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Salon: Yeah, abortion takes a human life. So what?
Hotair ^ | 01/24/2013 | MARY KATHARINE HAM

Posted on 01/24/2013 10:55:31 AM PST by SeekAndFind

I had an odd moment today reading this Salon piece because within it is a paragraph or two I could have written and probably have said a dozen times:

I have friends who have referred to their abortions in terms of “scraping out a bunch of cells” and then a few years later were exultant over the pregnancies that they unhesitatingly described in terms of “the baby” and “this kid.” I know women who have been relieved at their abortions and grieved over their miscarriages. Why can’t we agree that how they felt about their pregnancies was vastly different, but that it’s pretty silly to pretend that what was growing inside of them wasn’t the same? Fetuses aren’t selective like that. They don’t qualify as human life only if they’re intended to be born.

When we try to act like a pregnancy doesn’t involve human life, we wind up drawing stupid semantic lines in the sand: first trimester abortion vs. second trimester vs. late term, dancing around the issue trying to decide if there’s a single magic moment when a fetus becomes a person. Are you human only when you’re born? Only when you’re viable outside of the womb? Are you less of a human life when you look like a tadpole than when you can suck on your thumb?

This was the exact thought process that led me to the exact opposite position. I, too, noticed a distinction between how women approached an in-utero child when they wanted the child and how they felt about it when the pregnancy was unexpected and unwanted. Logically, it made no sense to me that the mother’s disposition should change the biological disposition of the baby. Therefore, it made no sense that it should change the ethics of the situation.

But Mary Elizabeth Williams goes a whole different direction, encouraging the pro-choice side to embrace the possibility that life begins at conception, which she imagines will allow them to gain some kind of lost rhetorical ground:

Of all the diabolically clever moves the anti-choice lobby has ever pulled, surely one of the greatest has been its consistent co-opting of the word “life.” Life! Who wants to argue with that? Who wants be on the side of … not-life? That’s why the language of those who support abortion has for so long been carefully couched in other terms. While opponents of abortion eagerly describe themselves as “pro-life,” the rest of us have had to scramble around with not nearly as big-ticket words like “choice” and “reproductive freedom.” The “life” conversation is often too thorny to even broach. Yet I know that throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice.

On one hand, I truly appreciate her honesty— both for its boldness in its literal brutality and in the same way I wish gun-control advocates would just say they want to ban all guns if they want to ban guns. Then at least we’re having an honest conversation. There’s a reason the pro-choice movement must euphemize itself to within an inch of its life— because many people don’t want to be on the side of not-life. In any other article, I’d assume “not-life” is a term meant to mock what pro-lifers believe of pro-choicers, but Williams offers such a clear argument on behalf of an actual not-life position, I’m not sure. At any rate, Williams dispenses with the euphemism, and gives us a look at a very different kind of pro-choice message— like an Honest Movie Trailer for left-leaning politicians. “So, abortion ends a life. So what? There are a lot of lives that aren’t very important.”

Speaking of drawing “stupid semantic lines” and “trying to decide if there’s a single magic moment when a fetus becomes a person,” doesn’t this position just require Williams to draw even more untenable lines where a life becomes important enough to save? That’s the argument Katrina Trinko makes:

By this same logic, isn’t infanticide also fine and dandy? After all, if we’re talking about autonomy, kids aren’t exactly independent as soon as they are born. No infant can take care of themselves. And even later on in childhood, children rely heavily on the adults in their life to provide shelter, food, and emotional support. What about kids and adults who become disabled in life? What about quadriplegics? They’re not going to be able to take care of themselves. Is it okay if we just off the lot of them? Heck, what about needy friends who seem to be falling apart unless we talk to them regularly and console them? Okay to just shoot a couple of them so that we don’t have the burden? Should we ship the grandparents that spent all their money and are now financially dependent on us to the local executioner?

Yes, if the fetus is a life — and a human being — and not a clump of cells, that makes a huge difference. No one would ask a woman to respect the rights of a clump of cells. But it is valid to ask her, difficult as it is to have an unwanted pregnancy, to realize that the death of the child — the child who was totally innocent and has done nothing except be conceived — is not an appropriate way to handle this.

So. What? I’ll hand it over to you guys.

Salon‘s on a roll today.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: abortion; salon
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1 posted on 01/24/2013 10:55:36 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

“What difference does it make?”


2 posted on 01/24/2013 10:58:19 AM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both)
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To: SeekAndFind; narses

3 posted on 01/24/2013 10:59:05 AM PST by KC_Lion (Build the America you want to live in at your address, and keep looking up.-Sarah Palin)
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To: SeekAndFind

Yeah, Sandy Hook took human lives. So what?


4 posted on 01/24/2013 11:02:21 AM PST by dforest
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To: SeekAndFind

Of this I am certain, there will be a day when each of us will be called upon to give an accounting of our life, what we said, what we wrote, and what we taught and urged others to do.


5 posted on 01/24/2013 11:02:45 AM PST by Obadiah (America is Babylon)
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To: SeekAndFind

Abortion is murder as defined by the killer.


6 posted on 01/24/2013 11:03:52 AM PST by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: SeekAndFind

>“So, abortion ends a life. So what? There are a lot of lives that aren’t very important.”<

Could there be any doubt that quote was written by a sociopath?


7 posted on 01/24/2013 11:08:05 AM PST by Darnright ("I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
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To: Obadiah

I agree with your thought, a thought which—in rare moments of Divinely granted sanity—causes my heart to tremble. Pride in me tries to make me think I’ll escape that accounting. “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?”


8 posted on 01/24/2013 11:11:12 AM PST by avenir (I'm pessimistic about man, but I'm optimistic about GOD!)
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To: Darnright

Really weird thought process.


9 posted on 01/24/2013 11:12:27 AM PST by Al_Bundy_jr
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To: avenir

Concur. It is a chilling thought.


10 posted on 01/24/2013 11:12:44 AM PST by Obadiah (America is Babylon)
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To: dforest
"Yeah, Sandy Hook took human lives. So what?"

There was an evil black rifle involved at Sandy Hook. That makes it much more important than the millions of lives lost to abortion... [/sarcasm]
11 posted on 01/24/2013 11:15:57 AM PST by Old Teufel Hunden
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To: SeekAndFind

and thus you understand why our Lord calls them blind. why they can hear truth, understand it, and deny it, as they deny God, in the very same breath.


12 posted on 01/24/2013 11:27:32 AM PST by dadfly
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To: Darnright
Everyone who engages in the currently legal practice of abortion is sociopathic.

Frightening isn't it ~ makes me want to hug my guns even tighter.

13 posted on 01/24/2013 11:29:29 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: SeekAndFind
Yes, the language is critical in this fight. And that is why I never use their euphemistic term “ pro-choice”. They are for abortion. Period. By calling them pro-choice you have ceded important ground.
14 posted on 01/24/2013 11:42:06 AM PST by Bainbridge
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To: SeekAndFind

hmmm....... yes, this lady is at least being honest, but her argument does indeed lead to the infamous slippery slope.
respect for life is the very basis of civilized society, protection of life is the govts. number one function, looks like we have some competing imperatives here.
this is a tough subject, as freedom loving people do not want to interfere in people’s personal lives; but what we have is govt. funding of abortion, tax breaks for abortion promoting orgs. a whole slew of problems.
now with ACA all of these problems will be exacerbated.


15 posted on 01/24/2013 11:44:57 AM PST by matrix1
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To: SeekAndFind

Pictures of the author required here ...


16 posted on 01/24/2013 11:59:33 AM PST by dartuser ("If you are ... what you were ... then you're not.")
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To: dartuser
Pictures of the author required here ...

Please, please, do not do this. I just ate lunch.

17 posted on 01/24/2013 12:23:39 PM PST by kosciusko51 (Enough of "Who is John Galt?" Who is Patrick Henry?)
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To: kosciusko51

Mary Katherine Ham ... ... google her ...


18 posted on 01/24/2013 12:26:28 PM PST by dartuser ("If you are ... what you were ... then you're not.")
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To: Darnright

I read the whole piece. Her and Dr. Mengle would be great buddies

The article is chilling in its admission. The true author of this is Satan himself of this I have no doubt. His time is short...


19 posted on 01/24/2013 12:27:40 PM PST by longfellowsmuse (last of the living nomads)
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To: dartuser

Sorry, I thought you were talking about the author of the Salon article, not the Hotair commentary...


20 posted on 01/24/2013 12:32:10 PM PST by kosciusko51 (Enough of "Who is John Galt?" Who is Patrick Henry?)
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