Abortion?

Killing a recidivist^[1] and serious criminal may be justifiable.  Each of us has the right to choose the manner and time of our own deaths^[2].  There are circumstances where war^[3] would be warranted.  But the question of abortion is much more intractable.

The right to life is not absolute and should not be upheld at any cost.  There are exceptional circumstances when upholding the right to life of an individual cannot be justified.  Is the killing by abortion of the unborn but nevertheless living individual such an exceptional circumstance? 

Human values often travel in predictable bundles.  Virulent opponents of abortion cite the sanctity of life, but are often also advocates of capital punishment and will be among the first to volunteer to kill the supposed enemy in times of war.  Clearly their opposition to abortion has little to do with the absolute sanctity of life, or their unequivocal obedience of the Biblical commandment not to kill^[4].  Their opposition turns more on the question of culpability – of the innocence of the foetus.

Virulent opponents of abortion are also not infrequently and without any hint of irony opposed to contraception.

Human life starts at conception.  The unborn child is the most blameless of humans.  The aborted foetus did nothing to warrant the fatally injurious attention of others.  It was completely at the mercy of its mother and her accomplices. 

Under such circumstances was it not our duty to intervene on behalf of the unborn child, to save it from being murdered? 

But abortion is not about the foetus; it is not about murder; it is not about malice; it is not about life and death.  The death of the foetus is incidental to an abortion.  There is no intention of harming a living fellow human being.  The act is not directed at the foetus.  And, unlike capital punishment^[5], abortion, provided it is the woman's free choice, does not involve, and will not lead to the abuse of State power. 

Abortion is about equity between women and men. 

It takes two to conceive, but the physical and social consequences of an unwanted pregnancy are almost wholly carried by the woman. 

In the final analysis the stresses and very real risks of pregnancy and birth are carried exclusively by the woman.  With the best will in the world, these cannot be shared with another human being.

To the woman who does not want to be pregnant, pregnancy is a nine month sentence that has the potential to play havoc with her health, her career aspirations, and her life in general.  Both pregnancy and birth can cause lasting physical impairment.  

The chain of events does not end at the birth either.  Putting a baby up for adoption is much more traumatic than is commonly implied, even for a mother who deeply resented having to go full term.  For the great majority of individuals, adoption^[6] leaves lifelong emotional scars in both the birth mother and the adopted child.  Emotional and genetic bonds are not cut like umbilical chords. 

When the mother chooses to rear the child herself, again, the primary responsibility of rearing the child most commonly falls upon the woman.  It need not do so, even from the earliest age, but it remains unusual in most contemporary societies for that not to be the case. 

Whichever way you look at it, the consequences of not aborting sheet home to the pregnant woman.  The male accomplice to the act of intercourse that started the unfortunate chain of events is substantially irrelevant.  He has the responsibility to offer the woman support, but he has no right to decide the course of the pregnancy for her. 

The denial of abortion is a discriminatory and systematically unjust penalty imposed on women, in favour of their male accomplices, who can get off scot-free. 

`Social' life starts at birth, not conception, and it is that life that the rest of us should seek to protect from the injurious acts of others. 

`Physical' life starts at conception, but prior to birth the intervention required to separate that life from the mother's life is so drastic as to render it indivisible from the mother's will.  For practical purposes, from society's perspective, the foetus does not exist as a separate entity, and has no legally enforceable rights.  And, even if it were to have legally enforceable rights, the right to life of the foetus would be far outweighed by the right to equity of all living and future women.  

Voluntary fertility control has been absolutely central to the emancipation of women; and has freed women from the tyranny of unwanted childbirth^[7]. 

Abortion is one of the most serious decisions a woman will ever take.  Very few women casually opt for abortion.  While abortion should never be seen as a form of contraception, it is the indispensable backstop to contraception.  Abortion is an abomination, but it is also a woman's last defence against enforced pregnancy.