After much interaction with pro-choicers, I have decided that abortion is modern America’s version of slavery. Allow me to explain. Both abortion and slavery started with a perfectly understandable desire. In the case of slavery, it was the desire to live a life of luxury, without having to work for it. I personally empathize strongly with that desire. A life of comfort, without responsibility! Who wouldn’t want that? In the same way, abortion is motivated by a similarly understandable desire: the desire to have sex without any possibility of pregnancy. I freely admit that I really don’t like the idea of having children. (I pretty much agree with Shrek’s description of babies: they cry when they poop and they poop when they cry.) And I can only imagine how much worse it would be to actually have to go through pregnancy.
In both cases, the perfectly understandable desire grew and grew, until it completely broke the bounds of morality. Plantation owners and pro-choicers reached the point where they were willing to do anything to get what they wanted. Nothing, and no one would stand in their way. For plantation owners, this meant the enslavement of blacks. For pro-choice women, this means the killing of unborn children.
And in both cases, they came up with excuses to justify their behavior. I’ll say it again: excuses. While I will in future posts address why abortion is morally unacceptable from a philosophical viewpoint, I think it is important to remember that ultimately most pro-choicers support abortion not because they believe it to be morally right, but because they believe it will grant the desire of their hearts: pleasure without consequences.
The arguments created in support of abortion are shockingly similar to the arguments in support of slavery. Consider the following. “Negroes are subhuman, inferior. They’re little better than animals! Of course they have no rights.” “Of course a fetus isn’t a person! It’s just a blob of cells! Obviously it has no rights.” “Negroes need the guidance of us white people. Without us, they’d be lost! It’s for their own good.” “If we don’t abort now, this child will be born into an impoverished environment and an unloving family. I wouldn’t want a life like that! Abortion is for the fetus’s own good.” “Free our slaves? That’s outrageous! That’s a violation of our property rights!” “You can’t force me to carry to term! That violates my right to privacy and bodily integrity!” “Can you imagine what would happen to our society without slavery? Our economy would collapse! Our states would be financially and socially ruined!” “Can you imagine what would happen if abortion was outlawed? You’d have back-alley abortions! Women would be dying by the thousands!”
And like the struggle against slavery and later racism under Jim Crow, the war against abortion may take a long, long time to win. But as the defining song of the civil rights movement goes, we shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome, someday.
February 5, 2008 at 2:42 pm
some good points here. is there any way to compare the special abortion case where a woman is raped and becomes pregnant with slavery?
February 6, 2008 at 12:49 am
Well, here’s a possible analogy. A farmer is working his own land, when he gets attacked by a violent criminal. As a result of his injuries, he can no longer work his own land. Is he now justified in enslaving an innocent person, and forcing that innocent person to work his land? I would say no. He would arguably have the right to enslave the criminal who attacked him (or demand some other form of restitution), but he does not have the right to make an innocent third party suffer for the wrong that has been done to him. In the same way, a rape victim should be allowed to make the rapist pay for his crimes, but she shouldn’t punish the innocent child for the crimes of the father.
February 6, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Er… I think Drew’s point underscores the largest flaw with your analysis: you give zero thought to what it would be like to be pregnant.
Pregnancy after rape could be considered a form of involuntary servitude: yoru liberty is being commandeered for the purposes of another, to whom you owe no obligation.
Instead of using the insane thought experiments involving criminals and crippled farmers, why not acknowledge that you’ve framed your analogy in a very, very weak manner? It is demeaning to equate “living a life of luxury” with “fun sex.” News flash: you will never be pregnant after coitus. Ever. Tread carefully.
The right to bodily integrity (by the way, look up the effects of pregnancy – brain shrinkage; nose, foot, and hand growth; permanent disabilities; screwed-up abdominal muscles; preeclampsia; diabetes; need I go on?) is fundamentally different from the “right” to live the high life.
While there are very strong correlations between the abolitionist movement and the pro-life movement, that does not mean that they are in every way equivalent, that our opponents are in every way similar, and that their opposition is in every way morally equivalent.
As a historical note, slavery had existed for thousands of years. The particular and pernicious evil of the Southern institution was that it was race-based and generational. In other cultures, slaves were of various races, could earn their freedom, and were then considered full members of society. At the time that slavery existed, the Northern factory workers weren’t saints, either: their employees worked horrifically long hours, for little pay (this was all before the Fair Labour Standards Act, I think it is), and in dangerous conditions. Toddlers would crawl around the floor of the factory while their mothers worked. Many lost limbs. In light of that, there was nothing substantially more cruel about slavery – the injury was entirely psychic. (I could be wrong, but I think you had a longer life expectancy as a slave than as a factory worker.)
That all said, don’t dismiss the concerns about pregnancy in so cavalier a manner. The reward for doing so is abortion on demand, as it fuels the argument that men, who can never be pregnant, are out to impose themselves on women’s bodies. No matter what, after sx, it’s never going to be YOUR body at risk. Do not so flippantly dismiss the desire to have what you have… unless, of course, you are actually a pro-choicer in disguise.
February 7, 2008 at 4:14 am
Apparently I didn’t make my analogy as clear as I had intended to. I wasn’t assuming that the crippled farmer was resorting to slavery only to maintain a life of luxury. I was implying that his crippled condition would render him incapable of providing for even his most basic necessities. I was assuming that he will suffer greatly from not being able to provide for himself. He may go into debt, he may lose his land, he may be unable to pay for medical expenses, he may even be on the verge of starvation. What then? Does he now have a right to enslave another? I would say that the answer is still no. Despite the enormous injustice that has been done to him, I do not see why he should be permitted to ameliorate his suffering by committing an equally great injustice against another.
February 7, 2008 at 6:49 pm
1. If you need to rely on obscure thought experiments, then you’re in trouble.
2. Part of the problem of pregnancy is DIRECTLY related to the being sought to be aborted. Actually, make that 100%. Your “unrelated person to be enslaved” doesn’t fit.
3. You can flip the analogy around and make a case FOR abortion.
February 9, 2008 at 8:37 am
I think you mischaracterize many pro-choicers. Many pro-choicers are not after the ability to “have sex without any possibility of pregnancy.” In fact, many pro-choicers I know don’t ever want to have an abortion (maybe even in the event of an unwanted pregnancy). They just want others to have the right to abortion.
Going along with your analogy, I compare these people to the likes of Abraham Lincoln, who dislike slavery (even intensely), but oppose abolition. One can quibble over whether Lincoln opposed abolition for reasons of political expediency, constitutional interpretation, or personal conviction, but the fact is that Lincoln publicly stated his opposition to abolition of slavery (where it already existed).
February 9, 2008 at 8:52 am
Regarding the larger issue of abortion, I take what I believe to be a very standard and reasonable libertarian position: If a fetus is a person the law must protect his or her right to life. If the fetus is merely an appendage of the pregnant woman, the law must not restrict the woman’s right to remove her appendage.
The case where a woman becomes pregnant from being raped is tough to deal with, even if a fetus is considered a person. An analogous (if far-fetched) situation is say a woman is forcibly implanted with a baby and there is no way to remove the baby from the woman’s body without killing the baby.
The law ought to protect the baby’s right to life, but the law ought not compel the woman to carry and be responsible for a baby forcibly implanted in her uterus.
What do existing legal doctrines say about such a situation, Sam?
I know I ignore the biological role the body of the woman plays in producing the fetus. It’s a simplified analogy.
February 9, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I think I’ve figured out the direct relation thing. If you’re being chased by a rapist, and in the process of fleeing, are run over by a non-negligent driver, who is responsible? And, more relevantly, who can be punished? The non-negligent driver was the physical cause of your severe injuries, but the rapist is legally responsible.
You’re probably going to accuse me of creating “obscure thought experiments” again, but oh well. Blame my philosophy degree. IF we lived in a society that permitted forced organ transplants as a form of restitution (that is, an injured victim in dire need of a transplant can forcefully take organs from the person who is responsible for the injuries), would it be permissible to take the vital organs of the driver? It would obviously be permissible to take the organs of the rapist, but if they weren’t a match, would it be just to tell the driver: “Well, there was absolutely no negligence on your part. You did what any decent, reasonable person would do. But still… you were the physical cause of this woman’s injuries. Therefore, if she needs your liver, your spleen, and both your kidneys to survive… tough luck.”?
February 9, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Hey, Eric! How’s it going?
Ok… I should probably have clarified that the comparison with slavery was not to equate abortion and slavery on the philosophical level. I was primarily trying to equate the political and social situations that institutionalized slavery, and the political and social situations that now institutionalize abortion.
See, I would say Lincoln’s earlier claims to oppose abolition would be closer to, say, Mitt Romney’s position on abortion when he was running for governor of Massachusetts. That is, he wanted to eventually overturn slavery, but for tactical reasons didn’t admit that right away. Pro-choicers, on the other hand, I would compare with individuals who may not have personally owned slaves, but fought for the Confederacy solely on the basis of protecting the institution of slavery. Personally, I think that there were very few of those. I believe that the vast majority of Confederate soldiers had noble purposes, but that they may have been the dupes of the slave owners. I’m not sure… maybe the same is true of pro-choicers?