Abortion is Killing the Child in the Womb

Some things are obvious. The title of this post is obviously factual because it is based on the plain meaning of words. Nobody could have a factual objection to it, only a political objection. Another obvious fact is that life begins at the beginning. All things begin at their beginning. That is what "beginning" means.

It should be possible to have a fairly straightforward measuring stick that a lot of people would agree on for when abortion should be illegal, nation-wide. Killing the child in the womb should be illegal (some form of conspiracy to commit murder or homicide) in all cases where the child is viable with medical help outside the womb. Once delivered, the child is clearly a human being. This would prevent any late term abortions, and not prevent RU486 or contraceptive methods like the pill that flush the rapidly developing embryo out of the body. It doesn’t depend on religious or moral stances or fine parsing of when life begins (for life begins at the beginning, obviously). And it is already aligned with the partial-birth abortion ban in the US.

Killing a child in the womb before that time is a tragedy, but I’m not sure that punishing the already disturbed women who make that choice by forcing them to seek out non-accredited doctors is a win for society. I am open to arguments on this. My religious conviction is that all abortion is killing, but murder is usually more closely parsed than killing, and that's why the sixth commandment said "Thou shalt not murder" in Hebrew. Is abortion murder of a child in the womb? To answer that we need to know what murder is. Murder is the unlawful taking of human life. Thus to some extent murder can be defined however the powers that be (in the US, this would be the people and their legislature) want. I think that the powers that be should define murder and decide where abortion fits into that frame. Judges do not define crimes. They only apply the definitions that are in the law. And that is why I believe that Roe should be overthrown, because judges made new law where there was none before. Following that, the issue can be handled by the legislatures of the states or that of the federal government. This is a legalistic turn to a moral argument, and I am sorry if it seems wishy-washy. But I was led to this conclusion by reason in support of morality, not by leaping to conclusions.

On the other hand, the eugenicist aspect to abortion should be troubling to all who hope for a color-blind nation. Abortion is more easily available, and more widely used, in the mostly black inner cities of America than any other place in America. If you read the story of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, you will find this was PP’s intention from the start.

And just think about all the 40 million legal abortions that have been performed in the US since 1972. Would we need so many legal and illegal immigrants to do the jobs that need to be done if we hadn’t been killing off so many children who would have grown up, some of them who would have working-age children of their own by now? Instead of 12-20 million illegal immigrants, we could have 40 million American citizens who participate fully in our economy and society.

Imagine no abortion, it's easy if you try.

Sparked by evanescent


Technorati Tags: Abortion, Moral Clarity, Crime and Punishment, Women's Rights