Josh Kolic’s Beef with Free Speech

Wow. Josh Kolic, Lakehead University Student Union’s VP Finance, really has it in for pro-life clubs. Clarissa posted the NCLN press release on Friday, and Josh appeared in the comments calling the Lakehead pro-life group an “extremist” organization.

You know your argument is solid when all you can do is call your opponents “extremists.”

That same day, Kolic wrote an open letter to Lakehead students trying to garner support for his crusade. It’s hard to know where to begin, so we’ll take it from the start.

In a great victory for human rights on this campus, Life Support was denied club status in our first board meeting this year.

In other words, assuming what needs to be proven and glossing over the very centre of the debate — are the unborn human? Kolic clearly isn’t studying biology.

Sadly, a contingent of board members has continued to openly meet with Life Support members and is attempting to have that decision overturned. It is believed that these members are acting in the interest of an interest group and not in the interests of the student body as a whole.

It is believed… by whom?

I believe that Lakehead University is a campus that values human rights.

Oh, by Josh. Right. So, only board members who agree with Kolic are acting in the interest of the student body as a whole. Other board members, other student representatives, don’t represent students. Only Josh does. Because students value human rights, as Kolic selectively defines them — not including the right to life of unborn human beings, or a right to free speech of Lakehead students (or board members…).

Nice use of the passive voice. Almost had me there.

As your Vice President Finance, I met with members of Life Support in early October and suggested to them that if they truly wanted to represent “pro-life” values that they would perhaps be better served advocating for increased programs for expectant mothers on this campus or increased funding for child care services on campus rather than simply maintain an anti-choice stance by denigrating those who believe in a woman’s right to choose. The group turned down my proposal. Almost immediately.

As VP Finance, Kolic believes that he has the right to set the agenda of student clubs, and ignore the fact that many of the pro-life organizations that Life Support is connected with are doing those very things.

Kolic: If I can’t run your group, then you won’t be recognized.

I find it interesting that while Life Support refuses to change its aggressive and exclusive focus, not a single group that favours the pro-choice option ever advocates exclusively for women to have abortions. This statement might seem somewhat ridiculous in that I’m simply pointing out the obvious, but it is very telling in terms of the tactics that Life Support continues to employ. In fact, the neutral stance is simply one that allows the individual woman herself to choose. This stance is the one that I believe LUSU should advocate and certainly the one that I believe that you as a student body would advocate for as well.

At least he’s not shy about it. This isn’t about being “neutral” or even about respecting the LUSU constitution. It’s about pushing a pro-choice perspective onto the entire university through the student union. Board members and students who disagree? Well, they don’t count — Josh knows what the student body believes.

What an exemplary representative of the student body.

As your elected representative, I believe that you as a student body agree that a woman has a right to make decisions regarding her body. I believe that we as a student body agree with the BC Supreme Court that the existence of groups such as Life Support violate the rights of students on campus. It was once said in this country that the state has no place in the bedrooms of this nation. I also contend that the state has no place within a woman’s body. Neither does a student union club.

The state has no place in the bedroom… except when it involves tax dollars. The state has no place within a woman’s body, yet it’s apparently not okay to talk about the body inside a woman’s body that the state routinely facilitates the destruction of. The student union club should agree with Kolic’s politics if it wants to be recognized.

This isn’t the voice of a responsible representative of the student body, seeking to respect the LUSU constitution and treat all students justly. This is a renegade activist abusing his position of responsibility to force his own political views and sense of morality on the student body.

“Don’t impose your morality on others!” Oh, wait…

I would ask all of you who support a woman’s right to choose [choose what?] to come to our next board meeting and – as the Life Support group has done – give a deputation to the board as to why a woman’s right to choose [choose what?] is important to you.

It’s not about whether or not the group has a right to exist. It’s about whether or not people who don’t like the group can be loud enough to abuse the LUSU and shut Life Support out.

I implore you to help restore democracy and the spirit of human rights to the Lakehead University Student Union.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry. Lost it for a second.

Someone want to send Kolic a treatise on freedom of speech and democracy? Or a biology textbook? According to NCLN, Josh admitted at the Nov 5th meeting that they were in violation of their own constitution. He’s using his position of responsibility as a student representative and his ignorance of the pro-life position to hijack the LUSU and force his own political views onto the campus. Now, he has the gall to invoke ideals of democracy?

Seriously, Josh, I’m sure you’re a nice guy. Please, stop embarrassing yourself.

Stupak Amendment — If “Reproductive Health” Folks Are Mad, It’s Gotta Be Good

I haven’t been able to keep up with the latest developments in American Health Care reform. I know the bill passed through congress the House of Representatives, which is the furthest that American health care reform has even gotten, but it still needs to go through the Senate.

But I also know that the Stupak amendment passed. It must be a great thing for us anti-choicers, because the folks at feministing.com are pissed (and using lots of colourful language). Ann writes:

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that, last night, the House passed a health-care reform bill. I got this lovely email from Barack Obama telling me what a victory this is.
[...]
I think I made pretty damn clear (as did Obama, in several speeches during the campaign) that reproductive health care is essential health care.

So what the FUCK is this Stupak amendment doing attached to the health-reform bill? You know, that amendment that takes away women’s access to health care?

What?! Removing women’s access to health care?! That’s horrible! What kind of health care are women being denied?!

It reads:

The amendment will prohibit federal funds for abortion services in the public option. It also prohibits individuals who receive affordability credits from purchasing a plan that provides elective abortions. However, it allows individuals, both who receive affordability credits and who do not, to separately purchase with their own funds plans that cover elective abortions. It also clarifies that private plans may still offer elective abortions.

THIS IS FUCKED.

By health care she meant… abortion. Sounds healthy.

This has me so incredibly infuriated because it further segregates abortion as something different, off the menu of regular health care. It is a huge backward step in the battle to convey — not just politically, but to women in their everyday lives — that reproductive health care is normal and necessary, and must be there if (or, more accurately, when) you need it.

Abortion, different from regular health care? Yeah, that sounds like a terrible mistake, because other regular health care routinely involves the intentional killing of innocent human life. Oh, wait…

Sarcasm aside, this is the absolute centre of the cultural divide: is it health care to provide someone with death?

To use the euphemism of “reproductive health” to refer to abortion is profoundly deceptive. Not surprisingly, it’s controversial to refer to killing as healthy.

I think killing is a pretty lousy way of caring.

Now, I’ve read elsewhere (glancing at headlines and skimming posts, can’t remember where) that the U.S. Catholic Bishops welcome the Stupak amendment and are quite happy with it, but still may not be satisfied with the state of the bill in general (don’t quote me on that, check it out yourself if you want to be sure!). I mention them only because, unlike many pro-life Republicans, the Bishops tend to want universal health care while still being strongly opposed to taxpayer funding of abortions. If they’re not satisfied, it’s because of abortion.

I was going to end the post here. But in reviewing it, I noticed an astounding line I glazed over at first:

Reproductive health care is normal and necessary, and must be there if (or, more accurately, when) you need it.

Wow. Is Ann trying to say that unwanted pregnancies and abortion are inevitable for women? I’d love to hear that explained…

Abortion Debate at the University of Victoria

Hey, not all Canadian universities are terrified of free speech on abortion!

The pro-life club at the University of Victoria hosted the debate between Stephanie Gray of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform and Dr. Eike-Henner Kluge, philosophy professor and bioethicist. LifeSiteNews.com has a good overview.

(Why does the pro-choice side always seem to need a bioethicist to apply abstract philosophical arguments about personhood?)

The debate is online in 10 parts.

Planned Parenthood Director Quits After Seeing Abortion Ultrasound

Ouch.

(For Planned Parenthood, that is.)

Charges Dropped Against Calgary Pro-Life Students

Well, this is a huge positive end to the University of Calgary trespassing story. From NCLN:

November 3rd, 2009: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CROWN STAYS CHARGES AGAINST CALGARY PRO-LIFE STUDENTS

CALGARY ­ The trespassing charges laid against six members of Campus Pro-Life at the University of Calgary have been stayed by the Crown Prosecutor, effectively meaning that the charges have ended.

The group’s display held on the University of Calgary campus every semester since 2006, termed the Genocide Awareness Project, precipitated the charges. The display compares abortion to past historical atrocities, such as the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.

Club President Leah Hallman stated, “We are relieved by this decision on the part of the Crown Prosecutor; Campus Pro-Life has consistently maintained that all of our actions were in full compliance under the law.”

The charges were initially delivered to the homes of several students by members of the Calgary Police Service in February of 2009. On March 16th, all charged members pleaded not guilty. At the time, Hallman argued “We have asked the university several times which of its by-laws, policies, regulations or other authority it relies on for censoring our viewpoint, and have received no answer to date.”

The staying of the charges takes place nearly one year after the November 2008 display on campus that was the catalyst for the charges being laid.

“Campus Pro-Life will continue being a voice for the voiceless,” states Club Treasurer Alanna Campbell, “we hope to continue our activities on campus and raise awareness among the next generation of community leaders.”

For further information, contact Club President Leah Hallman at (403) 808-3412, Treasurer Alanna Campbell at (403) 690-5217, or lawyer John Carpay of the Canadian Constitution Foundation at (403) 619-8014.

According to LifeSiteNews.com, “stayed” just means “effectively dropped” — but not actually dropped yet

Abortion debate in the Varsity… 21 months ago

In clearing out old draft posts, I found this one which for some reason I never published. It was originally written on February 8th… 2008. I offer it to you now, better late than never — it’s not like the pro-choice arguments have changed much.

---

For those of you that missed this week’s edition of the Varisty, Peter O’Hagan had an excellent article published defending the pro-life view. Morgan Snook’s article, on the other hand, seemed a little off the mark.

Hey, of course I’m going to be biased. But let’s examine!

Anti-abortion advocates claim that abortion is murder. They say that from the moment of conception, the fetus is a living human being. What they don’t know, or at least don’t say, that is that any fetus will not be sufficiently developed to feel real pain until after 30 weeks, well after the threshold where most abortions are carried out.

The argument here seems to be that abortion isn’t murder because the fetus won’t feel “real” pain when most abortions are carried out. I’m not sure what “real” pain is, as opposed to another type of pain, but let’s take this claim at face value. Is painless killing still killing? Would abortion be okay after the alleged 30 week threshold (or after birth for that matter) if it were through some sort of lethal injection? Also, last I checked pro-lifers were quite eager to point out the issue of the fetal pain. Thanks for bringing it up Morgan! Will you stand with us then and, at least, denounce any abortions that take place after the fetus can feel pain? [Edit: And as we learned that fall, it's more like 20 weeks, and the pain experience might be worse than adult pain.]

According to the United Nations, reproductive rights of individuals consist of being able to “decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing and timing of [one’s] children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health.” Furthermore, everyone should have the right to make decisions regarding reproduction “free of discrimination, coercion and violence.”

Is that a euphemism for abortion? In that case, it would also be wise to quote passages pertaining to the human rights regarding security of the person, if the unborn is human. Otherwise, you’re assuming what needs to be proven for your argument. In other words, you’ve dodged the fundamental point of the pro-life argument: the unborn is a human being and therefore also deserves human rights. But, yes, outside of killing another human being, spot on. There’s nothing wrong with sexual or reproductive health or “making decisions regarding reproduction”, unless they’re euphemisms for abortion. In which case, your statements seem crafted to avoid the question of the humanity of the unborn entirely.

The motive of pro-life groups is to make women feel guilty for having sex, forcing them to give birth to unwanted children. The Roman Catholic Church views abortion as a sin. Pope John Paul II compared abortion to a mass genocide similar to the Holocaust.

Instead of enforced shame, we should show tolerance and empathy for a difficult situation. Providing support and unbiased information to aid women in their decision-making process would obtain better results than shaming them.

Woah, woah. First of all, just because the Catholic Church is pro-life doesn’t mean that one needs to be Catholic to be pro-life. And if you’re suggesting the Church’s motive is to make women feel guilty for having sex, you need to better inform your views. [Edit: start here or here or here] More importantly, that’s just plain false. We’re not trying to make people feel guilty for having sex. We’re trying to defend the rights of human beings who are losing their lives because our society doesn’t want to take responsibility for the consequences of having sex. These aren’t cultural, ethical or moral consequences; they are biological consequences! The link between sex and pregancy isn’t some invention of the Church or the pro-life movement. It’s a scientific fact.

Also, I suggest you check out some feminist view points within the pro-life movement. To suggest pro-lifers are intent on guilt-tripping woman is dishonest.

The point is, the pro-life movement’s motive is not to shame people, but rather to protect the rights of the unborn who are marginalized when convenience trumps human rights. Your comments fall into the category of “assuming what needs to be proven” again. If the unborn is human – we claim it is – unplanned pregnancies involve a third human life.

Each year 70,000 women die because of illegal abortions and slightly fewer suffer serious injuries. A grown woman should not have to risk her life to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Of course, there are also teenage pregnancies. Every year approximately 15 million girls under the age of 18 give birth. These girls are five times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman between the ages of 18 and 25. Not only is a pregnant teen’s life at risk, but also her future. Many schools with pregnant students offer them little choice. Without an abortion, they will be forced to drop out of school.

Illegal abortions and the horrors of unplanned pregnancies are terrible. The pro-life view, however, states that while elective abortion may be psychologically and even practically complex, it is not morally complex. The trend in the article to assume what needs to be proven continues. “Unless you begin with the assumption that the unborn are not human, you are making the highly questionable claim that because some people die attempting to kill others, the state should make it safe and legal for them to do so. Should we legalize bank robbery so it is safer for felons?” (source) If the unborn is human, making abortion safe and legal is hardly an adequate answer to the problem of illegal abortions.

Teenage pregnancies are obviously difficult as well. But, the question needs to be asked: would you kill to get out of that situation? If the unborn is human, that’s what the abortion option is. The answer, then, would be to address schools that offer pregnant teenagers little choice, to make a change there, rather than to encourage a pregnant teenager to end the life of an innocent human being, not matter how difficult her situation may be.

And what about women who have become pregnant after being raped? Can they be expected to carry a child for nine months, a reminder of the sexual assault they were forced to endure? According to Status of Women Canada, over half of Canadian women have been the victims of at least one act of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16. With such a high degree of sexual assault in our own society, can we realistically expect rape victims to deal with the results of an attack for the rest of their lives?

Rape is profoundly evil. But, we claim, so is abortion. This falls into the category of assuming what needs to be proven and appealing to the hard cases. Morgan, if you use rape to justify abortion, then will you stand with us and denounce elective abortion in all other cases? Otherwise, how do cases of rape pertain to the other 99% of abortions?

Rape victims deserve our care. But how does the case of rape justify the vast majority of abortions?

Women carrying a disabled child should also be considered. Children born with a mental or physical disability require a significantly greater amount of care and place financial strain on their parents. An illequipped mother giving birth to a child with special needs can only choose adoption or abortion. This child is much more likely, if adopted, to receive inferior care. Therefore, her choice is likely to be an abortion.

I froze when I read this. Morgan, you questioned analogies between abortion and genocide, yet a few paragraphs later you yourself provide an example of how we systematically discriminate against segments of the human population through abortion. First of all, as expected, this statement assumes what needs to be proven. But more importantly, even if the humanity of the unborn were considered to be in question, systematic discrimination against the disabled is not tolerated in other places in our society. Why would we allow it in the case of abortion, when it’s a matter of life and death?

Why do many women choose abortion over adoption? One-third of all abortions are performed on unmarried women who not only wish to avoid becoming attached to a child, but also to escape judgment as they carry the child they will be giving up. Most of all, many women do not choose adoption because of the uncertainty of their child’s future. How will they know their child is being cared for?

Is the unborn human? Again, assuming what needs to be proven. Also, how is abortion a better option than adoption in terms of knowing the child is being cared for? Is it more comfort to a mother to know that her child is mutilated in a trash can somewhere? There’s a multi-year wait list for parents to adopt in Canada (which means there are way more would-be parents than children). Obviously, caring for these children is a serious matter. Which is why we shouldn’t kill them, since that would be worse than any attempt at care.

Then there is the issue of contraception. In some places, contraception is not available to the majority of the population, or is too expensive for most to afford. In Canada, youth in rural areas cannot acquire contraceptives or information due to a shortage of sexual health centres. Sexual education in the school curriculum has become a joke, as many teachers are not qualified while some schools lack sex-ed programs entirely.

Rather than opposing abortion, we should be supporting contraception and sexual education. We should improve the lives of the children who are brought into the world, often abandoned or abused.

Students for Life has no position on contraception. Ultimately, no form of contraception is perfect though. Unplanned pregnancies still happen. If we’re only throwing contraception at the problem, what happens in the cases where contraception fails?

Put simply by Michael Jay Tucker, editorial advisor for OBGYN.net, “If the anti-abortion movement took a tenth of the energy they put into noisy theatrics and devoted it to improving the lives of children who have been born into lives of poverty, violence, and neglect, they could make a world shine.”

Improving the lives of children who have been born into difficult circumstances is extremely important, and most pro-lifers I know are involved in other charity organizations. But, as a pro-life organization and movement, we also focus on the thousands of children who lose their lives daily, before they are even given a chance for their circumstances to be improved.

Exposing Coercion – Pregnant Women Stand Up

Another great video from Feminists for Life:

Abortion empowers no one.

Pictures from “the inside”

Amazing photos from the womb (via ProWomanProLife):

When Lennart Nilsson’s pictures of developing embryos were published in Life magazine in 1965, they caused a sensation. Within days, the entire print run of eight million had sold out. More than 40 years later, the photographs have lost none of their power.

This photo is from 8 weeks.

More background on the photos at The Guardian.

So… guess when life begins?

Abortion Empowers No One, Part II

A friend of mine called to discuss a paper she had to write for PHL281 (biothics) a few weeks ago. The essay topic was the following:

In discussing the case of Jane and Jack, George Harris says: “Jack is equally free from any responsibility to Jane in terms of the fetus should she decide to keep it” (Harris 1986, 597). Why does he think this? Is he right?

I’ll quote the relevant part of the article here (emailed to me), as I’m having a hard time finding it online:

2. Jane and Jack, two attractive, healthy individuals, meet at a party given by mutual friends. During the weeks and months that follow, a casual but pleasant sexual relationship develops between them. As a result, Jane becomes pregnant. But after learning of the pregnancy, Jack reveals that he is a moderately serious Catholic and from a combined sense of guilt, responsibility, and parental instinct proposes that they be married. Jane, on the other hand, being neither Catholic nor desirous of a husband, decides to abort. Respecting her religious differences and her right to marry whomever she pleases, Jack offers to pay all of Jane’s medical expenses, to take complete responsibility for the child after it is born, and to pay her a large sum of money to carry the fetus to term. Jane nonetheless decides to proceed with the abortion.

Similarly, in the second case, the fetus is Jane’s in a way that it is not Jack’s. The reasons, however, are slightly different than in the first case. Although Jane and Jack here each autonomously decide to pursue their interests in sex, neither has decided to pursue an interest in pro-creation. The fact that Jack has neglected to reveal his beliefs about abortion vitiates any claim he has that a harm done to the fetus is a violation of his autonomous pursuit of procreation. Rather, he has left it to Jane to assume that his only interest is in the pleasure of sex with her, and it is only this interest that she has a moral obligation to honor in terms of his autonomy. Had she promised him love and a family in order to have sex with him, she would have violated his autonomy both in regard to his interest in sex with love and his interest in procreation. Neither of these has occurred here. But though Jane is free from considerations of Jack’s autonomy in deciding whether to abort or to keep the fetus, she could decide to keep it without violating her own sense of autonomy. It is this fact that makes the fetus hers in a way that it is not Jack’s.

Yet by parity of reasoning, Jack is equally free from any responsibility to Jane in terms of the fetus should she decide to keep it. For, like Jane, he has not given his consent to the use of his body for the pursuit of her interest in procreation. He could, however, autonomously decide to take on the responsibility for the fetus. But she could not lay claim to a violation of her autonomy if he did not so choose. Had he promised her love and a family in order to have sex with her, he would have violated her autonomy in regard to her interest in sex with love and her interest in procreation. But since he has done neither of these, she has no valid claim that the fetus is a moral liability for him.’ Thus the pursuit of casual sex can be quite compatible with the principle of autonomy; it is nonetheless morally perilous for both men and women.

Sound familiar?

The Argument

The essay topic argument (focusing on the last paragraph, freeing Jack of responsibility), as I see it:

1. Jack only gave his consent to the use of his body for sex.
2. Giving consent to the use of one’s body for sex does not imply consent to the use of one’s body for procreation. [implied]
3. Jack did not give his consent to the use of his body for the pursuit of procreation. [from 1+2]
4. If one does not consent to the use of his body for the pursuit of procreation, then one is free from any responsibility regarding offspring.
5. Therefore, Jack is free from any responsibility to Jane should she chose to “keep” the fetus. [from 3+4]

The “perilous” thing is that this is a valid argument. However, it is not a sound argument. The problem is that few people are willing to challenge the second or fourth premises, which would be necessary to reject it.

Objections to the Second Premise

The US Supreme Court has since supported the second premise.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the [1992] Supreme Court decision that confirmed Roe v. Wade, stated, “in some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception… for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail.“

The idea that you can consent to the use of your body for sexual intercourse without consenting to the use of your body for procreation gets to the heart of the contraception issue. UTSFL does not take a position on contraception, as we recognize it has a complex relationship to abortion. It’s not as simple as “more condoms, less abortion,” when contraception carries with it the implicit assumption that you can pursue an interest in sex without pursuing an interest in procreation. Abortion comes to be viewed as a necessary backup to failed contraception. Otherwise, if consent to procreation is entirely separated from sex, an unwanted pregnancy can be viewed, as Harris views it, as an affront to the autonomy of a person.

Except, I don’t agree with Harris.

Objection: One cannot totally separate consent to the use of one’s body for sexual intercourse from consent to the use of one’s body for procreation

Harris treats sexual intercourse and procreation as if they’re two easily separable things, but that ignores the fundamental biological reality of sex. How do humans procreate (most of the time)? It’s the same act in both cases.

One may respond that it’s the same material act, but with different intentions or a different purpose. Even so, that calls Harris’ attempt to separate out two separate issues of autonomy into question. One’s body is “used” in the same way for sexual intercourse, whether or not the consequences of the use are the same. (Sidenote: anyone else have a problem with describing sex as “using” someone else’s body?)

The biological reality is that — often — sex produces babies. That’s how most of us came to be. Alongside unity and pleasure, procreation is one of the fundamental natural purposes of sex. This isn’t a moral idea — it’s just biology. Procreation is linked to sexual intercourse at such a basic and fundamental level that you can’t consent to the “use” of your body for sexual intercourse without consenting to the use of your body for procreation; sexual intercourse is a fundamentally procreative act.

Objection: A lack of intent does not imply a lack of consent

This objection is related to the first. Harris seems to imply that a lack of intent means a lack of consent, but this is not the way that informed consent works. Informed consent implies that one also consents to the risks of a given activity, the foreseen unintended consequences.

As long as one is informed that pregnancy is a potential result of sexual intercourse (basic knowledge of the birds and bees), pregnancy is a foreseen — albeit potentially unintended — consequence of sexual intercourse. Therefore, although pregnancy is not intended in this case, “consent to the use of one’s body for procreation” has clearly been provided by Jack, unless he somehow doesn’t realize that that’s how (most) babies are made.

A pregnancy can obviously be unintended, but consenting to sexual intercourse along with an understanding of the potential consequences (namely, pregnancy) ought to imply a certain assumption of risk.

An obligation towards the mother or her unborn child would not be a violation of Jack’s autonomy, unless you ignore the fundamental biological link between sex and pregnancy and the assumption of risk implicit in informed consent.

Objections to the Fourth Premise

Objection: A lack of consent does not imply a lack of obligation

Our society tends to believe that parents have an ethical and legal obligation towards their children. Once Jane is pregnant, Jack is already a father because he already has a child. If Jack had left Jane when the child was three years old, most would agree that he has an ethical and legal obligation to the mother in supporting their child. If Jack had never intended to have a child, that would be unfortunate and difficult for him and it would certainly complicate the situation, but it would not relieve him of that obligation.

This is actually quite important if we consider the case of rape. If a woman is raped (clearly, she has neither consented to the use of her body for sex or procreation), does she have any obligation to the child? She may have no legal obligation in many jurisdictions nowadays (a separate issue), but does she have any ethical obligation? If we believe that parents have an obligation towards their children, and the unborn is human, then the rape victim is already a parent and abortion would mean the intentional killing of her child.

Rape is a profoundly evil act, and pregnancy only makes an incredibly tragic situation that much more complicated… but abortion is also a profoundly evil act. The method of conception (and whether or not there was any intent or consent) does not change the reality of what the unborn is.

Thus, a lack of consent may well be a violation of autonomy (as rape clearly demonstrates), but that’s a separate issue from whether or not there is any responsibility regarding the offspring. A parent’s obligation not to neglect his or her child isn’t based on how that child came to be, but on what that child is.

Abortion Empowers No One

The problem is that few people will support these objections. Attacks on the second premise are extremely controversial. When you criticize the idea that sex and procreation can be neatly separated, you get accused of trying to “punish” women for having sex. The problem is that the separation isn’t based on morality, but on biology. To assert a clean separation is not to challenge traditional moral values or “heteronormativity,” but to challenge biology.

And for all those times that the challenge fails, our society promotes abortion to women as the “solution.” Abortion is necessary for people to maintain this separation in spite of reality.

But if you leave Harris’ argument uncontested so as not to compromise “the pursuit of casual sex,” abortion is a bandage applied to a fabric of social relationships built on a weak foundation — it’s not about “choice” or empowering women.

When having children became an elective rather than a natural consequence of sex, responsibility for children shifted wholly to women. Men instinctively understood that if conception could be undone, then so could their responsibility for being involved with the children women chose not to terminate.

When Jack can wash his hands of the procreative aspects of sex, Jane is left alone to deal with her pregnancy. Abortion isn’t a free choice when a woman feels as if her back is up against a wall.

Abortion empowers no one.

Why Women Choose Abortion

This article is over 10 years old, but Lucy’s post last week reminded me about it.

Lucy wrote:

Those at the de Veber conference spoke of the struggles of pregnant woman and the pressures stacked against them and the fear they experience. I sympathized with the women for what they had to endure but I still found myself wondering, “but why would you kill a child?” Mothers never hand over their babies to strangers to be executed… It was [Teresa Hartnett] who gave me a helpful analogy. She discussed how woman deal with grief after abortion and compared it to the way soldiers tend to try and bury their pain after they have killed during a war. But the war comparison can be extended beyond the treatment of grief and can help to explain why anyone would kill in the first place.

No one could argue that during the war just about any kind of person could be taught to pick up a gun and shoot their enemy. And it was not because they were bad and heartless people. If in their homes they are pressured to fight for their country, and in the line of fire all their friends are telling them to shoot to save your life, and it is what they have been trained to do, the odds are that they are going to do it. So also have women been trained by society that they do not have to accept responsibility and in a sense, have been taught to shoot to save their lives. I have thus come to understand that women bombarded with pressures and fears do indeed need to be defended and not judged. (Though continuing with the war analogy, I am still trying to understand how anyone could shoot their own son.)

Here’s what Paul Swope had to say in the 1998 article, Abortion: A Failure To Communicate:

For twenty-five years the pro-life movement has stood up to defend perhaps the most crucial principle in any civilized society, namely, the sanctity and value of every human life. However, neither the profundity and scale of the cause, nor the integrity of those who work to support it, necessarily translates into effective action. Recent research on the psychology of pro-choice women offers insight into why the pro-life movement has not been as effective as it might have been in persuading women to choose life; it also offers opportunities to improve dramatically the scope and influence of the pro-life message, particularly among women of childbearing age.

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Unplanned motherhood, according to the study, represents a threat so great to modern women that it is perceived as equivalent to a “death of self.” While the woman may rationally understand this is not her own literal death, her emotional, subconscious reaction to carrying the child to term is that her life will be “over.” This is because many young women of today have developed a self-identity that simply does not include being a mother. It may include going through college, getting a degree, obtaining a good job, even getting married someday; but the sudden intrusion of motherhood is perceived as a complete loss of control over their present and future selves. It shatters their sense of who they are and will become, and thereby paralyzes their ability to think more rationally or realistically.

When these women evaluate the abortion decision, therefore, they do not, as a pro-lifer might, formulate the problem with the radically distinct options of either “I must endure an embarrassing pregnancy” or “I must destroy the life of an innocent child.” Instead, their perception of the choice is either “my life is over” or “the life of this new child is over.” Given this perspective, the choice of abortion becomes one of self-preservation, a much more defensible position, both to the woman deciding to abort and to those supporting her decision.

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When a woman faces an unplanned pregnancy, her main question is not “Is this a baby?”—with the assumed consequence that if she knows it to be so she will choose life. Women know, though often at the subconscious level, that the fetus is human, and that it will be killed by abortion. But that is the price a woman in that situation is willing to pay in her desperate struggle for what she believes to be her very survival. Emphasis on babies, whether dismembered fetuses or happy newborns, will tend to deepen the woman’s sense of denial, isolation, and despair, the very emotions that will lead her to choose abortion.

Her central, perhaps subconscious, question is rather, “How can I preserve my own life?” The pro-life movement must address her side of the equation, and do so in a compassionate manner that affirms her own inner convictions.

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The terrible miscalculation of young women is that abortion can make them “un-pregnant,” that it will restore them to who they were before their crisis. But a woman is never the same once she is pregnant, whether the child is kept, adopted, or killed. Abortion may be a kind of resolution, but it is not the one the woman most deeply longs for, nor will it even preserve her sense of self. If those of us in the pro-life movement can help women see this for themselves, we will have done much to disengage our culture from the abortion mentality.

If you haven’t read this already, you should read the whole article.