The dim prospect for abortion compromise
David Sessions Mar 31, 2009 10 COMMENTS SHARE
Culture-war compromise is a hot topic right now, most of the talk being pegged to President Obama's unwillingness to take activist positions on sensitive issues. (At least when people are looking.) The president's talk of "abortion reduction" seems to be an olive branch to the right: if we all agree that abortion is bad and we want less of it, well, hey, that's something we can work on as a big, concerned family.
I'm all for abortion reduction, and for pro-life activists getting their sights set on the right goal: less abortions, via whatever means necessary, not overturning Roe just because that's what we've all been fixated on for two decades now. Also, if you're a conservative still trying to oppose abortion and contraception/sex education at the same time, then give it up already. Clearly, the message about birth control is not getting across to those who need to hear it -- over 70% of American women who have abortions don't use it -- and figuring out creative ways to get these women to prevent unwanted pregancy is crucial to solving our abortion problem.
But as Lisa Miller's Newsweek column suggests, the abortion-reduction hand-holding is mostly a delusion. There's a "culture-war industry on both sides," as one source says; the right's moral beliefs won't settle for half-way solutions, and, let's not forget, abortion is some feminists' holy sacrament, and the remnants of that demographic won't part easily with their great victory.
Those are the shallower political reasons. The legal and intellectual reasons -- the real reason I have little hope for a lasting accord on this issue -- have been argued out passionately and persuasively by Slate's William Saletan and newly-minted New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. I respect both and am often torn between them when they disagree.
Will basically argues that all sides should embrace an agressive push for contraception education (not access - it's widely available already), and conservatives should accept abortion reductions and stop trying to change the law. Ross argues that Roe v. Wade is a "monument to pro-choice absolutism," and leaving it alone is to give up the very purpose and idealism of the movement. He's also skeptical that Saletan's vision for a sex-educated nation would produce a meaningful reduction in abortion. Saletan thinks abortion is a moral issue but isn't willing to regulate it; Douthat says its impossible to view something as morally problematic and keep it "a constitutional right on par with freedom of speech, religion or assembly."
And there, in a nutshell, you have the irresolvable disagreement: even if we all believe it's a moral issue and a generally bad thing, some will passionately support changing the law and others won't. At least the way the abortion debate and industry and culture operate right now, the law is not irrelevant.
Despite coming from a religious background where abortion is considered murder, I see the logic on both sides. Like Saletan, I do not believe abortion is "murder" (see more below), but it is attached to some grave moral questions. I ultimately agree with Douthat on "a system in which abortion is legal but discouraged in, say, the first ten weeks of pregnancy, and basically illegal thereafter." Roe v. Wade, as even liberal justice John Paul Stevens has admitted, is bad case law, and I wouldn't be sorry to see it go.
But I also think Will's idea -- an agressive cultural groundswell that brings in all political sides to promote responsible sexual activity -- is worth a try. (Sure, expanded access to birth control won't change much, but a non-religious fire-and-brimstone emphasis on using it might.) He's right that mating "has overpowered every stricture put in its way." And with the prospects for changing the law as bleak as they've always been, it's almost hypocritical for pro-lifers not to work on a non-controversial solution in the meantime. It might go along way toward alleviating the problem even if the sides never agree.
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David Sessions is the editor of Patrol and is a political reporter for PoliticsDaily.com. His writing has appeared in Slate and New York, among others. Based at Patrol''s headquaters in New York City, he blogs a lot of nothing about everything from media to politics to music.
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I dont’ think Obama is in the least treading lightly around the abortion issue – just look at the voting records of his appointees & nominees. Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, his nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, spots a solid pro-abortion-rights record dating back to her days in the Kansas House of Representatives when she commented, “I think for me and a lot of other people, there are certain inalienable rights established for a person, but those are not applied in utero.” As governor, Sebelius reduced state funding for abortion alternatives, vetoed a bill imposing minimal sanitary standards in abortion clinics, and vetoed a bill (which enjoyed a two-thirds majority in both the Kansas House and Senate) strengthening Kansas’s parental notification law. She also vetoed a measure requiring explicit medical reasons for late-term abortions, and vetoed a similar measure making abortion providers file a report on diagnoses necessitating post-viability abortions.
These controversial issues have gone virtually unreported by mainstream media. The NY Times hasn’t mentioned Sebelius’s connection with late-term abortion doctor George Tiller (who is charged with 19 misdemeanors related to improper abortions) other than an editorial lauding Tiller as a women’s rights champion. Associated Press left out Sebelius in its story on Tiller in which it referred to his current trial (opening arguments begin March 23) as a “witch hunt.” They were mute on the evidence that Tiller had a suspect financial relationship with the “independent” doctor providing second opinions on the validity of Tiller’s late term abortions.
Can we get, in addition to “an aggressive cultural groundswell that brings in all political sides to promote responsible sex,” and aggressive American media that doesn’t play party lines & actually reports the whole story? UK coverage of the abortion issue is less heated than U.S. coverage. Where is the balanced, considerate reporting in which the U.S. press takes so much pride? The American media seems to be totally polarized on abortion. We get either vague, amoral and vapid stories from the left, or hysterical screamers demanding an end to baby killing (accompanied by graphic photos) on the far right. Where is logical argument backed by persuasive medical statistics and studies? Website “deathroe.com” has no link inviting a naive researcher to further weigh facts. Even abortion clinics are identified as “abortion mills” by opponents, but are simply mild-mannered “centers for women’s health” on the other side. Where is the middle ground, journalists?
— Jana Cate Pilgrim · Mar 31, 02:00 AM · #
This afternoon I came to ponder whether, if it weren’t for the obvious moral evil of abortion, we would still have what we call the Christian Right. American evangelicals aren’t characterized by political shrewdness, historical understanding, or consistently conservative sentiment. Mike Huckabee, the Anointed One of the last presidential cycle, is pro-life but it would be hard to identify many of his other distinctives with historical conservatism, American or otherwise. They form more of a nationally-focused Christian social progressivism with a veneer of ‘traditional values’.
As a person who self-identifies as a politically conservative evangelical Christian I would like to win and move on past the abortion policy battle to the even more central and foundational issues that lie beneath it, but I wonder if the coalition that has been unified in its opposition to abortion would hold together for the long run once that battle was won.
If the Left wanted to make quicker progress in subverting American political institutions (and if they weren’t completely in the sway of militant old guard feminists and Marxist academics), they would realize that the “right to life” is fully compatible with a liberal outlook.
Perhaps the reason this has not happened is that liberalism isn’t actually about natural rights, just as being pro-life isn’t about rights either. The multitude of conflicting political ideas are simply the ever-changing costumes of the two essential and absolutely opposed ideas; what Whittaker Chambers called the conflict between “Faith in God or Faith in Man”.
— Peter Schellhase · Mar 31, 03:53 AM · #
dude. now you’re going to have to post on why you don’t think abortion is murder. you can’t just link to saletan (who, as far as i’m concerned, spends his whole time defining the common by the obscure) and hope that covers your ass.
— micah · Mar 31, 09:17 AM · #
While I am a Christian, abortion is one issue where my “religion” plays essentially no part in my opinion on it. I am against abortion not because of my religious belief, but because of medical science. Thanks to medical advances, we really no longer have the luxury of ignorance on this stuff. If that’s not a kid, then what is it? And if it is a kid, how can we shrug and call it a “moral question”? When we have thermal images of it sucking its’ thumb, how can our minds get past that, and dismiss it as anything other than what our eyes are telling us? This is 2009, an age where we can operate on a developing child in the womb. And we’re all just pretending we’re “not sure” what’s growing inside there? With how far we’ve come, how much we know, we’re still going to defend this barbarism? Just what constitutes murder, then?
The recognition of the inalienable right to life of all persons isn’t restrictedly a Christian ideal (though there’s certainly some crossover) but one that is so obvious, so fundamental, we almost don’t mention it. As in, a truth we hold to be self-evident.
So what do we do? Couch it in side arguments, and blindly pretend we’re dumber than we really are. And, worst of all, we use every bit of cleverness we have to do it.
— Tim Calhoun · Apr 1, 06:15 AM · #
Splitting hairs with phrases like “attached to some grave moral questions” ironically reminds me of the very nebulous position Newsweek is pointing out in Obama. And, like with him, no one’s really buying it, and you wind up pissing off both sides in your effort to please everybody.
— Peter Schilling · Apr 2, 03:52 AM · #
This is one of the best articles I have read on the topic as one that has so well summarized my opinions. I am an evangelical (pretty fed up with the conservative part though) and I feel that the emphasis placed on overturning roe v. wade is not that wise. If it is overturned half the states would still legally give abortions. I feel like Will said that if you really care about the issue, abortion reduction is the most prudent response.
Another point I would make is that I feel that the right is really to blame for the polarization of the issue. On its face abortion actually seems like a pretty liberal cause, but I believe the conservatives have subverted their own efforts by causing the many people to embrace abortion because they were turned off by their antics.
— Sam · Apr 3, 02:01 PM · #
I think Micah and Tim make excellent points. For those who are tired of the abortion debate (and that includes me), I’d suggest that the reason abortion is such a crucial issue is that it goes to the heart of what we mean by “human.” As Francis Beckwith recently observed, “The view that human beings are made in the image of God and ought to be protected by our laws and the wider community is not ‘one issue.’ It is the principle that is the point of justice itself: to love our neighbors as ourselves; to exercise charity; to help the vulnerable and the weak.” Mark Linville in Salvo.com (not out on the web yet, sadly) adds that, if you don’t believe abortion kills a human being, fine, go vote the “other issues.” But “Tell me that you do not believe in the imago dei or the notion of human dignity [and] I’ll comprehend, but I’ll also wonder what grounds you can offer as the basis for any moral concern—such as AIDS or poverty—whatever.”
— Les · Apr 4, 02:03 PM · #
@SAM
What? People embrace abortion, as a concept, because they don’t like conservatives’ antics? That is an absurd notion, and one that highlights the fact that when we talk about abortion, we’re never really talking about what it actually is.
I will concede that the right are more responsible for the polarization of this issue, but again, that is because they tend to look at abortion in a more literal sense—and once you actually know more about it, how it works, what literally happens, and—something that is never talked about—how it affects the women who have them—you can’t go back to being like many of the apologists above (Obama included) who try to peddle half answers and hide behind wordplay.
Lastly, at the risk of seeming hyperbolic, saying that abortion is “attached to some grave moral questions” but stopping short of making one of those questions ‘is this the taking of a life?’ sounds as impotent and relativistic as the UN declaring that Rwanda was “tantamount” to a genocide, but stopping short of giving it the concrete genocide definition that would require intervention. Why do we all work so hard on seeming like we’re addressing something, without actually addressing or affecting anything at all?
— Irene · Apr 8, 05:12 AM · #
I agree with Micah and Schilling. You can’t set up your own artificial dilemma, and then expect to solve it in a sentence by saying abortion isn’t murder, but that it still has moral issues involved. Just because you split hairs doesn’t mean you’ve proven your point.
— Daniel · Apr 10, 10:00 AM · #
To all of you commenting on my comment that abortion isn’t murder:
I didn’t “prove my point” because it wasn’t really the point. But I’m happy to clarify:
If abortion is murder, then every doctor who has ever performed an abortion must be put to death, and every woman who has ever had one tried as an accomplice to murder. The fact that we wouldn’t consider such a thing suggests there is a clear difference between killing a live human and a fetus. I don’t accept halfway arguments about when a fetus comes to life; I believe it is the beginning of a human life from the moment of conception. But murder is a legal term, and terminating a one-week old fetus is not the same as killing a child.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t still icky and awful or that it should be encouraged or even, in many cases, allowed. But I can’t pretend to be unable to see a difference between “life” and “a functioning human being with a life,” which one has to be for there to be “murder.”
And if that makes absolutely no sense to you, then I’ll say it this way: yes, I’m okay with killing babies in the first few weeks in some circumstances. I don't think we must have absolute legal idealism to respect human life.
— David · Apr 10, 01:19 PM · #