Posted on 06/06/2003 10:32:33 AM PDT by Cathryn Crawford
The Pro-Life Movement's Problem With Morality
Exclusive commentary by Cathryn Crawford
Jun 6, 2003
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.
But the empathy is a consequence, result, or effect that stems from the prior intellectual recognition of the fact and great value of human life -- and that's where logic comes in. For a psychopath who believes intellectually that life is evil, an abortion should give him the very same warm fuzzy feeling you are describing here. Or, say, for the Nazis who believed, irrationally, that Jews were evil or subhuman, murdering six million of them and turning them into lampshades (or whatever) was no big deal.
Personally, I would execute my daughter for bringing shame upon my family.
Abortion? My daughter is very lucky she was not born 2,000 years ago!
I believe that the world's major religions increase their number through proselytization (IIRC, Judaism does not, but the rest do). How is that anything but changing minds through moral example? Or do you want to argue that Jesus never changed anyone's mind without political lobbying?
Nobody's "root[ing] for cancer." It's simply a matter of recognizing that when a highly traumatic insult to a woman's body is performed, one which directly interferes with the most complex systems in her body and in effect shuts down those systems just when they are gearing up to do the work they are designed to do, it's quite logical to suspect that those systems, in this case the nutrition supply system in the breast, may have an increased likelihood of experiencing a fundamental breakdown, i.e., cancer.
Some evidence now suggests that that suspicion may have a basis in fact. Pro-lifers point this out as a warning in the hope of avoiding increased breast cancer rates. For pro-choice activists the convenience of baby killing takes precedence over statistically dubious (in their view) threats to the mother's health.
Stating that abortion is morally wrong is not logical?
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.
Is it sinful to murder? Yes. Will one go to hell for it ("it" being murder or any other sin)? Depends on whether or not one has accepted Christ as personal Saviour.
... 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.
Emphatically disagree.
Morality is the foundation of the pro-Life argument. It is because abortion is immoral that negative consequences follow.
Oh, there there. Let me give you a hug.
What am I doing with my hand? Oooo, nothing, just ignore that.
Sure, everyone humps peoples legs when they are comforting one another.
You need to slip out of all that restrictive, stress-causing clothing. Here, let me help...
Paterfamilias: The head of the family unit. His right to do as he pleased with the members of his family unit was rigidly protected by the laws of the Roman State.
Personally, I would execute my daughter for bringing shame upon my family.
Abortion? My daughter is very lucky she was not born 2,000 years ago!
Oh come on. Admit it.
Or I will sing "I'm Henry the Eighth I am" over and over again.
Amen.
Heretics and reprobates like you?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.