September 19, 2008

• Abortion and the Concept of Moral Consistency

  Gender Selection and Abortion | TheTheologiansCafe’s
  Xanga Site – Weblog

  The above links to a thread that began a discussion about if and when it is OK morally to have an abortion.  The question was: “Do you support a woman’s right to abort an unborn baby in order to select a baby’s gender?”

  I want to analyze a tangential point. In a number of comments in reply to this issue people brought up the idea that you can’t be Pro Choice but still feel that abortion for the sake of gender selection is wrong. That to believe both makes you morally inconsistent. I came across this side argument through reading my friend’s blog that has a discussion about it here: Morals or not? | DarkAngelKat00′s Xanga Site – Weblog   She talks more about the specific idea of gender selection and moral consistency.

  I don’t really want to get into depth about the abortion topic itself. Honestly I’m on the fence about this particular instance of abortion rights. It strikes me as wrong not because the abortion itself is wrong but because of the sexism it reflects in that society. I can also as a thought experiment imagine a crazy society where gender selection abortion makes sense. Say for example if in the far future some crazy person invents some virus and unleashes it on the atmosphere that makes it so that all males born in the society during a certain time period are born with numerous physical deformations, mental illnesses, and are forever in agonizing pain throughout their lives, and further more increases their capacity for violence and decreases their compassion and understanding.  I would say then that gender selection abortion is fine. So I don’t want to make a blanket statement against it. Culture and circumstances differ and some scenario I might not have thought of might make it make sense in a particular circumstance. But yeah in general I find the idea unsettling for much the reasons that Katie describes in her blog.

  No, what I really want to talk about though is not that, but my vehement objection to what I see as a VERY flawed form of argument. This idea of moral inconsistency arising from your objection to abortion in this case but your support of it in general. I think it’s crazy

  This isn’t the first time it’s come up. It happens far too frequently in fact. Basically what happens is that Pro-Life people argue that Pro-Choice means that you must support a woman’s right to choose abortion under every circumstance. That that’s what “choice” means. If you say you are pro-choice but under certain circumstances women shouldn’t choose abortion, then the argument goes, you aren’t really pro-choice at all. 

  Here’s the argument in the words of one of the commentators on TheTheologiansCafe:

  “Anyone anyone anyone who makes the absurd claim that they are “ProChoice” must defend to the last the right to abort a baby for any reason…uh…that’s what ProChoice means.  If you claim to be ProChoice and then start speaking about poor
  choices – whoops!  Your ProLife all of the sudden!  You better start
  voting Republican you disingenuous, don’t know what you stand for,
  flipflopper!!” -AliasUndercover

  And you have to admit it sounds good doesn’t it?  Sounds right. Choice is choice after all. How can you be against some but not others. Flip flopper!!

  But is this really true? If you believe abortions are ok some of the time but not all of the time are you morally inconsistent?

  Actually it is not. 

  The problem here is one of argument “framing”.  Here the pro-life side has defined pro-choice in the terms that it desires it to be. It has painted the idea of pro-choice as an absolutist principle. The reason to do that is rather obvious really. When you frame an opponents position in terms of absolutes it becomes rather *easy* to argue against it. As we see here. I can say: “Hey you do you support aborting a baby at 9 months because you suddenly decide you’d prefer a child who has naturally slightly curlier hair than this baby is genetically inclined to have? No? Well then you’re not Pro-Choice! Ha! I WIN! W00T!!”

  But that’s just patently absurd.  Whoever said that being pro-choice meant you had to support every case of abortion!?!?

  And in reality if you look at national poles you find that that’s quite clear. People who self describe themselves as pro-choice by and large DO NOT condone abortions under any and all circumstances. What they are, for the most part, opposed to is having a nationwide law that outlaws abortion in general and makes it a crime akin to murder.

  Still having trouble understanding the pro-choice position? Does it still seem inconsistent to you? Think of it this way:

  I don’t believe there should be a law or prohibition against lying in general.  I think it’s an individual’s right to choose when to lie and when not to lie. So in a sense I could be said to be “pro-choice” with regards to lying. But does that mean that I think lying is never morally repugnant? No! Of course not! There’s been PLENTY of times I’ve seen people lie and thought they were doing something terribly wrong and morally reprehensible. But there have also been times when I think a lie was the right thing to do.  I would not want my right to lie restricted on a blanket level by constitutional law. That would be ridiculous.

  And to take it further I am even not opposed to outlawing lying under certain circumstances. We have laws for example against lying under oath that can land you in prison or get you impeached if you are the President and whatnot. You aren’t allowed to lie to an officer of the law either. I’m not opposed to rules against lying. I’m not opposed to non-government based social punishment for lying too. I expect teachers in schools to punish children for lying frivolously. I expect churches to teach against lying as if it were a sin and a thing to be avoided in general. And I expect businesses to frown upon employees lying to further the aims of the company.  And yet… I’m definitely pro-choice with regards to lying. Try to make a law against lying in general and I will take to the streets in protest. The right to lie is an important individual right for me.

  Abortion is the same. I’m pro-choice. It ought not be the original principal of the government that all abortion is fundamentally wrong and illegal. I can see certain cases of abortion being illegal and the people who exercise it in those cases being punished, within reason, commiserate to their crime. As to what that punishment should be, is a matter for a great deal of social debate and analysis of the specific cases involved. But I would rarely think that an abortion should be treated on the same level as murder in the first degree.

  Interestingly though that brings me to another classical argument “framing” example ironically on the other side of the aisle. It’s not uncommon for pro-Choice people to “frame” the argument of pro-Life people as believing that any and all abortions should be treated as First Degree Murder cases. That the women and the doctors involved should all be locked up for life and/or executed!

  But of course most pro-Life people aren’t nearly that extreme. Most people’s morals aren’t that cut and dry. Rather most self-proclaimed pro-Life people believe in shades of gray. They believe that most abortions are wrong and they believe that this “wrongness” needs to be enshrined and protected through the law. But they might think a certain case is not as bad as another, is more understandable and should be afforded leeway. Most don’t think most abortions should be treated as first degree murder trials. Rather they just fear that without legally outlawing abortions people will begin to do them frivolously. That there won’t be any controls whatsoever. They fear that no one will protect the rights of unborn children who cannot speak for themselves. These positions should not be trivialized and turned into the assumption that all people who are pro-life and blood thirsty zealots ready to execute every doctor or mother who ever made that tough decision to abort a child.

  Don’t get me wrong. There very well may BE people who think like this. Just as indeed there are people who really believe that a fetus should be accorded no rights or recognition or protection prior to its birth because it is not a living or sentient entity but just a “thing”. It’s just that most people’s positions aren’t nearly that extreme. And we shouldn’t let those extreme views dominate the debate.

  Note how even with something as fundamental as murder morals have shades of gray? Not all cases are treated the same by the body of the law or the implementation of those laws! We have different statutes. We have various degrees of murder. We have complex sentencing procedures. And not all killing of human beings is considered murder at all. Why? Because the people’s morals are ALWAYS gray. There’s no such thing as absolute inviolable principles. That doesn’t mean we all are corrupt entities, lacking in morals, rather it means that life is surprise, surprise, actually pretty damned complicated particularly when it comes to matters of morality.

  The problem with the abortion debate has always been one of argument framing. Both sides believe so passionately about their positions that they frame the debate in terms that paint their opposition in the darkest light possible by stressing the most extreme sides. It enables them to focus on and stress differences in opinions between the sides, many of which in actuality don’t really exist between most individuals.

  Of course as some politicians have started to assert, including a certain Presidential candidate I am voting for, it makes far more sense for us to cast aside these childish arguments and focus on those areas on which we can, most of us anyway, agree. If we stop playing stupid argument framing games we’ll find that quite often most of us agree in terms of what is right and what is wrong on far more than we disagree. Of course, irony of irony, this Presidential candidate also happens to be the one who has been vilified as a monstrous baby killer in the media. Framing in action yet again. grrr
   
  But do yourself a favor and read through the comments on that entry of theTheologiansCafe. What you’ll find as you find in a great many of specific abortion debates that almost everyone who commented has said pretty much the same thing.

  We aren’t nearly as divided as you think we are

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