Some Thoughts on Abortion (and Responding To It)

This post is representative of many comments that I've seen lately in response to the murder of Dr. George Tiller. Naturally, this got me thinking about the alleged contradiction in the dominant "pro-life" position.

While my own still-developing view is likely to come out in what follows, my goal for this post is less to set forth my own view than to work through some of the thinking behind it. For the sake of simplicity, it oversimplifies some things and might not be as rigidly cohesive as I might otherwise try to make it. But I hope it will give you some food for thought; in fact, I hope you'll add any comments you might have: Does my reasoning work? Where does it go wrong? What possibilities or considerations would you add? In short, what do you think about the subject?

[Note that '(*1)' indicates footnote 1, etc.]

When it comes to the subject of abortion, the very first question to ask is this: What kind of thing is the unborn? The answer to this question influences everything that follows.

Why is this question important? Imagine a small child coming up behind you and asking, "[Your name], can I kill [or break] this?" How would you respond? Well, before you can answer the question properly, you have to know what "this" is. So you ask, "What is it?" and turn around to look. If it's a spider or a twig, you probably don't mind too much. But if it's the family dog or a fine china plate, you probably don't want it killed or broken.

So when we come to the question of removing a lump of cells from a woman's body and destroying it, we have to know just what that lump of cells is. If the unborn is of little or no value, then abortion is unproblematic. If the unborn has value in itself, then things become more complicated.

If the unborn is just a collection of cells in the mother's body--no different from an organ or tumor--then abortion is no worse than any other invasive surgery.

On the other hand, if the unborn is a human being, distinct from the mother, then abortion is killing. And not just any killing, but premeditated killing of a defenseless person (a good candidate for the word "murder").

Or as one slogan puts it: If the unborn is not human, no justification for abortion is necessary. If the unborn is human, no justification is sufficient (with the possible exception of saving the mother's life).

As I understand it, there are some pretty good scientific and philosophical reasons to think that the unborn is in fact a distinct human being (I might get into those in another post). But for the sake of examining the "pro-life" position, let's just grant that the unborn is a human being. What follows from that?

Well, as I said above, it follows that abortion is the killing of a defenseless human being. So now we have two moral values to consider: the mother's "bodily autonomy" and the child's right to life.(*1) Which is more important? That's a complex question, but let's assume (again for the sake of argument) that life has a greater moral value than bodily autonomy. It follows that the child's right to live is greater than the mother's right to do what she wants with her own body. And since the child hasn't done anything yet, it's hard to see how there could be moral or legal justification for killing it. If that's the case, then abortion is murder and aborters are murderers.

Which brings us to the present question: What should morally responsible people who recognize abortion as murder do about it? If it is indeed the case that millions of babies are murdered every year, do we have any moral obligation to stop it?

This gets us into yet another complicated issue, namely that of defense of others and of self. I'll try to represent the options accurately without going into too much detail.

The most straightforward approach is total pacifism: Violence is not acceptable in any circumstance whatsoever. For the pacifist, the only acceptable way to oppose abortion is "internally," by which I mean working within the society to make abortion illegal, unaccepted, and unnecessary. There might be any number of methods to achieve this, but violence is never among them.

At the other extreme is what I might call vigilante justice: Hurt or kill the would-be attackers before they can hurt or kill you. The "pro-life" vigilante sets out intentionally to kill anyone and everyone who performs abortions. For the sake of defending those who cannot defend themselves, anything goes. Such extremists might even kill or terrorize people seeking abortions, though that seems blatantly counterproductive.

And, of course, there are middle roads: For example, allowing violence in defending against imminent threats but not allowing preemptive attacks. Such an activist might seek to kill only those who perform late-term abortions, or doctors who are about to actually perform an abortion, along with working for internal change.

But moral-action judgments must always include pragmatic considerations. We don't want to feed the homeless rotten food or prevent AIDS with a flesh-eating vaccine. And if abortion is systematic murder, then the moral responsibility of "pro-lifers" is to end the "holocaust" as quickly and efficiently as possible.

If the goal is to prevent as many abortions as possible, then killing individual aborters could be one of the worst ways to achieve that goal. You might save several hundred babies (the ones that particular doctor would have killed) but condemn thousands more to death by "setting back" the work of making abortion illegal and unaccepted.

Even if you could coordinate a mass assassination of every aborter on the planet at once, new aborters would come along, and you'd have to kill them, too. More seriously, this would probably create an atmosphere of fear, anger, hatred, and vengeful desire that would have terrible but unpredictable repercussions. (Imagine armed bands roaming the streets, fighting with each other, the police, and the military.) The life of a child may be more valuable than the autonomy of a mother, but the long-term stability of society could be more important than the lives of millions of babies.(*2) In short, the evil caused by such an act could easily outweigh the good caused by preventing abortions.

Is killing abortionists good? No. Is it more justifiable than abortion itself? Perhaps. Speaking pragmatically (and therefore morally), are there better ways to end the "abortion holocaust"? Almost certainly.(*3)

C. S. Lewis said, "Let us never mistake necessary evils for goods." Taking the "big-picture" view may be the most pragmatically moral approach, but it doesn't do much to help the children that will be killed by abortion today. Perhaps in a fallen world, there are times when there are no "good" choices, only "less evil" ones. Would Jesus have killed Dr. Tiller? I don't know, but I doubt it. But then, God has a way of showing us the options, then giving us what we ask for and letting us deal with the consequences.

If abortion is the killing of an innocent human child, then it is wrong, and no amount of wickedness or ideological inconsistency on the part of "pro-lifers" can change that. But even if you believe that abortion is murder and that violence can be justified when defending the defenseless, it doesn't follow that you're obligated to engage in or condone the killing of abortionists.


--Footnotes--
*1: Of course, if the child is a distinct being, does the mother really have "bodily autonomy" over it?

*2: Though that is by no means obviously true. And even if it were, how many babies is social stability worth? 50? 500,000? 500 million?

*3: Greg Koukl presents the interesting analogy of military sabotage:

Professor Quotes: Spring 2009 Edition

In lieu of a more substantive post (none of which I have completed yet), here are some quotes for you to enjoy.

“If you torture the Bible long enough, it will confess to anything.”

“If you don’t have anything to say, at least look like you do.”

“What am I saying here? I’m not sure, but I’ll repeat it anyway.”

“Psychology continued to have physics envy.”

“If you’re alive in the Bee Gees sense, that’s a sufficient condition for being alive in the biological sense.”

“I am somewhat quirky, I admit that.”

“Let’s do our Lamaze training. We’re going to give birth to a thought here.”

“The only explanation is magic; but you cover the magic with the word ‘emergent,’ which is shorthand for magic without a magician.”

“I’ll loosen up if you’ll get engaged.”

“I’ve got somethin’ to say! Bundle theory!”

“Does anyone watch The Bachelor? It was unbelievable. I’m wondering if Jason has a mind.”

“This is so counterintuitive that you’ve just gotta listen to what I’m saying and not try to make sense of it.”

“And I said, ‘Well, something’s fuzzy!’”

“I love that water’s H2O.”


BONUS: Quotes from Philosophy of Science, Fall 2008

“The sooner you get behind, the more time you have to catch up.”

“Even in history they do research and testing!”

"Almost everything in contemporary science is a descendant of a non-science.”

“This was the way the guy taught! It was pedagogically inferior!”

“If you thought the odds were 1000:1 that you would ignite the atmosphere, would you go ahead with the experiment?”

“When we start asking questions about scientific problems, we quickly leave the realm of pure science; we get into economics and ethics, and that leads to politics.”

“A bumper sticker only philosophers could appreciate. It probably didn’t sell well.”

“Imagine you’re playing Twenty-One in Vegas. After all, you have to pay your tuition somehow.”

“The real reason that John didn’t become pregnant is not that he took his wife’s birth-control pills.”

“He’s deceased now. He knows better.”

“What was in his mind, that he made a ceramic statue of Michael Jackson and a monkey?”

“You have probably noticed that we have not yet been swallowed up by a black hole.”

“You can’t work on something at 270 degrees below zero.”

“It’s always nice to create existential angst.”

“Beavers can flourish.”

“I suppose every movement needs a propagandist, right?”

“Being a good Dutchman, he said, ‘There’s money to be made here.’”

“We have this image of Isaac Newton as the great scientist, and here he is, an Arian alchemist who puts darning needles in his eye.”

“Most Dutchmen are maligned. I’m a persecuted minority.”

“Let’s see if I can get this video working. It depends on how many undergrads are sharing large music files right now.”

“You get sent these things if you get on certain mailing lists.”

“Standing watching a sunset with your arm around your honey, you’re likely to be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.”

“I dunno if there will be lakes in heaven for you surfers or if there won’t be surfers in heaven. I’m inclined to believe the latter.”

“That’s a good question. And I’d like to answer it, really.”

“We don’t know exactly how salmon migration works. But there’s no reason to believe that there are salmon elves out there directing traffic.”

“I’m putting on my prophetic hat. You’ll notice it’s nonexistent.”

Taking the Plunge

Some decisions are relatively minor, while others change our lives forever. This is definitely one of the latter. I haven't said anything about it until now because, frankly, I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up (my own included).

Several of my friends took this step when they graduated from college, and some didn't even wait that long. Sure, there were a few holdouts, but our numbers have continued to dwindle as the years have passed.

And as I've watched my friends move into this new stage of their lives, I've thought to myself, "I'm not getting any younger, y'know." But I always had excuses for why I didn't do it: School was frantic, working took so much time, etc. ad nauseum. Maybe this just wasn't for me. I mean, Jesus didn't do it (despite certain radical claims to the contrary); would it really be so bad if I didn't, either? Why should I go along with the crowd?

But I was deluding myself. In my heart, I always knew that someday my time would come. The excuses would no longer be sufficient.

And so, dear friends, it is with a mixture of apprehension and excitement that I announce:

I'm getting a Facebook account.

Now, before you get too excited, realize that it'll take me some time to get things in order. But I will eventually get around to...what's the word? "Friending"? "Inviting"? Something like that. If you'd like to expedite the process, feel free to come after me (but note that I'll be using a Hotmail account, at least for now). As I enter this new stage of my journey, I look forward to sharing it with you.

Also, I will continue to update this blog, principally using it for the longer musings and paper-summaries that I really will be getting around to at some point this summer. But I know what it's like to be out of the Facebook Loop, so I won't neglect the occasional life-update post (and of course there's always email). We'll see if using Facebook motivates me to be more diligent in coming up with substantive posts. (Stop snickering! It could happen!)

See you in the 'Book. :-)