On Abortion: Two Responses

I received several responses to my post on abortion, many of them from people who had similar ideas.  There were two, however, that I wanted to take time to address.

Response: A Few Weak Arguments

The first came from The Diablogue, where I re-posted my thoughts.  I’ll quote the comment here while responding to it:

Well done! I really like the clear cut and easy to understand examples/arguments that you have chosen to use in this posting.

As my friend Jeremy once remarked regarding issues of life and American politics, “you either have to choose between killing babies or dropping bombs…”

I really appreciate the distinction you made between why you support Obama (VS why NOT to support McCain). So many people abandon ideals for the dichotomies our political system forces…luckily for you there is at least one candidate who you feel is in line with your ideals…

Still, if I might “play the part” of a Republican who is able to stem knee jerk reactions for long enough to have a good thought about your post (grey areas just make ‘em squirm, eh?), I feel that you’re arguments are weak in several areas.

My thoughts are, by my own admission, weak in several areas and I’m glad to have the scrutiny of someone who will help me explore them further.  So let’s go for it.

The biggest may be the brevity and apparent lack of concern with which you address the scale issue between abortion and war. While you say that 90,000 civilians have been confirmed killed in Iraq since 2003, the statistics show that 2005 was the lowest year for abortions since 1976, only 1.2 million were performed (all this during the reign of a republican lead white house). (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/16/AR2008011603624.html ) By pure utilitarian means (which are among the lowest methods of measuring ethics in existence, hence the ideals which we should be advocating must not just take into account utilitarian standards, but put them to shame…) such statistics should confound anyone who uses the “bombs vs babies” mindset that seems to be advocated here. We’re talking millions killed in our life time…

This is a very good point.  I was struggling with this problem while writing it.  The best answer I can give is that the issue of war may have a less direct bodycount but has bigger long-term implications. The war in Iraq is only one example that comes to mind and is representative of a much larger issue: our entire take on foreign policy.  I find the Democratic take on foreign policy (from the issue of war to foreign aid to diplomacy) to be much more in line with promoting life around the world.  With the longer-term implications this has for future wars (not only with the United States, but in or between other countries), immigration, poverty relief, etc., the utilitarian means may judge the situation differently.

Secondly, when you say that some reference to McCain is necessary for purposes of positioning, you were certainly right. I wish you would have positioned yourself a little bit more thoughtfully in regards to this issue. Because of McCain/Palin’s stance on torture AND abortion, you probably need to interact more with this fact: 2 of the areas you addressed are flagship goals of the Republican presidential ticket: to challenge abortion AND torture.

This is true, and I may try to address it more in the future.  But it ignores the other issues of life (poverty, healthcare, capital punishment) that I believe the Democratic side gets correct.  Perhaps my arguments were too much waited towards the issue of torture and not enough towards these other policies.  While McCain may oppose both of these issues, I don’t feel that this necessarily outweights the other issues.

You have also come short of demonstrating how an Obama lead white house will effectually cause more respect for human rights in the wake of mis managed Iraq. As Obama continues to push his ideas for withdrawal further and further towards the horizon (let alone his original ideas of withdrawal starting next year), the idea that significant troop reductions will bring about more respect for human life in Iraq is TOTAL SPECULATION (let alone his bright idea to bomb Pakistan which actually caused riots in Pakistan in which people were injured in Spring 2007http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0132206420070801), and leaders owe it to the people they represent, if not the rest of the world, to go by what they know, not by speculaiton.

If our conduct in war, capital punishment, abortion and torture are how we measure the protection and assertion of the ideals we hold so true, it seems that McCain could make more of an argument for these ideals than Obama, because not only does he oppose torture and (in a Republican mindset of course, yay surge!) advocate a militarily supported mindset of fighting to win which means using what we’ve learned from our mistakes to fight to stem conflict in Iraq (including ethnic conflict), he is also on a strongly pro-life presidential ticket…

I think this is the weakest counterargument.  For one, I don’t believe I suggested that troop reductions would produce respect for human rights.  The troop reductions themselves are part of a different conversation, one about Iraq.  (And as far as Pakistan, I didn’t like Obama’s comments on that from the first.  But seeing recent events, I’m not entirely sure it’s a purely Democratic problem.)  Second, the disrespect for human rights, including torture, occured because of our actions in Iraq, completely seperate from withdrawing from it.  Finally, leaders do act on what they know, but they also have to act on what they predict.  No one, even the President, knows the future and we can’t expect them true.  We can expect them to make the best decision, and while Obama may have opposed the surge, he also opposed the war in the first place.  If there was no war, then the question of the surge would be a moot point.

Anyway Jim, I loved your post, but I feel like if I were a republican who was able to get through the entire thing not burning with some sort of ‘righteous anger’ that completely ruined any means to have a some what rational conversation, that is what I would be thinking… I’d love you to straighten some of this out, especially for the Republicans reading this.

Personally, I am Pro-Life in my ideals EXACTLY as you are, and voters who turn campaigns into one issue platforms are unreasonable at best. I especially like the risk-management wisdom you employ in identifying the future hazards to life that the Republican war mismanagement and established precedents therein pose… Aren’t these exactly what McCain is boasting to address? Unlike you in this election, I am a swing voter for sure…no one is clearly the right choice for me right now…

Thanks for your thoughtful comments, I truly appreciate them.  Hopefully I’ve done something to address the issues, though probably not as well as you had hoped.

Response: Righteous Anger

The second response I received was an email from a friend and falls, I think, into that category of righteous anger that the first response mentioned.

A woman chooses to kill her fetus when there are alternatives such as adoption.  The fetus has no input in the matter.

A human chooses to torture another when there are altertative measures of interrogation.  The prisoner has no input in the matter.   All matters of life involve choice, not just abortion.

War is a terrible thing and is used when there are no other alternatives.  The argument against war because you are pro-life has many problems.  Do you think we should have let Hitler continue on because we didn’t want to kill anyone (this was the official position of the Catholic Church)?  We lost thousands of American soldiers’ lives in Europe when Hitler wasn’t threatening the US directly at the time.  We lost thousands of soldiers in the Pacific fighting Japan.  Do you think we should have let Hitler overrun Europe and Russia while committing genocide, and let Japan over run us because we didn’t want to kill anyone?  Like it or not, the Iraq war is similar.  Do you know how many civilians Saddam Hussein executed?  It is in the hundreds of thousands.  The US isn’t out there trying to kill those 90,000 civilians.  We are trying to stop the people who are.  And do you remember how happy the Iraqi civilians were when we toppled Hussein?  They were cheering in the streets!  We are saving lives in Iraq in the long run.  How you feel in the short run isn’t always as important as what the final outcome in the future is.  I’d have to say that Republicans/conservatives tend to think what is better in the long run.  The war was primarily aimed at national security and was the driving reason it was started.  The ROTC guys might know this better than I do, but I think we actually did find some WMDs in Iraq.  At a minimum, we took a cruel dictator out of power (although I don’t advocate trying to take down every cruel dictator in the world)  If Iraq is handled correctly (most likely by McCain), then I think Iraq will be better than it was in the long run and civilian lives will be saved.  Sorta sounds pro-life to me.

This is a good point.  I’m assuming, then, that in the case of Iraq there were no alternatives left.  Aside from that, however, from a religious point of view it is not the outcome of the war, but our conduct during it that determines what is pro-life.  A pacifist, which I am not, would say that our very participation in war is anti-life, no matter the outcome.  I would say, more practically, that while we may have toppled a cruel dictator we did a terrible job at protecting people afterwards.  And, also practically, saying that war is pro-life because it topples dictators fails to explain why we haven’t invaded and toppled the regimes in North Korea and Cuba, not to mention other countries. 

I am somewhat up in the air on water boarding, but I lean towards being acceptable.  It is no where near the torture of putting electrical wires on genitals or breaking arms and legs.  If you want torture, listen to the ordeal McCain went through.  Water boarding does not put the person in danger of permanent physical harm; they even have a doctor standing right there if there is a problem.  It might be mental torture, but not physical.  The whole point of it is to get information that will eventually lead to saving lives.  To say that we are violating their human rights is a long shot.  They are given nourishment, clean water, and a clean place to live and sleep.  We go out of our way to accommodate their religion.  Not only do we let them pray when they need to and give them a Koran, but we went through the trouble of re-orienting the toilets so they didn’t have to face or turn their back on Mecca when they were taking a dump.  They have to be the best treated POWs in world history ever.

We clearly violated human rights in certain instances such as Abu Ghraib and waterboarding (if you’re not sure on waterboarding, you might consider the testimony of someone who once opposed the idea that it was torture).  When it comes to Guantanamo, it isn’t always human rights in the sense of torture.  Humans have a right to life, and to being charged with a crime instead of detained indefinitely.  Those are the Constitutional principles that our country was founded on.  I can hold you in the nicest hotel in the world, but it doesn’t change the fact that I am detaining you, perhaps for years on end.  It doesn’t make a difference how we treat prisoners if we still refuse to give them the same basic rights that we give to our own citizens.

When someone commits a murder, they know that there is a possibility of being put to death.  Many of them chose to commit the murder anyway.  Once they commit murder, it isn’t the state that opens up the possibility of the death penalty, the criminal opened the possibility.  There was a study done by a guy named Isaac Erlacher (not sure about the spelling) that showed that for each person put to death, it saves 12 lives on the conservative side, and quite possibly 16-18 lives.  (Dr. Norton told our class about the study, and said it was very well done) 

Also sorta sounds pro-life to me: a criminal is put to death when he knew it could happen and we save 12-18 innocent lives.  Here’s an interesting twist: is the state putting to death those innocent people when it refuses to put a murderer to death?  I know I am saying that there is a direct cause and effect for each here when there isn’t really, but it is an interesting way of thinking about it.  I don’t like when a murderer is put to death, but I also don’t like it when innocent people are killed.

When it comes to the death penalty and saving lives, perhaps the results aren’t all there is to think about.  I’ll show you a study: The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime.  By aborting babies we’re potentially diminishing crime and preventing murders and rapes in the future.  By your definition, abortion has suddenly become pro-life.  Does that make it right? Or, another example: imagine a regime in which the police mercilessly beat all criminals, no matter the crime.  Crime rates would probably drop pretty low in that state, but are we going to call their actions good or pro-life?  Being pro-life is about more than the consequences, it is about the reality of our actions.

Concluding Thoughts

There is nothing wrong with righteous anger about the tragedy of abortion.  Abortion is wrong, plain and simple.  But it’s when this anger obscures the facts on other issues of life that there is a problem.  It is when pro-life comes to mean only opposing abortion or promoting anything that prevents lives from being lost (which both war, the death penalty, and abortion do, if seen in the right light), that we have a problem.

Being pro-life is about a decision made in the present.  It isn’t about what that decision will affect or the most utilitarian means to save lives.  It is about the here and now and whether or not we will choose to honor the sanctity of life.

Note: Unlike the other posts in this series, I’ve left comments open on this one.  As I am responding to comments in this post, it’s only fair that others can respond to me.

Tags: abortion, anger, response, sanctity of life