The Right to Life

The backdrop for every recent presidential election has been the issue of abortion. The historic mistake of many on the left, and the recent misunderstanding of some people (specifically some “evangelicals”) on the right is that abortion is one issue of many. For some folks it falls a little bit ahead of economy, war, and foreign relations on the priority list, but they see it, as Barack Obama suggested in the last debate, as an issue that we (the two parties) can find some middle ground on. To adopt this “understanding” of the issue of abortion is to completely miss the argument that the issue is grounded on. The huge moral question with regard to abortion is not the granting or restricting of maternal rights--i.e. “freedom of choice,” “reproductive rights” (Which, by the way are exercised when one consents to sexual activity which one knows may result in the conception of a child. The argument that “reproductive rights” can somehow be extended past the point of conception is as nonsensical as saying that you’ve decided to build a house after you’ve already laid the foundation and put up the frame), and so on--but rather the question of the rights of the life being snuffed out.

So if the question that hangs in the balance is not the life or death of a choice, but the life or death of a human, it makes no sense to say that it is an issue on which we can reach “middle ground.” Murder is not a gray area, no matter how postmodern you may fancy yourself. Liberals know this. They know what the central question is, and that is why they reframe the issue with such euphemistic language as that shown above. If they can keep the focus off of the baby and on the rights of the mother, they dodge the moral question. But again, they make a mistake by underestimating the intelligence of the vast majority of people for whom abortion is an issue (anyone of childbearing age).

To frame the issue as a choice or an exercise of reproductive rights is to degrade the child, the act of conception, the period of gestation wherein the mother and child grow together, and the beautiful event of birth. It is also to put ourselves in the place of God, where we can decide when to give and take life. In truth, we have no reproductive rights. Every child is given or withheld by the hand of God. This is why I chuckle when newly married friends of mine talk loudly about how long they’re going to wait before they have kids. I tell them that they will wait until they become pregnant. That may be in six years, or six months, but it is something that they don’t have as much control over as they think.

There is also the sort of red herring of a question that we have all placed in the abortion argument: Does life begin at conception, or some time after? I understand that the intention of the question is to find out if there is a time during the pregnancy when it would be morally permissible to have an abortion. First, this question answers itself. I always tell my students that if they have to question whether something is right or wrong, then it is wrong. This question of when life begins cannot possibly work for the pro-abortion side. It admits that the life of the child is the central question. Second, it is a moot point. I have seen an ultrasound at seven weeks. You can’t see much at seven weeks. The baby does not so much look like a baby as it does a bean. But the bean, the tiny, formless human does have one distinct characteristic: a heartbeat. The only thing you can clearly make out at an early ultrasound is the glow and pulse of the baby’s heartbeat. Now, I am no scientist, but I know two things: 1. You cannot make a convincing argument that something that has a heartbeat is not alive. 2. Most women do not even know that they are pregnant for the first seven or eight weeks (I know that I am not a woman, and do not want to speak out of line on this point. I am simply speaking from experience of the women that I know and know of who have had babies). So then, if most abortions would take place well after conception, and after the baby has a distinct heartbeat, the question of when life begins is not relevant.

Yes, this is a sensitive moral issue. But it is not one on which middle ground can be reached. There is no concession when it comes to the taking of innocent, defenseless life. And because of this issue, my vote is predetermined. Regardless of whatever a candidate promises my voting for him will be precluded if he is pro-choice. I am bound morally. I also understand the argument that we should look more holistically at what it means to be “pro-life”--i.e. with regard to war, genocide, etc.--but then no one supports genocide, and war is, at times, a necessary evil. Abortion is an unnecessary atrocity.