Respectfully Critiquing Anti-Abortion Activism

By Caleb R. Newton

As a rule, I do not support abortion.

    Abortion is defined by Oxford Dictionaries as “the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.” In the United States, abortion is probably the most politically paralyzing topic in the arena, with a violent line drawn between the Democratic Party’s support and the Republican Party’s opposition to the practice.

    Apparently in Europe and across the rest of the world abortion is not so much of an issue. I would attribute this quite simply to the different health care systems in those nations, wherein abortions are much more easily available than in the wreck of a healthcare system possessed by the United States.

    Still, the issue simmers under the surface, and in America it is far past boiled over. My addition to the discussion is a critique on the anti-abortion, also known as prolife, movement. As I see it, their efforts are unnecessarily extravagant and confrontational. As a rule, I do not support abortion. The only problem I have is with the methods of the prolife movement, and the main reason for this critique is that focusing on outlawing the practice of abortion does not address the underlying societal problems of wrecked families that are undebatable.

    In many, many cases abortions are undertaken upon persons who are of low income. In America, the overwhelming majority of abortions are among young and poor persons, who struggle to sustain their own lives, let alone that of their potential children. These people struggle to have basic value in their lives, and, as such, they rarely extend any such value to yet unborn lives.

    With such a situation, outlawing the practice of abortion is an unsustainable short term solution to the deep moral problem faced by the lack of value in the lives of the people receiving the abortions. It only, in a way, addresses the symptoms, while it does not address the actual sickness. Addressing the actual sickness would mean resetting the system to be individual focused and therefore deliver value to the people who are seeking out abortions.

    Another point that I must make, and that is, incidentally, seconded by Jewish law, is that, without denying the status of the unborn person as alive, one must recognize that the unborn person is not the same as a person who has already been born. Therefore, the degree of calamity that comes with an abortion is not the same degree that comes with a mass murder, at least from a governmental and societal standpoint.

    That being said, I do not believe that the government should have any comment on the practice of abortion at all. It should not be illegal, simply on account of the limitations of the government. Attacking the practice should be done by, again, providing value to the lives of the people of the place.

    An important additional note is that neither should the practice be encouraged by entities such as the global group Planned Parenthood, which provides “reproductive health services,” being directly given public funding as they are in the United States. That is a clear case of big money in politics that will do nothing but protect its own self-interest to the exclusion of the self-interest of everyone else. Therefore, an important step towards the repeatedly mentioned systematic resetting is the removal of such big money from the political arena, which I wholeheartedly support and am happy to see a movement towards accomplishing in the United States of late.

    My perspective, then, is that the government should have no comment on the practice of abortion. Social conservatives who oppose abortion must unite with social libertarians who support abortion under the heading of, as previously mentioned, resetting the society to be away from its deeply embedded institutionalism and towards the deliverance of value for individuals. Then and only then will real progress be possible towards the resolution of societal conflict surrounding the issue. The conflict as it is now is an overly politicized smoke screen used to avoid discussing real issues.

    I conclude this discussion with a quote that summarizes the points herein quite well.

"I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is." - Sister Joan Chittister

Nota Bene: the views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Dissecting Society. Furthermore, we invite you to read the US Facts on Abortion for your personal assessment. 

(Image: 12 Week Foetus in the Mother's Womb - Wikipedia)