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.
What do you mean by that, exactly, when it comes to this issue?
As I said at #194:
--- the moral 'logic' that must be used is that of our constitutional due process; --- under this cold logic an unviable baby is not yet a legal person, as it is an inseparable part of its mother.
Thus, abortion cannot be prosecuted as murder until the viablity of the baby is established in a court, before a jury..
- Granted, these are cold hard legal facts, but until someone comes up with a better solution to this moral dilemma, we will have to learn to live with it.
194 -tpaine-
Far too many people in the US of A simply have no clue on what our constitution is all about, morally, or legally..
Naturalized citizens have to pass a simple test on the subject. I think the test should be greatly enlarged and be required in order to vote.
You're right, Mickey would have been a lot tougher.
That's about judging whether some will or will not go to hell, a decision only God can make.
But thank you for playing.
She FELL ASLEEP??? More like pass out from the most intense pain you will ever feel in your life...
I'm pretty ambivalent about that. The whole concept just fills me with ennui.
1. The baby in the womb is alive and meets all the medical and scientific terms of life.
2. The baby in the womb it is human, to argue otherwise is as stupid and illogical as to argue that the moon is made of green cheese.
3. The word "fetus" is a Latin word for child. It is not a medical term for an unborn blob of tissue.
4. To abort it requires that you kill it. If you kill a fetus you kill a child.
5. The intentional killing of a human with forethought and a completele disregard for life is 1st degree murder.
6. The Constitution protects the unborn. Just read it. right there at the top.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
7. Our posterity are those yet to be born. Therefore they have constitutional protection under the 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, and 14th Amendments.
So, logically, killing an unborn baby is both illegal and unconstitutional.
ROFL!!!
Unless you are actually sleeping.
Hyperboly becomes you, in fact you’ve been taking nearly all of my posts out of context. What was that about not being rude to get your point across? Now just stop being a hypocrite and try a rational accusation for once, OK?
So you think it's OK to punish the victim of the crime instead of the criminal? Or, punish the child along with the criminal? We don't do that with other crimes, why is rape different?
2. Pregnancy by incest.
Again, do you think punishing the innocent child rather than, or along with, the perpetrator of the crime is OK? Guilt isn't an inherited trait, you have to aquire it yourself, and an unborn child isn't capable of doing that.
3. Life/Death health situation for the mother in question
OK, we have a point of agreement here.
My only problem with making, or rather keeping, that procedure legal is this; who decides when the mother's life is truly at stake, the doctor who wants to abort the baby for a profitable fee? The staff of the hospital which also stands to recieve a hefty payment for the procedure? A panel consisting of all parties who have a financial and/or idiological interest in the abortion being performed? The mother or her family who may not want the baby under any circumstances?
If a satisfactory solution to those questions can be worked out, I'm OK with abortion to save the mother's life. But I don't trust any committed pro-abortionists, be they doctors or others, to be honest and truthful in any such case if they are involved in the decision. Call me a skeptic. Or call me Moe, I answer to either name.
I figgered....In my youth I was proud of being a bitch, but I got lazy...
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