The Partial-Birth Abortion Act
I consider the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart to uphold the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act to be correctly decided and trivial. It was correctly decided because I believe legislatures and judges are obliged to draw moral lines in the name of public policy. That line at least to me seems appropriate. Such lines are drawn all the time. The difference between speeding and not speeding is one mile per hour and the difference between misdemeanor theft and felony theft is one dollar. I don't buy the argument that the right to abortion opens the door to infanticide-- the so-called slippery slope fallacy. However, based on what I have read on it, it does seem to be a rather appalling procedure.
Having said that, I consider this decision to be trivial. First, it is exceedingly rare. Secondly, in the hypothetical where the mother's life is in peril, I cannot imagine that any jury would convict if the doctor had to choose between the life of the mother and the child and the mother's life was chosen. Thirdly, if the mother's life was not at risk, it is hard for me to believe that a mother would allow the fetus to incubate into the third trimester so it would even be an issue.
Abortion is far more complex than merely making a simplistic dichotomy between pro-life and pro-choice positions. (Choosing to abort can be pro-life and choosing not to abort is of course a choice, so such labels are meaningless.) Few doctors endorse abortion as a means of birth control and such a grave step should never be taken lightly. Doctors, perhaps for insurance reasons, sometimes scare the daylights out of mother-to-be about the health of their child. But doctors are sometimes wrong, and it’s important to trust ourselves in such matters.
I’ve also met few absolutists on abortion, especially when they have to deal with the issue personally, as in a hypothetical in which a baby is an encephalic-- without a brain-- and the mother’s life in danger. Someone wrote to me saying that this “did happen to my closest friends a couple of years ago, and even more ironically, at the time, I was teaching an eight week course on Biblical ethics when the severity of her condition came to light. In a nutshell, she had four small kids at home, pregnant with her fifth, when she started having problems. Doctors said that: a) The baby essentially had no brain, his limbs were severely deformed, and other internal organs where malformed beyond hope. b) Because of some uterine problems, there was a very high chance that sometime in the ninth month she would suffer some major hemorrhage that could prove fatal to her. They of course, wanted to abort right away. She refused, and moreover, wanted to carry the baby full term and have a natural childbirth. (Initially, she actually wanted to give birth at home). For me, I saw the ethical question in a whole new light, now that it had a face on it. The baby had a zero percentage chance of surviving. For a staunch pro-lifer, it was a dilemma acknowledging that the right-to-life can't always be seen as an absolute. It didn't seem right that the mother should possibly lose her life, and four small children lose their mother, when the baby wasn't going to live no matter what. Fortunately, the mother decided to have a C-section at the earliest possible time. (32 weeks or something like that...don't exactly remember) She got through it okay. The baby lived for three days or so.”
I might also point out that abortion should not even be a moral issue in a society where young men and women have the self-respect, self-control, and a desire for a good future to exclude promiscuity from their life-- not just before marriage but for their entire life. Moral economy consists of supply and demand. If there was no demand for heroin, there would be no supply of heroin. Likewise, if there was no demand for promiscuity, the demand for abortion would I suspect also decline. So, for me, the biggest question is: why is it that promiscuity remains such a lure to cause so many people to shipwreck their lives and the lives of others?
Having said that, I consider this decision to be trivial. First, it is exceedingly rare. Secondly, in the hypothetical where the mother's life is in peril, I cannot imagine that any jury would convict if the doctor had to choose between the life of the mother and the child and the mother's life was chosen. Thirdly, if the mother's life was not at risk, it is hard for me to believe that a mother would allow the fetus to incubate into the third trimester so it would even be an issue.
Abortion is far more complex than merely making a simplistic dichotomy between pro-life and pro-choice positions. (Choosing to abort can be pro-life and choosing not to abort is of course a choice, so such labels are meaningless.) Few doctors endorse abortion as a means of birth control and such a grave step should never be taken lightly. Doctors, perhaps for insurance reasons, sometimes scare the daylights out of mother-to-be about the health of their child. But doctors are sometimes wrong, and it’s important to trust ourselves in such matters.
I’ve also met few absolutists on abortion, especially when they have to deal with the issue personally, as in a hypothetical in which a baby is an encephalic-- without a brain-- and the mother’s life in danger. Someone wrote to me saying that this “did happen to my closest friends a couple of years ago, and even more ironically, at the time, I was teaching an eight week course on Biblical ethics when the severity of her condition came to light. In a nutshell, she had four small kids at home, pregnant with her fifth, when she started having problems. Doctors said that: a) The baby essentially had no brain, his limbs were severely deformed, and other internal organs where malformed beyond hope. b) Because of some uterine problems, there was a very high chance that sometime in the ninth month she would suffer some major hemorrhage that could prove fatal to her. They of course, wanted to abort right away. She refused, and moreover, wanted to carry the baby full term and have a natural childbirth. (Initially, she actually wanted to give birth at home). For me, I saw the ethical question in a whole new light, now that it had a face on it. The baby had a zero percentage chance of surviving. For a staunch pro-lifer, it was a dilemma acknowledging that the right-to-life can't always be seen as an absolute. It didn't seem right that the mother should possibly lose her life, and four small children lose their mother, when the baby wasn't going to live no matter what. Fortunately, the mother decided to have a C-section at the earliest possible time. (32 weeks or something like that...don't exactly remember) She got through it okay. The baby lived for three days or so.”
I might also point out that abortion should not even be a moral issue in a society where young men and women have the self-respect, self-control, and a desire for a good future to exclude promiscuity from their life-- not just before marriage but for their entire life. Moral economy consists of supply and demand. If there was no demand for heroin, there would be no supply of heroin. Likewise, if there was no demand for promiscuity, the demand for abortion would I suspect also decline. So, for me, the biggest question is: why is it that promiscuity remains such a lure to cause so many people to shipwreck their lives and the lives of others?
Labels: abortion
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