Abortion is in the news again, and in furious debate again, thanks to an unfortunate law recently passed in Texas.
Increasingly, great matters of public contention degenerate into wars between two fanatical camps who seem more interested in hating each other than in solving the problem.
Covid-19 is an example.
One side supports vaccination blindly and shouts down anyone who wants to know more about the vaccines as an ‘anti-vaxxer!’ The other side mutters darkly about genocide through the injection needle. Neither wants to examine the statistics and the science, and the uncertainties.
The abortion debate is even worse. It degenerates into a screaming match between ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’.
I am an atheist and so constrained to a narrow scientific definition of human life. Religious people believe we only become human when the soul enters the body. They can devise doctrine about when that happens. I do not believe we have souls; I believe we are purely physical.
I have no choice but to define a human life as an independent living entity controlled by human DNA. That life comes into being at the moment of conception. That first cell is a human life and, if you kill it (which abortion always does), you take a human life.
I think it is in principle wrong to take human life. Why? Because, like most human beings, I was born with an innate morality, which tells me it is wrong to kill babies. Lions don’t feel this way; a lion sees nothing wrong with killing cubs sired by other lions.
Religious people think their morality comes from God; I think mine comes from evolution. It makes no practical difference; we both think taking human life is inherently wrong.
Sometimes, though, we do kill other human beings, quite legally. We do so in war; some democratic governments kill convicted murderers; doctors kill people to make best use of limited hospital equipment such as heart-lung machines.
Sometimes I believe it is morally right to kill the unborn child. I believe in abortion in all cases of rape, and when the mother’s life is at risk, and in various other cases of medical difficulty. I think I only support abortion in the first three months but I suppose there could be special cases beyond that.
Separate human being
The pro-choice side says that a woman has the right to control her own body. But the unborn baby is not part of her body. It is inside it but not part of it. It is a separate human being. Up to now it has always had different DNA from the mother, but even if it had the same DNA – as medical science will soon make possible – it would still be a separate being. What the pro-choicers are saying is that the mother has the right to kill her own unborn child.
The Texas law was passed at the beginning of last month. It is strange and nasty. It forbids abortion beyond the time when the baby’s heart starts beating, which is at about six weeks. There are no exceptions. Up to six weeks, many women do not realise they are pregnant.
The sinister part of the law is that it gives anyone the power to charge anyone even vaguely connected with the abortion, including doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers, with breaking the law and so subject to a $10,000 fine. You can imagine the horrible consequences of this provision. Somehow, which I don’t understand, this makes it difficult for the Supreme Court to strike it down as being unconstitutional.
Naturally the two sides are out in full against and for it, waving placards and screaming insults, and as usual the terms ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’ are bandied about in a confused way.
As far as I can see, the ‘right’ believes that abortion should be limited. The ‘left’ believes anyone should be able to have an abortion anytime she wants, including up to the moment of labour (a bill to this effect was proposed by Democrat Delegate Kathy Tran in Virginia in 2019).
If you believe in the sanctity of human life, you are ‘right-wing’; and if you believe it is right to kill some humans you are ‘left-wing’. Hitler must therefore be considered an extreme left-winger: he believed in mass abortion, and then killing sick and mentally unbalanced people, and finally, and by logical progression, killing people of the wrong race.
Disproportionate percentage
Consider the case of poor black pregnant women in the United States. A disproportionate percentage have pregnancies when they are very young by men who run away.
If you say abortion should be easy, are you a racist who wants to cut down the number of black people? If you say it should be difficult, are you a racist who wants to deny poor black women the right to abortion that rich white women can always buy?
Humans are the most irrational of all animals, and the only ones with moral feelings. This combination seems to make us unable to engage in honest debate. Abortion is the ultimate example.
[Image: Maria Oswalt on Unsplash]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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