The Pattern of Abortion Discussion online

Over the last month or so, I have been involved in quite a few online discussions about abortion and I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect upon a few of the interactions as several of them involved strange arguments and bewildering claims…

Just as pro-life?

In one thread, I was told the following:

“…people who advocate for choice are generally just as ‘pro-life’ as are anti-choicers…”

Abortion Advocate #1

What a strange thing to say! In what way does someone who supports the right for a child to be killed in the womb “just as ‘pro-life'” as someone who thinks it barbaric? I ask the question, but received no reply…

Under what circumstances?

Another pro-choice advocate wrote this:

“Pro-choicers are less interested in imposing our values on people whose circumstances we don’t know.”

Abortion Advocate #2

This chap thought that someone’s circumstances could justify getting an abortion. It’s certainly an interesting idea, so I decided to test it. I asked him under what circumstances he would find abortion an unacceptable choice. He didn’t reply…

Was the question too broad? I brought up a specific example: sex-selective abortions. I asked him whether he’d agree with me that it’s wrong for a couple to seek an abortion because they were pregnant with a girl and instead wanted a boy? Once again, he gave no answer…

Instead, a different pro-choice advocate answered, the one who had initiated the thread. She said that while she didn’t like sex-selective abortion, she thought it the parent’s choice. She explained that if a child of the undesired sex was allowed to live and be born, that child would be at risk of mistreatment by her parents. What a response! She was seriously arguing that it is better to allow parents to kill their children rather than run the risk of resenting them and harming them in some way. Utterly mind-boggling! I asked her why she wouldn’t like sex-selective abortions. Not only did she not reply, she deleted the thread…

Too long, didn’t read

One advocate for abortion wrote this:

“I remember a time in high school when a girl tried to abort a child with a knitting needle because she didn’t have a choice… That was before Roe vs Wade… I would hate for us to go back to those days! I don’t think it’s the government’s business at all to decide something like this…. Very few people make a decision to abort lightly and the condemnation for it is awful! It’s a personal decision… And I’ll add this …. To vote for Trump just because he’s pro choice… That’s a tragedy!”

Abortion Advocate #3

I responded to this comment by summarising what I thought to be her argument:

1. Some women will want to have abortions
2. If abortions are illegal then some women will try to do it themselves and may get hurt in the process
3. Therefore abortion should be legal

I invited her to read an article I wrote several years ago which outlines the logical problems with this argument. Her reply was quite incredible:

“David Bates … I don’t need to… Read a couple sentences and that’s enough…Some people just like to keep arguing… I don’t…. Have no reason to play word games with anyone except “words with friends”. I know what I believe and why I believe it and that’s all that matters to me!”

Abortion Advocate #3

The article is just 720 words and she couldn’t even be bothered to read it! I told her that I would have respected her and the truth enough to read any article which she sent me, if she thought it refuted my argument. She replied that she didn’t need or want my respect. I wonder if she feels the same way about truth…

All it takes is for good men to do nothing

Discussion had been going back and forth on one Facebook thread when someone came in to parlay:

“OK, guys. How bout we leave it that there are degrees of logic that support both the pro and anti-choice positions?”

Abortion Advocate #4

I explained that I could not agree with his assertion. I didn’t think any of the argument I heard held water. Not only that, I pointed out that in the discussion a clear pattern had emerged, whereby pro-choicer advocates refused to answer to simple questions which challenged the logic of their position. To this, he responded:

“David, I’ve observed a pattern that repeats itself in pretty much every strident anti-choice person with whom I’ve tried to carry on a respectful conversation for years. It’s a seemingly wilful refusal to acknowledge that there’s a point of view that might not coincide with his/her definition of morality, that the two points of view can peacefully coexist, and that sometimes cultural issues are best left to the imperfect judicial branch of our constitutional republic to interpret in order to keep that peace. I’ll have a lot more respect for you if you can either acknowledge that reality or let it be the last word.”

Abortion Advocate #4

Hopefully readers can see how utterly incoherent this reply is. Pro-lifers don’t deny that someone can have a different point of view…they just think it’s morally wrong! I’d invite you to reread the above reply, but instead of “abortion”, substitute it with “the Nazi extermination of the Jews” to see why this guy’s appeal doesn’t work. One cannot sit idly by while others exterminate human beings on a massive scale. Pro-lifers are happy to “peacefully coexist” with pro-choicers… as long as the unborn are also allowed to “peacefully coexist”.

He said that it’s “…best left to the imperfect judicial branch of our constitutional republic to interpret in order to keep that peace”. I asked him whether he would you have said the same thing to William Wilberforce and the other slavery Abolitionists? At that time in history, many educated people thought that certain kinds of people did not deserve protection under the law, much like the unborn today. You also had another group of people who thought slavery was distasteful and bad, but regarded it as an established cultural norm and necessary for the functioning of society. They too, thought that it was best to leave it to an imperfect government to regulate. They too wished that the Abolitionists would stop making a fuss, “peacefully co-exist”, and leave the status quo remain undisturbed. If those arguments didn’t work for slavery, they don’t work for abortion either.