Erin Kotecki Vest is doing her best to live the words of Barack Obama into reality and search for common ground on abortion. To her credit, she begins with the very difficult step of confronting her own hatred. The problem in moving on from that is that if it were so easy, it would already have been done.
Abortion is simply not an easy subject to deal with while remaining calm and respectful to all comers. It is an issue that is chocked-full of emotion – a great deal of it being hatred. One side sees the other as condoning murder, and it’s just damned hard to get one’s head around the idea that a bunch of people advocating legalized murder can somehow be wonderful, rational, good people. The other side sees the first as being, as Vest puts it, “ignorant of science” and “naive.”
At least Vest is trying to rise above her gut-level reaction. But I think her call for civility is as naive in its fashion as anything from the pro-life side, and certainly it is as naive as President Obama saying we can find common ground on this. It is impossible.
“Abortion is murder” is a moral position that is absolute. It is no more open to debate than my stance against the use of torture or rape. Talk to any pro-choice person and say “abortion is murder” and the first thing they’ll have to do is challenge that frame of reference. It is simply impossible to discuss when murder – which I’ll define as “the intentional taking of a human life without justification” – is an appropriate action. It is, by definition, never justifiable.
We have other words to describe the taking of a human life with justification. Homocide. Manslaughter. “Abortion is murder” is not the same as saying “Abortion kills.” It is saying “Abortion is inexcusable.”
Consider that murder is possibly the single unifying crime throughout all history and civilizations. There is not a single instance where killing without justification has been acceptable (though I’ll willingly say that some civilizations accepted some bizarre justifications of homocide).
This inflexibility on the right has led to the left either being just as inflexible or in ignoring the argument. Obama’s position is basically that he ignores the foundation of the disagreement – that abortion is murder. So he sees the possibility of common ground. There is no shortage of people who will willingly meet every shout of “Abortion is murder” with their own shout “No, it isn’t!” Shouting sometimes makes us feel better, but it isn’t dialogue and it will never reach any resolution, much less common ground.
I do agree that we should try and be civil when we can. But we should also agree that there is a limit to everyone’s civility and when they are pushed beyond it, we should not see that as their argument being weak or as some sort of personal failing. It is nothing more than emotion overwhelming the more rational side of our being – and that is perfectly human and not weak or a failing of any kind. It can be, in some instances, a form of strength, but that is a discussion for another time.
Those of us who are not on the far right position of “Abortion is murder”, however, do need to find common ground, because outside of that extreme position, there is a long continuum of possible stances. One person might believe that abortion is justified only when the mother’s life is in imminent danger. Another might believe that it is acceptable if medical professionals can give a reasonable assurance that the mother’s life will be in the danger if the pregnancy is continued. Yet another might believe it is okay if the mother’s health will be permanently damaged if the pregnancy continues, even without a threat to her life. Still another can take the position that the mother’s mental health should also be considered. And, of course, there are some who would say that the women merely needs to want an abortion for its need to be proven.
There are, of course, an infinite number of shadings between each position. There is, perhaps, some room for common ground between some of them. Perhaps even a majority of them. This is why the latest Gallup poll on the issue finds some 75% of those polled support abortion in at least some circumstances, but 51% identified themselves as “pro-life.” Obviously, most Americans are not identifying themselves by the extreme in either position.
I believe that women have a right to have an abortion. But I also believe that every single right guaranteed to use by the Constitution and the government it creates has a limit. The debate is over where a woman’s right to an abortion ends. That’s an uncomfortable debate for anyone to have, but that is the basic crux of the argument. It is the issue upon which Roe was decided – when does a woman’s right to an abortion get overtaken by the government’s responsibility to defend human life?
In answering that question, I have to call on my own experience. I have a picture of my twin sons taken about twenty-four hours after the sperm penetrated the egg. There is no way to argue that those blastomeres were fully formed humans at the time. But no one can tell me that the awe I felt was over anything less than the life represented in that photo. I’m telling you, I became a Dad (again – I have older kids) when I looked at that picture. I even kissed that picture.
All four of those blastomeres implanted in my wife’s uterus. Only two made it through the entire pregnancy, though, and it was a close thing at that. They were born ten weeks early (normal gestation is forty weeks – so the little buns only made it through 3/4 of the baking). And we were incredibly lucky that no major medical complications were experienced by either mother or babies.
All four made it long enough to have a detectable heartbeat. Until one day when one of them didn’t. The emotions were intense. My wife and I cried. We prayed. We held each other. We got angry together. But, honestly, it simply wasn’t anything close to what I’d feel if I lost one of the twins tonight.
That left three. And it became very clear that my wife was not going to be able to carry all three to completion. The increased pressure caused one of them to leak fluid, and it would simply become worse as the pregnancy continued. It might be possible to have all three live through it – but the chances were greater that the one that was leaking would not make it and might cause a loss of all three. We could choose to loose one and save the other two or risk losing all three.
We chose to save the two we have. And we thank God every day that we have them. But our decision ended the life of one of what might have been triplets. We cried. We prayed. We held each other. We got angry that we would be in such a position as to make that call. But, in the end, we did what was best for our kids. Not all parents would have made the call we did, but that’s the point of choice. It was our call because it was our family at stake.
I think we made the right call. It wasn’t an easy thing, though. If I am wrong, and God holds it against us, then I can only hope that He will be as forgiving as is advertised. But I’ll say this – no one on earth should have had the right to impose their beliefs on that decision process.
I’ve also had the experience of talking to my daughter after she was drugged and raped. Should she take the morning after pill or not? Well, that’s entirely between her and me. But, again, no one on earth should have the right to come between the two of us when we were having that conversation. All I’ll say is that she now has one of the most beautiful babies on earth, and it was conceived in love (if not with intention). All babies should be as lucky as to have such a wonderful mother.
It doesn’t matter to me what percentage of abortions are represented by such circumstances. What matters to me is that my wife and my daughter both had proper medical access to give them a choice. They were not held hostage by their blind hormonal fertility. They weren’t shackled by the beliefs of someone who had never met them.
But understand this – any abortion conducted in such circumstances represents an abortion that should not be reduced. So, please, don’t tell me blindly that the number of abortions needs to be reduced. Don’t tell me that adoption and sex education will reduce the number of abortions. First of all, it is accessability of health care that determines the number of abortions, not potential adoptive parents (of which there are plenty) and not knowing where babies come from. Second of all, adoption and sex education – and social support for needy mothers – are socially desirable independent on some nebulous effect on the abortion rate.
There are more things undreamt of in our philosophies than we can capture in simplistic ideologies or in sound bites. While I don’t believe that abortion is murder, I do believe that it takes a life. But I believe there are times when it is acceptable to take a life. It’s a horrible thing, free will. That’s why Christianity offers salvation, and that is why I’m a Christian – because I need that salvation.
So, yes, let’s seek common ground. But let’s do it with a foundation built on the understanding that some compromises are not going to be made. Common ground has to be more than mere words in passing.
I\’m done with this now