Posted on 08/03/2003 9:55:20 AM PDT by Bob J
"The Pro-Life Movement's Problem With Morality"
Commentary by Cathryn Crawford
Making claim to being pro-life in America is like shouting, “I’m a conservative Christian Republican!” from your rooftop. This is partly due to the fact that a considerable number of conservative Christian Republicans are pro-life. It’s hardly true, however, to say that they are the only pro-life people in America. Surprisingly enough to some, there are many different divisions within the pro-life movement, including Democrats, gays, lesbians, feminists, and environmentalists. It is not a one-party or one-group or one-religion issue.
The pro-life movement doesn’t act like it, though. Consistently, over and over throughout the last 30 years, the pro-lifers have depended solely on moral arguments to win the debate of life over choice. You can believe that abortion is morally wrong, yes, and at the appropriate moment, appealing to the emotions can be effective, but too much time is spent on arguing about why abortion is wrong morally instead of why abortion is wrong logically. We have real people of all walks of life in America – Christians, yes, but also non-Christians, atheists, Muslims, agnostics, hedonists, narcissists - and it’s foolish and ineffective for the pro-life movement to only use the morality argument to people who don’t share their morals. It’s shortsighted and it’s also absolutely pointless.
It is relatively easy to convince a person who shares your morals of a point of view – you simply appeal to whatever brand of morality that binds the two of you together. However, when you are confronted with someone that you completely disagree with on every point, to what can you turn to find common ground? There is only one place to go, one thing that we all have in common – and that is our shared instinct to protect ourselves, our humanness.
It seems that the mainstream religious pro-life movement is not so clear when it comes to reasons not to have an abortion beyond the basic arguments that it’s a sin and you’ll go straight to hell. Too much time is spent on the consequences of abortion and not enough time is spent convincing people why they shouldn’t have one in the first place.
What about the increased risk of breast cancer in women who have abortions? Why don’t we hear more about that? What about the risk of complications later in life with other pregnancies? You have to research to even find something mentioned about any of this. The pro-life movement should be front and center, shouting the statistics to the world. Instead, they use Biblical quotes and morality to argue their point.
Don’t get me wrong; morality has its place. However, the average Joe who doesn’t really know much about the pro-life movement - and doesn’t really care too much for the obnoxious neighbor who’s always preaching at him to go to church and stop drinking - may not be too open to a religious sort of editorial written by a minister concerning abortion. He’d rather listen to those easy going pro-abortion people – they appeal more to the general moral apathy that he so often feels.
Tell him that his little girl has a high chance of suffering from a serious infection or a perforated uterus due to a botched abortion, however, and he’ll take a bit more notice. Tell him that he’s likely to suffer sexual side effects from the mental trauma of his own child being aborted and he’ll take even more notice. But these aren’t topics that are typically discussed by the local right-to-life chapters.
It isn’t that the religious right is wrong. However, it boils down to one question: Do they wish to be loudly moral or quietly winning?
It is so essential that the right-to-life movement in America galvanize behind the idea the logic, not morality, will be what wins the day in this fight, because sometimes, despite the rightness of the intentions, morality has to be left out of the game. Morality doesn’t bind everyone together. The only thing that does that is humanness and the logic of protecting ourselves; and that is what has to be appealed to if we are going to make a difference in the fight to lessen and eventually eliminate abortion.
Cathryn Crawford is a student from Texas. She can be reached at feedback@washingtondispatch.com.
Intelligent people are allowed to couch things in religious terms, and still be taken seriously.
Einstein said, "God does not play dice."
Does his "choice," to use religious terms*, mean we should discount all his "scientific" ideas?
Nonetheless, I think the idea that abortion is a "religious" issue has been promoted, as a ploy, by the pro-death crowd since the 1970's.
By using that argument, the pro-deathers were able to accuse pro-lifers of trying to force their religious beliefs on others. They could argue that there should be no discussion of the abortion issue by anyone who was religious (even in the least degree).
By deliberately placing the anti-abortion stance in the religious realm, pro-deathers could allude to "separation of Church and State" to effectively squelch opposition.
The ploy was very effective.
*Einstein also said, "Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."
and "All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree." and"Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God."
Do Christians have the right to call on other Christians and non-Christians who have a sense of moral decency to stop what they believe is murder? Should they not call on those doctors of the Christian faiths to stop doing these acts and point out their inconstancy with their faith?
You are sure that there are a lot of pro-lifers in the democrat part? Have you watched the senate confirmation hearing lately?
So when will I see the gays for life movement? Or the lesbians for motherhood movement? Why are these groups not speaking out?
BTW, do you think the article strenghtens or weakens the pro-life position? If I recall correctly, many posters (including myself) disagreed with its premises.
Perhaps you should ask Ms. Crawford exactly what grade she is in. I presumed she was a freshman.
They have.
Murder of an innocent human is wrong. (A generally agreed upon principal.)
The child is human. (Humans never give birth to anything but humans)
The child is alive. (Consult any dictionary)
The child is innocent. (A generally agreed upon principal.)
So to kill it would be wrong.
How much more logical can you get?
1. I don't know that the pro-life movement is failing at all. The polls I have seen show opposition to abortion except in rare instances is increasing. So maybe the pro-lifers are effective.
2. What's this about the pro-choicers being "easy going pro-abortion people"? Nonsense. The pro-abortion people are the biggest bigots and nut-cases out there. The pro-lifers are much nicer people in general.
3. If your reason to oppose abortion is based on the latest Guttmacher Institute study showing marginally higher uterine infection rates after abortion, then you are only one skewed study away from losing your "logical" reason for opposing abortion. It is wise to base opposition to abortion in moral terms because it takes the debate out of the devil's playing field into God's. That's not to say that you can't mention things like higher infections, sterility, higher suicide rates, etc. but this should never be the sole or even primary reason for opposing abortions.
One of my favorite "logical" reasons against abortion is that after the first trimester you are more likely to die from the abortion than the preganancy. Therefore if the feminists really are concerned with life (and they're not), they should back laws forbidding abortion after the first trimester.
Overall imho, this poster has some interesting points but misses the main point of the abortion debate.
Arguments framed in terms of morality are great for persuading others who share our moral views and who are therefore more or less predisposed to agree with us anyway. Much of the time, though, “preaching to the choir” just doesn’t gain enough supporters to carry the day.
And the reality is that it’s next to impossible, by repetitive recitation of our moral views alone, to persuade those people who do not themselves share those views. Attempting to pummel people or trying to shame them into “agreement” is usually a complete (and very ugly) waste of time and energy. Like you say, it becomes necessary at that point to find some other common ground (like logic and reason) upon which an appeal to those particular people can be based.
Another great column, Cathryn. Keep up the good work. ;-)
Wasn't this article posted by the nineteen-year-old writer herself a few months ago…
Come on , twice is OK, encourage young conservatives. If 19 year olds can fight our wars, they can write articles. Just don’t let them drink. :>)
I admit though, the idea that morality is to be left out of the issue, doesn’t work, it is the issue. “Protecting ourselves” (from overpopulation) is the logic of China.
1. It's a state issue by the 10th amendment. Roe V Wade needs to be toast.
2. The most important libertarian issue resonates with use of force. Once force is initiated against another human being, then it's an issue that governemnt can get involved in on the state and local levels.
3. If I had my way, I'd like to see 50 states passing laws opposing abortion.
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