Intervarsity Press, 1995), p. 151

55. Don Feder, Who's Afraid of the Religious Right?, (Washington D.C., Regnery Publishing, 1996), p. 114-115

56. Vought, p. 75-76

57. Ibid, p. 20, 18

58. Francis Beckwith, Politically Correct Death: Answering Arguments for Abortion Rights, (Grand Rapids, Baker, 1993), p. 173 ff.

59. Alberta Report, (August 23, 1999)

60. Milwaukee Journal, (March 10, 2000)

61. Gilbert Meilaender, "`Strip-mining' the Dead," National Review, (October 11, 1999)