Abortion And Morality
A friend’s recent post regarding abortion (thanks PA) and the recent passage in Louisiana of a very restrictive abortion law have motivated me to share some thoughts on this very complicated and difficult subject.
First, consider this: If a woman delivers a baby outside of the hospital and lets it die, the woman is charged with murder. Under recently passed “up until the moment of birth” abortion legislation in New York State, if a woman does the same thing IN the hospital, she is charged with NOTHING. This stark discrepancy shows us that there’s SOMETHING very wrong here. How can it be that the same act in one context is murder and in another context perfectly fine. The inconsistency is glaring. And, since, presumably, NO one would advocate the former, the problem must be with the latter, i.e., New York State’s new abortion law.
It is said that a society can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable and defenseless, and there is nothing, ladies and gentlemen, more vulnerable and defenseless than a young life. On humanitarian grounds alone society is right to enact laws on abortion. That doesn’t mean, however, that a woman or family must be burdened with raising a child she doesn’t want or can’t afford. There are, on the books, laws that allow the woman to give the child up with no recriminations and “no questions asked.” There are thousands and thousands of good families that would give anything to make a loving home for it.
Now, although I feel that some abortion legislation is appropriate and necessary, I am NOT in favor of the Louisiana law as written. The “fetal heartbeat” restriction, in my opinion is too strict. The fetal heartbeat begins at five weeks gestation and this is before many women even know they are pregnant. So a “heartbeat restriction” would, in effect, prevent just about ALL abortions. Likewise, I feel that the prohibition of abortion in cases of rape and incest is also wrongheaded. In my mind, the sin, or “moral falling”, if you prefer, in such cases is “on” the rapist or incestophile, NOT the woman victim, who should NOT, therefore, have to face the consequences of the immoral act committed against her. Having said that, however, I believe that there IS a place, and in fact a NEED, for correctly constructed abortion legislation.
Now, some may argue, that abortion, at any stage of pregnancy, is a woman’s “right”, and, therefore, the government has no business intervening. But, let’s explore this line of thought further.
Consider the following: There was an arrest on Long Island just last week (you may have read about it) of a man who was charged with beating two puppies to death and critically injuring a third. I would ask, therefore: was the State of New York wrong to intervene? The man could, rightfully, claim that the he owned the puppies. And, since they were HIS property, couldn’t he further maintain that he had the “right” to do what ever he pleased with them? What “right” did the State of New York have to try to stop his actions? The answer, of course, is that it is cruel and morally wrong to treat any creature so barbarically. Accordingly, I suspect that most people would concede that the State of New York was right to step in. The brutality of the beatings this man gave to the dogs (one had broken ribs and died of a punctured lung, and the other had a liver laceration and bled to death internally) was so ugly, ALL of us would want the state to put a stop to them.
Most people, however, don’t know just how ugly late term abortions really are. Please take a moment to look at my essay (Ghoulish, 1/27/19) posted on my website to get an idea of just what’s involved. It turns out that ALL the methods of late term termination are horrible. Once people realize that, I would hope that support for late term abortions would ebb very quickly.
Now, some people may take the position that the state shouldn’t legislate morality. To this line of thinking, I would respond that, although the relationship between morality and the law is complicated, they are, ultimately, inseparable. The law is the guardian of morality, and morality is the lodestar of the law. We must use our sense of empathy and mercy to inform our conception of morality and then use our moral sense to inform our laws. And that’s especially true when considering the most defenseless beings in our society, whether they be puppies or humans.