dizzle
February 25th 2008, 06:56 PM
The claims by some politicians and activists that they want to reduce the number of abortions, while an improvment, has always bothered me because it seem incomplete and inadquate if they believe the unborn are valuable human beings. Ramesh Ponnuru puts his finger on what's wrong with this goal in this critique of a complaint about Roman Catholic bishops. Ponnuru finds the major flaw here:
And there is another problem with this argument, which is that a reduction in the number of abortions is not the only goal that pro-lifers should have. Also important is that the law stop treating unborn children as subhuman creatures who may legitimately be denied the protections of the law against unjust killing.
Here's the crux: If the unborn truly are members of the human race with intrinsic value, how can we be comfortable with reducing the number of abortions rather than ending abortion? How can we allow the law to treat some human beings as mere property and abortion be claimed to be a Constitutional right?
The problem with those who want to reduce the number of abortions is that they continue to accept what is the core injustice of abortion rights - that the unborn are not fully human deserving of protection under the law, that there is a class of innocent human beings whose lives can be taken from them, that unborn babies are just part of the mother's body and not a separate precious unborn human person, that the Constitution protects a woman's right to kill her unborn child. The reduction position doesn't seek to undo these unjust and tragic presumptions built into our current law. It's the status of the unborn under the law that is the heart of the concern and reducing abortions doesn't address that injustice.
What's wrong with the reduction position is that it's like saying we should reduce the number of slaves without the goal of ending slavery. William Wilberforce and his abolitionist compatriots took a two-prong approach, but the ultimate goal was always in view. Ending the slave trade was never the end goal. It was a good thing and a step in the ultimate goal because the heart of the problem wasn't that slavery was bad, it was that the law allowed the violation of the intrinsic value and rights of the human beings being enslaved. How could you believe the inherent value of these human beings and not want to protect them under the law?
We don't want to reduce the number of abortions. Actually, we don't want to end abortion. That is the consequence of what we really want to do. We want to value and recognize under the law the value of innocent unborn human beings.
http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2008/02/reducing-rather.html
STR allows us to post their articles in full
And there is another problem with this argument, which is that a reduction in the number of abortions is not the only goal that pro-lifers should have. Also important is that the law stop treating unborn children as subhuman creatures who may legitimately be denied the protections of the law against unjust killing.
Here's the crux: If the unborn truly are members of the human race with intrinsic value, how can we be comfortable with reducing the number of abortions rather than ending abortion? How can we allow the law to treat some human beings as mere property and abortion be claimed to be a Constitutional right?
The problem with those who want to reduce the number of abortions is that they continue to accept what is the core injustice of abortion rights - that the unborn are not fully human deserving of protection under the law, that there is a class of innocent human beings whose lives can be taken from them, that unborn babies are just part of the mother's body and not a separate precious unborn human person, that the Constitution protects a woman's right to kill her unborn child. The reduction position doesn't seek to undo these unjust and tragic presumptions built into our current law. It's the status of the unborn under the law that is the heart of the concern and reducing abortions doesn't address that injustice.
What's wrong with the reduction position is that it's like saying we should reduce the number of slaves without the goal of ending slavery. William Wilberforce and his abolitionist compatriots took a two-prong approach, but the ultimate goal was always in view. Ending the slave trade was never the end goal. It was a good thing and a step in the ultimate goal because the heart of the problem wasn't that slavery was bad, it was that the law allowed the violation of the intrinsic value and rights of the human beings being enslaved. How could you believe the inherent value of these human beings and not want to protect them under the law?
We don't want to reduce the number of abortions. Actually, we don't want to end abortion. That is the consequence of what we really want to do. We want to value and recognize under the law the value of innocent unborn human beings.
http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2008/02/reducing-rather.html
STR allows us to post their articles in full