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| | | Like Stack, Roeder became affiliated with a group whose message misled him (perhaps coincidentally, Roeder also attempted to avoid paying his taxes on Constitutional grounds). Demonizing Roeder for Tiller’s death absolves more moderate pro-life activists of responsibility. Pro-lifers argue that abortion is murder, but the word “murder” is left undefined. A woman that conspired with a doctor to murder her five-year-old would be universally condemned, but even most pro-lifers are unsure how to punish a woman that elects to have an abortion. This is because even the pro-lifers’ conception of abortion’s immorality cannot keep pace with the direness of their rhetoric. The average pro-life stance rests on a sentimental conception of fetuses, distrust of female sexual autonomy, and perhaps a little religious fervor. This translates to a general feeling that abortion is wrong, but, it does not carry most pro-lifers to the conclusion that women that seek abortions should receive a jail sentence, let alone that their doctors should be executed. However, Roeder took the message at face value and carried out the justice that the law could not. Instead of stigmatizing Roeder as a criminal anomaly and allowing moderate pro-lifers to distance themselves from his actions, we should recognize how similar his beliefs are to the mainstream movement. If pro-lifers cannot wholly endorse Roeder’s actions, they need to abandon the dramatic rhetoric that declares that abortion is murder. Absent this rationale, pro-lifers will be forced to examine what truly motivates their beliefs. | |
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< | Of course, some pro-lifers that wholly believe the abortion-is-murder message express their feelings through less violent channels. Recently, a seventeen-year-old paid a man $150 to beat her because she wanted a miscarriage. Instead of inquiring into the circumstances that made this girl feel that soliciting a beating from a stranger was her best option, many were outraged that there was no law that could convict her. This month, that was remedied when the governor of Utah signed a bill that allows pregnant women who arrange illegal abortions to be charged with homicide.
Perhaps the woman that inspired this bill was a selfish sadomasochist that enjoyed her fetus’s suffering. However, it is more likely that, unable to secure the parental consent that is required in Utah, she elected to terminate her pregnancy in the most effective way possible. If the legislature was truly concerned with fetal suffering, it would repeal the parental consent law so that teenagers could receive safe, timely abortions. However, instead of recognizing their own culpability, the legislature threw up their hands and blamed it on the devil, assuming that the woman was motivated by sadism when a principled inquiry would most likely indicate a person desperate to overcome state-sanctioned barriers to abortion. | >
> | This argument would be more effective if it acknowledged that Dr Tiller's practice was especially controversial because he performed legal late-term abortions, including ones using surgical techniques that are readily sensationalized into depictions of something that most human beings recognize as homicide. | | | | |
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< | Perhaps it seems indefensible to value the ephemeral positive qualities of a particular person when the cold number of his body count haunts the background, but to love anything is to compartmentalize. I love my friends despite their obnoxious habits; I love certain sixteenth century authors despite the occasional bigotry in their work. I even love my collection of shoes, which tear up my feet and haven’t yet acquired the sentience to appreciate my affection. If I refused to associate with anything but that which is morally pristine, I would have to disown my friends, gut my library and wear only sensible flats. Most people, I’m sure, engage in similar balancing acts. Surely we could afford to extend this courtesy to people caught in complex situations and in more dire need of our understanding. | >
> | Of course, some pro-lifers that wholly believe the abortion-is-murder message express their feelings through less violent channels. Recently, a seventeen-year-old paid a man $150 to beat her because she wanted a miscarriage. Instead of inquiring into the circumstances that made this girl feel that soliciting a beating from a stranger was her best option, many were outraged that there was no law that could convict her. This month, that was remedied when the governor of Utah signed a bill that allows pregnant women who arrange illegal abortions to be charged with homicide. | | | | |
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> | Perhaps the woman that inspired this bill was a selfish sadomasochist that enjoyed her fetus’s suffering. However, it is more likely that, unable to secure the parental consent that is required in Utah, she elected to terminate her pregnancy in the most effective way possible. | | | | |
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> | Not, as you know, a
particularly safe or effective method of securing abortion.
Perhaps you mean to say in the only way her desperation suggested to
her.
If the legislature was truly concerned with fetal suffering, it would repeal the parental consent law so that teenagers could receive safe, timely abortions.
That doesn't follow, any
more than it would follow to say that everyone concerned with
end-of-life suffering should therefore want to repeal laws against
euthanasia. This assertion is an attempt to go around all the
obvious objections, and it obviously doesn't
work.
However, instead of recognizing their own culpability, the legislature threw up their hands and blamed it on the devil, assuming that the woman was motivated by sadism when a principled inquiry would most likely indicate a person desperate to overcome state-sanctioned barriers to abortion.
That's not in the
record, and it isn't likely to be true. The legislature of a
Mormon-majority province is likely to regard all killing of unborn
children as a culpable act, which should be forcefully deterred.
That may indeed be a position that takes strong support from shared
religious belief. But unless it is a proposition so general as to be
universally applicable, such that the legislature is also blaming the
devil when it criminalizes especially reckless driving, or negligent
homicide—in which case it has nearly no explanatory
value—the statement here, which supposedly rests on an
assertion about what the legislature thought a particular
individual's motives were as a basis for passing a general
prospective statute, is hard if not impossible to defend.
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> | Perhaps it seems indefensible to value the ephemeral positive qualities of a particular person when the cold number of his body count haunts the background, but to love anything is to compartmentalize. I love my friends despite their obnoxious habits; I love certain sixteenth century authors despite the occasional bigotry in their work. I even love my collection of shoes, which tear up my feet and haven’t yet acquired the sentience to appreciate my affection. If I refused to associate with anything but that which is morally pristine, I would have to disown my friends, gut my library and wear only sensible flats. Most people, I’m sure, engage in similar balancing acts. Surely we could afford to extend this courtesy to people caught in complex situations and in more dire need of our understanding. | | | | |
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> | In the end, despite the
disclaimers, the essay is solidly in the vein of "tout comprendre,
c'est tout pardonner." Whether it is rhetorically wise to discuss if
abortion is murder in an essay that concludes with a digression on
your "love" for shoes I leave to your better editorial judgment. In
a more general sense, I think it is important to be careful not to
trivialize. The claim at the bottom of this, as of most similar
arguments, is that we understand others' human situations too
shallowly, and impose judgment hastily and callously as a result.
(This is not quite the same as the Christian semi-belief that those
who have sinned should not be quick to cast stones at other sinners.)
Such an argument is fatally undercut by any sign of shallowness or
levity of judgment in its own rhetoric. | | | \ No newline at end of file |
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