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.
Sorry about getting back to you so late, but I had a date with my young bride.
As Sir Winston Churchill once said "If you are not a liberal by the time you are 20 you haven't got a heart, but if you are not a conservative by the time you are 40 you haven't got a brain." For me it was a lot easier than that because my parents are died in the wool South Side Chicago Irish Catholic Democrats (that's a nationality if you don't know) and we lived in suburbs of mostly democratic strongholds like Chicago, Boston, NYC, Columbia SC and the MD suburbs of DC (where I still live today). I didn't even know what a republican was till I went to college.
I can tell you some funny stories about finding out who and what replicans and conservatives once I got to college but suffice to say, I was clueless. If my parents had only known what I was learning other than engineering, I don't think they would have let me go there.
The funny thing about a lot of older democrats like my parents is that they are in fact pretty conservative, but they simply can not bear the thought of voting for a republican. My family, including my parents, are quite friendly with the Kemps and yet parents still wouldn't vote for Jack Kemp. It was pretty irksome to me, but that's the way it is.
Anyways, the first thing I ever remeber watching on TV was JFK's funeral I was three at the time and I must have sensed how upset my parents were and I can rember thinking "How could they shoot the President?". How does a three year old know what a president is? I can only guess that my parents must have talked about him a lot.
I still have a glowing fondness for JFK in spite of all we now know about him, I believe that in the end JFK loved his country, something that can not be said about WJC. The democratic party has changed wildly in the last 40 years and has simply left folks like parents behind. I left the democratic party 25 years ago at the same time I left the Catholic Church. My parents still think it is just a phase, with the notion that you born Catholic and democrat. They have at least decided not talk about it anymore.
My inlaws are quite a different story and I spend more time with them than my parents for obvious reasons. My father in law has been involved in many christian campus organizations and is personal friend of Bill Bright (Campus Crusade) and the late Daws Troutman (who founded Navigators). Anyways that's it in a nutshell. Time for bed.
Regards,
Boiler Plate
Did you learn the word "sophistry" recently? You use it constantly. And incorrectly.
"Abortion IS linked to cancer."
That's in dispute.
"Logic by definition"
All of a sudden you're interested in definitions. Ok.. define murder.
"is reason or motive"
Logic is reasoning dealing with objective validity. It can be faulty or correct, but unlike "you're wrong" its ideas can be tested. I'm sorry that reasoning things out is so offensive to you, but it can still be used in arguments against abortion.
"and in this case for NOT doing something, if the motive or reason changes then by its virtue the logic changes…"
The details can change, yes. But logic can still be applied.
"Are you madg’s alter ego?"
If it makes you feel better after making a fool of yourself all day, then yes.
"Nice try, but thanks or playing anyway."
Another overused Clint phrase.
Why do you feel compelled to argue with and insult people who mostly agree with your basic position?
Must be my ADHD kicking in, the first couple of lines caught my eye and sent me down a slightly different sidetrack...
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.
Some days reading FR, you'd think that the three words "conservative Christian Republican" were inextricably tied together - and in the minds of some, they are. The question I'd have - and you might be able to use this as fodder for an article one day in the future - can one be conservative without being a Christian or a Republican? Can one be a Christian without being a Republican or even conservative? And so on....
I have my own ideas as to the answers to these questions, and I know there are those on the board whose opinions differ from mine. I think a discussion of this one day could be spirited and informative - if it didn't become mean-spirited and nasty!
Have a good day!
can one be conservative without being a Christian or a Republican?Yes, but it is less common.
Can one be a Christian without being a Republican or even conservative?Yes. But let me add a question of my own:
Can one be a Democrat and a Christian?And my answer is yes, but only if you don't care about most Christian edicts; if one is a Christian in Name Only.
One more.
Can one be a Democrat and a conservative?Sure, but only if you want to have almost nothing at all in common with your entire party.
I know what you mean about the conservative Christian Republicans. It's quite possible to be one or more combinations of the three - or to throw in something altogether different. They don't necessarily always go together. A lot of times they do go together - so that's why I used that catch-phrase of sorts for this article.
I hope you're doing well.
Given that, I won't bother to mention that there are thousands of adoptive parents on waiting lists for infants just like those you advocate killing in their mother's wombs. Have a nice day.
America is not the world. It's not even 10% of the world. As far as ethics being a legal issue, you need to include group resolutions in the general category. The various bar associations, medical associations, who knows, maybe unions, too, decide what is ethical in their own group. Ethics is how those with some public responsibility are expected to behave in their position. Morality is personal conduct.
There are my definitions, and we ARE still working on definitions.
This is technology making the argument that the "thing" in the womb is a baby. The fact that we can image the baby persuades women that it is a baby, a logical argument.
The next logical step in that argument is that Mom and Dad understand that to dismember that baby is morally wrong because it is a baby.
And that's how we're winning the war.
That's incredible. It's very powerful. Good job.
The point is, laws can be immoral. Legality has nothing to do with morality.
And by stating that morality is personal, why, you are buying into the "truth is relative" thinking. Maybe you don't realize that and maybe you do.
The Ten Commandments formed the basis of the Jewish community. Those laws were strong underpinnings which helped the people keep their identity. This is because they were and are logical.
You haven't refuted my comment regarding ethics being based on morality. True enough they are decided by groups but are derived from morality.
Morality is not simply personal conduct. Nations can be characterized as moral or immoral depending upon their laws as well as conformance to those laws.
We do have such a thing as consciences. The Bible explains that man has the law written in his heart. You can accept that or not. The point is, in big things even without teaching we know basically when we have done something right or wrong.
Besides the feeling of guilt, there are often material consequences to a bad act.
Well, I've gone farther in the discussion than I planned. I apologize for the bold words. Think of them only for emphasis.
Sorry, that was probably a bad topic to even mention on a thread that is going fine so far. I should have thought about what might happen if too many people started to comment on that.
It's quite possible to be one or more combinations of the three....
I think so too, but there are those who disagree.
I hope you're doing well.
Fine, thanks. Hope you are also.
I dunno. We're here for discussion, among other things. Like, for example, has anybody alive actually read that most famous Harriet Beecher Stowe book? It's full of symbols in common use today, yet who knows from their own reading what the symbols originally meant? It's a little off topic, which roughly is the nature of the relationship between morality and reason, but FR threads commonly branch off. A branch off into the nature of property wouldn't be a huge stretch.
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