Abortion: Pardon Me for Asking But…

Every one of my friends is pro-choice.

I have spent countless hours in the trenches discussing abortion with them. I have listened well. And yet I am confused.

I wonder how so many intelligent people can arrive at their pro-choice position with such seeming ease.^[1]According to the World Health Organization “around 73 million induced abortions take place worldwide each year. Six out of 10 (61%) of all unintended pregnancies, and 3 out of 10 (29%) of all … Continue reading

In their eyes, it’s a fairly simple matter and raising even questions about it elicits, at least, raised eyebrows and incredulous glares. (Some examples reside here, in the comments section.)

To my own eyes, the pro-choice position is a tenuous one. Its main premise seems to be centered on “a woman’s right to choose.”

But from here I have questions. (I’m a big believer in questions.) I’m sure this fact alone will for some justify their outward hostility. It doesn’t.

And I ask these questions with sincerity as over many years they have, despite my efforts to listen civilly, gone relatively unanswered. I should add that my questions are divorced from the Christian religion (I’m not a believer) and function as moral and ethical considerations.

• How is it that we talk so vigorously about the rights of the woman and yet so dismissively of the rights of the unborn? (We do agree that the occupant of the womb is more than an appendage or a polyp, right?)^[2]Christopher Hitchens, an atheist who was in favor of restricting abortion in most circumstances, said: “I put the question like this. You see a woman kicked in the stomach. Your instinct is … Continue reading
• How is it that we emphasize a “woman’s right to choose” when speaking of abortion but we don’t bring the same rigor to applying it (excepting cases of rape) to her right to choose (and refuse) sex? Isn’t that the most important and foundational choice here and thus the one on which we should place our moral focus? (Emphasis seems placed not on a woman’s actions per se but on providing an out clause via “a right” for the consequences of her actions.)
• Many people^[3]See Martha Nussbaum’s “What We Owe Our Fellow Animals” in The New York Review of Books, March 10, 2022. wish to expand rights to animals, including chimps and monkeys and elephants and dogs and parrots, under an emerging ethical theory known as “So Like Us.” If such laws were extended to animals, where then would that leave our position on rights for the unborn?
• We’re constantly told that pro-choice activists don’t take a cavalier attitude to the occupant of the womb. Why does there seem to be such a notable lack of dialogue about the occupant front and center in their discourse? (Consider our revulsion at the site of a woman being punched in the stomach; now consider the revulsion at the same act if we know she is pregnant.)
• Lastly sexual morality strikes a lot of people as a regressive phrase from the 1950s. (But people like Deshaun Watson and Trevor Bauer, Harvey Weinstein and Snoop Dogg remind us, I would hope, that sexual morality does matter.) How, if at all, has the federal legalization of abortion impacted our sexual morality? And is this merely a good thing?

At this point one may wonder about my own position on abortion. I’ll refrain from that for the moment. Worthwhile questions remain. Outrage is not a credible response. Civil comments below, however, may be.