2012/01/26

The Stupidity of Abortion

The thing that irritates me most about the self-righteous pro-abortion crowd, who somehow want us to identify the killing of unborn children as an essential part of "women's rights", is their near-complete disregard for reality.  The average pro-abortion liberal, who plans to vote for Obama no matter what because all the Republican candidates are pro-life, takes a stand as though he recognizes in himself the second coming of Gandhi or MLK Jr., while it would be more accurate to assign him the moral and philosophical stature of the hidebound slave-owner refusing to vote for "abolitionist" Lincoln – and perhaps even less scientific credibility than that fine hundred-fifty year old gentleman.

He, after all, at least had a centuries-old belief in "inferior races", apparently borne out by the obvious superiority of his culture.  The modern advocate of "abortion rights" is forced to steadfastly ignore everything the human race has ever known about the conception and growth of children in order to make any sort of case.

Of course, I am assuming that the killing of human beings is wrong.  If that is indeed so, as we almost all believe, the case for abortion breaks down from the beginning.  Attempts to avoid the vise founder on the fact that any requirement for humanity conceivable beyond simple physical humanity depends on judgment.  When a practical authority of one group to judge another as a lesser party is established, the precedent renders a free, much less a moral, society untenable.  If, on the other hand, morality is non-existent in any kind of objective form; if the "right" to abortion really is merely a social preference, a convenience, then its supporters have no case to make against those who would rather ban the practice, except mob opinion.  A popularity contest, if you will.

Speaking of popularity contests, the presidential candidate Rick Santorum has been roundly criticized for his stance on abortion, as he is willing to deny its validity even in cases where pregnancy is a result of rape – and more controversial still, in cases where the mother's life is in danger.  Yet the absurdity of the spectacle should be obvious: people willing to kill or let be killed hundreds of thousands of children are protesting that someone might die.  Santorum at least makes it clear that he knows what he is advocating: the average abortion advocate wanting to crucify him displays a complete ignorance of the reality being debated.

We start, as I said before, with the assumption that killing another human is wrong in and of itself.  We may admit, if pressed, that certain situations may necessarily justify, or perhaps excuse, killing: self-defense, perhaps; or the punishment of a murderer or rapist.  Yet the run of the mill advocate of abortion does not even go so far as to admit that abortion involves death: facts are ignored.  The argument given is not often that the death of an infant is the lesser evil (though this argument seems at least plausible in the "mother's life" scenario – no doubt why it is the focus of the abortion activist who could clearly get no logical traction elsewhere).  No: the normal argument is that it is not our business, a defense many wife-beaters would no doubt also like to have applied to them.  Those who come closest to admitting the inherent evil still hedge, talking about how killing the child is better than forcing it to live in poverty and misery (the programs these same people tend to advocate to relieve poverty and carefully shield people from misery are apparently not applicable to babies and mothers), which brings us right back to one part of humanity deciding another part should be deprived of rights.

If the mainstream apologist for abortion would admit to the truth – that a human being is killed – and still say they considered it acceptable, we would all know what the stakes were.  Instead, they ignore the facts and the big picture, and end up looking ignorant – either deceived or self-deceived.

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