We’ve all long known that American attitudes to abortion are rather different than they are over here in Europe. We do indeed have people who are vociferously against the practice – I am one of them but this isn’t about me or my prejudices – but there’re many fewer. We really don’t have anything like the very large American pro-life movement and most certainly not the power they have in politics.
Well, OK. And it’s also pretty easy to work out why too. America is a much more religious country than anywhere in Europe. Most religions tending to be anti-abortion – as is true of any organisation which would like to recruit the next generation. If using a brand of gasoline were something largely inherited then Exxon would be against abortion among those who use Exxon gasoline too*.
But we then get to one of the great problems we’ve got in ruling the world. When does democracy triumph, that will of the people, and when doesn’t it? Because if the anti-abortionists are some significant portion of the US population then why shouldn’t their views be shaping the law on that very subject? What is it that makes this something where democracy doesn’t prevail?
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] The US is much more hostile to abortion than other countries in the developed world, with more Americans opposed to terminations than supportive, according to a survey of 23 of the world’s biggest countries. The YouGov-Cambridge Globalism survey, which was conducted before this week’s move in Alabama to impose the strictest abortion legislation anywhere in the US, found 46% of Americans said abortion was unacceptable, compared with 38% who found it acceptable. The poll puts the US on a par with developing countries such as India (48-37%) and Turkey (47-41%), but considerably out of step with America’s rich-nation peers. [/perfectpullquote]46% is a significant plurality, close to a majority. Why shouldn’t American abortion law reflect their desires?
We know the answer to this too. Some things are rights, whereby the mob doesn’t get to tell us. Those things which are not rights are subject to that mob, that democracy.
Excellent. But that just puts us into the bind of deciding what is a right and what isn’t. And that’s where it all gets sticky. Because those shouting that abortion is a right are largely those who also shout that private property – say, how much the owners of a business can pay the manager they’ve hired, or even the labour they’re employing – should be subject to democracy, not property rights.
As PJ O’Rouke once pointed out, being against capital punishment and abortion, or in favour of both, is logically simple. But there’s a certain contortion that has to be gone through to oppose lethal injections on the grounds that the innocent might be executed but approve of the vacuum cleaner response to sex.
Still, this does leave us with that basic problem. How do we decide what is a right which is not subject to that democratic will? Yes, we know the American response – the Constitution. But what should be the underlying logic?
*This is to be cynical but not excessively so
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But what should be the underlying logic?
Capital punishment is a straightforward binary decision - indeed, a binary action in the case of the guillotine. But abortion may not be so clear-cut (ta-dum). While the Catholics hold a human egg to have moral rights from the moment of fertilisation, a more common classical belief was that neither the germinal stage nor the embryonic stage were truly human, but that 'life' began at the foetal stage. See Henry de Bracton's comments in the 1200s:
If one strikes a pregnant woman or gives her poison in order to procure an abortion, if the fetus is already formed or quickened, especially if it is quickened, he commits homicide.
This appears to be the basis for our current abortion legislation, and a messy business it is, too, depending on timing a natural process which has much variability. So you have a Sorites paradox here - essentially undecideable, unless you want to delve into some of the philosophic techniques for having your cake and eating it - which are of no practical value here.
This would not matter, were it not for the fact that abortion has been taken up as a political cause, resulting in extremist positions. I had always assumed that, whatever one thought about abortion, it would always be a 'last-ditch' kind of activity, and was staggered to find the Spiked pro-abortionists using language which implied that it should be a preferred option - indeed, the impression I got was that they would prefer that women should have regular abortions in order to keep their hand in, and annoy anti-abortionists......
I had thought that the development of artificial wombs https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190326105650.htm
might address the problem once and for all, in that a fertilised egg could be removed and grown with no mother input at all - but it has become apparent that this is not enough for some putative mothers, who want to be in a situation of not having children, even if they know nothing about them. Women who insist on destroying stored eggs, for instance, are in that category....
While the abortion issue remains a political and activist football, there can be no acceptable answer to it, because there is no underlying logic. It is an emotional issue, not a logical one...
"A Plurality Of Americans Are Anti-Abortion – Shouldn’t It Be Illegal Then?"
Surely the liberal position must be that you should need a majority at the very least to make something illegal, and that even a majority should not be enough in some cases (e.g. consenting adults in private)
I am not sure about 'liberal' positions - which often seem indistinguishable to me from tyranny. As far as I can see, 'Liberal' is often used to mean 'Correct' - as in 'settled science - you must not disagree'.
I prefer to talk about Left and Right wing positions. Right wing positions are characterised by individual freedom, while Left wing positions are characterised by individual equality. From this there follows a tendency for a Right wing preference for small or no government, and a Left wing preference for large government.
Hence, a right wing position would posit individual abortion choice, even if a vast majority were against it, while a left wing position would require a government edict on the subject, even if few people had an opinion one way or the other. Note that this says nothing about whether it should be illegal, allowed, or compulsory...
The problem is that the issue is not a natural political one, but has been taken as a standard bearer for political sides. If you believe that abortion is murder, you would be against it even if the vast majority of citizens were for it - I presume that you do not think that murder is OK if it is done privately? Conversely, if you believe that it is a female right to control their body, then you would be for it even if the majority were against it.
As far as I can see, this is not a political issue, but it has been presented as such. Which is why it is an insoluble problem...
You could just avoid the question by devolving the issue to Member States. Works for the EU too - e.g. should large farmland owners have rights to some of other peoples taxes and to protections from competition?
The Right is sovereignty of the individual, and furthermore property Right since our body is our property and we own it.
A zygote, embryo, fœtus is part of an individual’s body and therefore the property of that individual.
Well, yes you can dance on that pinhead and argue the fœtus is an ‘individual’ except it is not by definition of the word ‘individual’ nor can it reason, but if you are going to grant a fœtus ‘individual’ status, at what stage, when it smaller or larger than a tadpole and what about its earlier stages visible only under a powerful microscope?
So Common Law: a fœtus was not a Human Being until it was separate from its mother and breathing. Then along came medicine and fœtus could be separated from its mother and survive weeks before full term. Legislation then followed accordingly.
Abortion covers anything from the moment of conception to term. Mindless Blob Syndrome means some are incapable of comprehending the various stages. Very few abortions are late stage.
The problem is busy bodies who want power and control over others. That is not democracy it is tyranny. If that difference really is not apparent to members of society, then society needs 50 years of authoritarian rule complete with gulags to teach it that difference.
So Common Law: a fœtus was not a Human Being until it was separate from its mother and breathing...
Not true. I have already quoted a 13th century law commentary below, and I will do it again for your benefit:
If one strikes a pregnant woman or gives her poison in order to procure an abortion, if the fetus is already formed or quickened, especially if it is quickened, he commits homicide.
Henry de Bracton
Well, yes you can dance on that pinhead and argue the fœtus is an ‘individual’ except it is not by definition of the word ‘individual’ nor can it reason....
Doesn't that description also apply to infants and teenagers?
And the elderly, and the ill....
If you don't like abortions, it's simple, don't have an abortion.
If you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married.
If you don't like peanut butter, don't eat peanut butter.
If you don't like murder, would you be happy for just you not to murder, or do you want other people to stop murdering as well?
But that's an interaction with other people. The correct way to frame your question is liking/notliking *being* murdered, not *doing* murder.
The problem with abortion is not that a number of people don't want to undertake it themselves, but that a number of people see it as murder.
Telling them that they don't have to have an abortion if they don't want to completely misses that point - I suspect, intentionally.
If abortion was seen by both sides as purely an issue for the pregnant woman, then your comment would make sense. The difficulty comes because one section see it as a line in the sand supporting individual women's rights, while the other side see it as state-sponsored murder...
Yes, it's the same line between those that see people and see control that must be imposed, and those that don't.
Do you believe that society should place no controls on anybody at all?
The abortion issue is a disagreement about the importance of the action. Some feel that it is insignificant, while others feel that it is murder, and that social controls to curb murder are justified...
There is no such thing as human rights. The idea that we have human rights is a residue of Christianity.