Abortion

I never understood the bumper sticker "Against Abortion? Don't Have One." I mean, people who are against abortion believe that it is equivalent to, or close to, the murder of babies. But surely those who put this bumper sticker on their cars wouldn't favor a bumper sticker that suggested that if you're against infanticide, then the proper response is simply to refrain from killing babies. If it's murder, then shouldn't it be outlawed?

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Agreed, the bumper sticker has very little persuasive appeal to those it purports to be addressing. But something could be said against your more general point, as follows.

Suppose someone believes that abortion is morally (roughly) on a par with infanticide and murder, and also that infanticide and murder are terrible crimes that ought to be criminalized and punished severely. Would it be incoherent for such a person also to hold that the criminal law should not interfere with any woman's decision about whether to have an abortion or not?

One could hold these two views together -- in fact, Mario Cuomo held them together when he was governor of New York State. One could rationalize the combination like this: "I am convinced that abortion is murder. But the grounds of my conviction are rooted in a religion that many of my fellow citizens do not share. In fact, my country is deeply divided on the issue of abortion, with many reasonable persons on either side. Under such circumstances, it would be wrong to use the criminal law to suppress conduct that many reasonable people conscientiously believe to be morally permissible. It is not wrong, by contrast, to use the criminal law to suppress infanticide and murder, because their status as terrible crimes is widely recognized by citizens from all the diverse walks of life."

Hard to fit on a bumper sticker, this point is nonetheless worth a thought. A pro-choice person can fully respect others' conviction that abortion is murder and still make a reasoned appeal to these pro-life people that they should not use their political power to conform the criminal law to their largely religious convictions.

You are absolutely right about the bumpersticker, and your analogy brings out precisely what's wrong with it. I am in favor liberal abortion laws. But I cringe every time I see that bit of rhetoric emblazoned on a car or button.

Here, perhaps, is what the bumpersticker would say if one had a much, much larger bumper: "Reasonble people can disagree as to whether a zygote, embryo, or fetus ought to be accorded the same moral status as a mature human being. If they are not properly accorded that status, then killing them is not murder. Given that reasonable people can disagree about all this, the state ought not to legislate against abortion, but should rather leave it up to the conscience of each idividual whether to have one or not."

It is a sign of the general degradation of our public political discourse that so much of it involves the mere trading of elliptical, misleading, and inflammatory bumpersticker-size slogans. The general trend against sober, reasonable discussion in the public realm is exacerbated in this case by the two main opposing advocacy agencies involved in the abortion debate: NARAL, and Right-to-Life, who each have a vested interest in keeping the debate polarized. Polls cosistently show that U.S. citizens favor liberal abortion laws for at least the first trimester of pregnancy, that they want abortion available in certain circumstances during the second, and that they do not want abortion permissible in the third trimester except to protect the life or health of the mother. This compromise position would have very general support, and if implemented, might end the rancorous controversy for good. But you’ll never see either group propose it – for both groups, it must be all-or-nothing.

Yes, I understand what you mean. I've also been known to smile wryly when reading "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart" (as does taking someone off a respirator, killing a mouse or even a spider). Perhaps more controversially, "Women are Not Incubators" (many are, though none are "mere" incubators) and "Keep your Laws Off My Body" (the same body that even traffic laws, rape laws, smoking laws and indecent exposure laws constrain). Then there's "Abortion was a Nazi Program" (as was the Autobahn highway and the Volkswagen). But I must admit that after indulging myself in a sense of logico-philosophical supercilousness for a moment, I suppress my feelings of superiority and think perhaps that you and the other critics here should reconsider. Remember that what you're reading is a bumpersticker and not a philosophical or legal treatise. I agree that political discourse seems a rather paltry thing today. But that doesn't change the fact that we're dealing with a rhetorical form here to which the kinds of criteria you bring to bear only loosely apply. For myself, I'm glad to see people express their political views in this format. Like the other critics, however, I do wish its limits weren't characteristic of so much of the rest of the political discourse today.

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