…a student asked me what she should write about for her Ethics paper (Master’s course). After 15 minutes of discussion, we hit on abortion. ”I support a women’s right to choose,” she said. ”Great,” I said, “very personal issue, and entirely your call. But do this for me … research both sides without bias. Write out both arguments as dispassionately as you can. Then apply our ethical models to each side in waves. The first wave is meant to destroy the argument; the second wave to find support for it. Then bring it together in a final analysis leading to your conclusion.”
She came back to me at the end of the semester. ”I’m appalled,” she said. And I could tell she was upset. ”Talk to me,” I encouraged. ”The hardest part of this paper was trying to support abortion. I don’t think I did a good job. Those people – from providers through politicians – have no morals whatsoever. The industry is disgusting. I can never support abortion, and that was the last thing I expected when I started this research.”
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Doug Lawrence's Catholic Site 
When people take their head out of the sand, they begin to see the truth. Blogs like yours can only help.
Thanks.
I guess she didn’t get as far as the murder of American doctors in her research. That’s hardly ethical, is it?
The tone doesn’t ring true. There are people of good faith on both sides of the issue, and a diligent research would show that. Abortion is also performed without controversy in many other countries with high standards of medical ethics.
I don’t know anyone of good faith and high ethical standards that advocates the killing of the innocent.
As for the issue of murdering abortion doctors: That is an unfortunate side show, and not part of the ethical debate that remains centered on whether people ought to be legally empowered to kill their offspring.
As long as you continue to transpose abortion to “killing the innocent” of course you won’t be able to imagine anyone of good faith supporting it. What you would need to do,in order to get back into communication with the rest of the world, is allow that the framing you have adopted does not enjoy universal support.
I agree that the actions of the murderers are not part of the debate. You must however bear full responsibility for the consequences of your conscious decision to frame the lawful act of abortion as murder. Real doctors, not fetuses or embryos, have died because your rhetorical advicer have been taken literally. It is deliberately inflammatory and the consequences are foreseeable. Just cut it out.
There is no civil government on earth with the power to transgress either the natural law, the law of the universal (Catholic) Church, no matter how many might choose to agree with the killing, based on whatever twisted logic they wish to rely.
The Nazis tried that with the Jews, to their eternal shame. Abortion is even worse, although many Jews seem to be surprisingly unable or unwilling to make the connection.
As for the abortion doctors … to be truly pro life is to be 100% non violent. Those who advocate harming abortion providers are not pro-life. They are anti-abortion.
That’s a very big … and a very critical difference!
Abolitionists did not have universal support either. In fact, quite the opposite. I wonder if that made slavery any less of a violation.
Abortion is akin (i.e., similar in nature or quality) to murder. I’m going to continue calling a spade a spade. Should some guy come unhinged and kill an abortion doctor, that’s a tragedy. But how is that different than the eco-nut who shot up Texas, trying to prevent the inevitable down fall of civilization as a direct result of evil, greedy corporations? It’s not different – at all.
Perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to throw the first stone.
Doug,
My advice would be to ignore that idiot. He come over to my blog spewing pure insanity, waxing Suppose Planned Parenthood’s business was 100% abortion, what’s wrong with that?Abortion is legal, safe, reliable and popular.
He’s not all there. He’s crazy. He’s a far-Left liberal loon, an unreasonable zealot.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to throw the first stone.”
Well that’s exactly what I’m trying to dissuade you from doing. Please moderate your rhetoric.
“He’s not all there. He’s crazy. He’s a far-Left liberal loon, an unreasonable zealot.”
Suppose I were: wouldn’t my spewing of nonsensical arguments make me a good foil.
I remain convinced that I speak for the majority of the population, however. It is, I believe, those who describe abortion as “akin to murder” who are out on a limb,
You’re trying to encourage people to remain as ignorant as you. I’m sorry, but I will continue calling a spade a spade. No reasonable person would ever suggest elective abortion to be anything other than an act akin to murder.
Of where? England? Ireland? The United States? England is a socialist hell-hole who wouldn’t lost five seconds without the U.S. to protect it; abortion is illegal in Ireland; and in the United States, the public is pretty split on the issue.
No, I checked again and the set containing people who say abortion is akin to murder has a quite small intersection with the set of reasonable people.
I do happen to live in England, where Parliament has always decided the question of abortion on a free vote of the House of Commons. This gives MPs the ability to speak, and vote, their conscience.
In my country the obscene sight of pickets outside clinics hurling blood is almost unknown. Doctors and their wives sleep safely in their beds. The contagion of hatred that afflicts your local abortion politics has never penetrated this sceptred isle. Reliable information about abortion is widely disseminated, and the procedure is available free to those who need it.
If that’s what a socialist hellhole looks like, I say hurray for socialism! But alas for your thesis, the period in which abortion has been publicly available has been presided over by Conservative governments as well as socialists.
Are they all unreasonable in your eyes? Then have your eyes checked.
I don’t think it’s true to say, either, that the public is split on the issue. Significant majorities are in favor of abortion being legal in some circumstances, and I’m sure that isn’t true of murder. If baldly faced with a comparison between abortion and murder, I’ve no doubt that most Americans recoil with disgust.
And the abortion statistics speak for themselves. Abortion is very, very popular with American women, judging by the figures.
Surely then you’ll have no trouble providing us with a citation of some kind, right?
Regardless, there need not be a consensus that an act is wrong for it to actually be wrong. I have mentioned slavery once already and will again. The abolitionists, such as Benjamin Franklin, did not enjoy universal support. Would you say, then, people like Benjamin Franklin was unreasonable? Would you say slavery was therefore morally acceptable, because society accepted it?
You’re not a very bright person, I’ve noticed.
Idiotic. Even the pro-life camp believes abortion should be legal when necessary to save the life of the mother. At least most sensible pro-lifers believe that. A large population of pro-lifers also believe abortion should be legal in the case of rape or incest. I don’t believe that, but many do.
Abortion may happen often, but there are reasons for that beyond your comprehension. You act as though abortion is as popular as American Eagle’s new spring lineup. Studies have shown that many women are pressured into an abortion; pressured into a procedure they don’t want.
Also, slavery was popular too. Did that make it right? Use your head.
Now I’m finished with you.
Remember that you are the person stating that no reasonable person denies that abortion is akin to murder. That’s an extravagant claim, you’re well aware, and yet you demand that I prove the contrary.
You’ve conceded that many opposed to abortion agree that it should be permitted in the case of rape or incest. Do you think the “akin to murder” argument sways those people? If so, how do you account for the discrepancy? Perhaps you think that they, too, are unreasonable.
Finally, you’re pressing the “insult” pedal rather heavily. I won’t be drawn because I think these matters should be discussed with reason. Let’s forget the insults and proceed to hold such a reasonable discussion.
Unborn children are human beings. That is not debatable. No reasonable person would dispute that. So then we look at the definition of murder, which basically is the unjustified killing of a human being. So, then we ask if abortion is justified? Considering tacit consent or approval, the answer is no. Therefore, abortion is akin to murder.
The only people who would allow abortion in such a circumstance are reluctant pro-lifers. They don’t understand the issue as well as they should. But with a rape, tacit consent or approval is not given, so an argument could be made that the killing is therefore justified.
I don’t like you. I think you’re a far-left liberal muttonhead and nothing more. I read your blog, your asinine comments on a few others, and I’ve concluded as much. You are unreasonable. You are morally bankrupt. You disgust me.
Yes, you’re disgusted, etc. But do you think we could forego the pleasantries?
Earlier today you ascribed the belief that incest and rape may excuse abortion to a “large population of pro-lifers.” Now they’re “reluctant pro-lifers”. And you even understand their reasoning, even if you don’t condone it. A rape denies tacit consent therefore killing may be justified, you say.
I know you disagree with the reasoning. I also disagree with the reasoning, but probably on different grounds than yours.
The point is that you and I and a “reluctant pro-lifer” could probably sit down and discuss these questions and disagree without any great animus. The fetus or embryo has rights, the woman has rights. And opinions on the conjunction of those rights covers a broad spectrum.
I tend towards the notion that a woman should have at least some control over the contents of her own body. Since I expect to have complete control, excepting epidemic disease, over my own innards, I cannot justify the enslavement of a woman.