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.
I once read that all pity is self pity. At the time I thought it was BS, but now I'm beginning to see that there might be some truth to it...
I disagree. Different people can be reached in different ways. And, although I'm not opposed to public display of aborted fetuses, I don't think young children should be exposed to them.
As for the private high school (a Catholic High School) in my hometown, the student body was and many of their parents were CINOs (Catholics in Name Only). They were pro-abortion, I mean pro-choice; and voted usually for Dims based on economic issues and because their parents and granddaddy voted Rat. That's why the Louisiana GOP is in trouble.
Do you mean to tell me that even after you told them that you were right and they were wrong, they still weren't persuaded? ;-)
Pro-life. Pro-lifer. Pro-life in America. These words are not in the dictionary, so what do they mean? Most people think they define a group of political operatives who also shout from the rooftops "I am a Conservative Christian Republican!" Most people would be wrong.
This is partly due to the fact that a considerable number of conservative Christian Republicans are pro-life.
True enough, a considerable number of conservative Christian Republicans are, in fact, 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.
Equally true, however, is the fact a surprising number of other political philosophies also consider themselves pro-life as well.
The pro-life movement is diverse with many divisions that include Democrats, gays, Lesbians,Feminists and Environmentalists. It is not a one party,one-group or one religion issue.
Thought you might be interested in a sample "Strunk and White" translation. Note I have merely rewritten some of your lead paragraphs. Remember, if you make assertions you may be required to produce, for example, a lesbian pro-life advocate as proof of the truth of your assertion.
Best regards,
Most excellent questions.
Ask yourself if you can envision scenarios where, logically speaking, it would be advantageous to kill innocent human life.
Then ask yourself if it would be moral to do so.
Computers work well with logic, human beings have an emotional component. To ignore that is to fight with one hand tied behind your back.
ProLife Ping!
If anyone wants on or off my ProLife Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
It's not false science either, in fact it is simply and uninformed opinion by somebody who has no "faith" in the mechanism known as natural selection.
Morality is a personal thing, and ethics is a legal matter. The only aspect of this that is even close to philospohical logic is ethics. It is legal. End of story.
Okay--here we go again...
Slavery once was legal. And morality is not a personal thing. It is based on logic. Ethics is dependent on morality.
The fact that abortion is legal shows you how disordered our society really is.
Killing another human being for whatever reason is never right and cannot be condoned. It's only logical that if one group is declared a non-person (arbitrarily) then other groups become vulnerable as well to the same treatment.
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.
I have been a part of the pro-life movement for half my life now. In that time I have I have never once witnessed anyone using this argument to convince women to avoid abortion or to convince the electorate to vote against it, much less use it as their primary line of argument. Not one person or message; not a single ad, editorial, speaker, politician, crisis pregancy volunteer, minister, or clinic protestor. I have not even heard this stuff from the sort of clinic protestors who stand in front of clinics with immense, grotesque photos of aborted fetuses. Never mind that the "go straight to hell" part of the argument is blatantly inconsistent with the Christian doctrine that you claim binds us to this argument.
I'm afraid that you have been suckered by the distorted image of the movement portrayed by the media of the Left as a bunch of sermonizing busybodies who have no interest in logical argument. Nothing is further from the truth.
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