Living in the World
The god of Choice, Part 2

Abortion is a philosophical issue, not a biological one. All that is required for a conceived child to be born is time. Just as all that it takes for a twenty year old to become twenty-one is time to pass.

Smith puts the real issue as follows:
We don’t disagree about abortion as mush as we disagree about the value of individual rights and what the “quality of life” is all about and whether human life itself is accidental and therefore disposable or sacred and therefore inviolable.[1]
Most pro-choice advocates do not see abortion itself as a good thing. Even Bill Clinton, our strongest pro-choice President, desired abortion to be rare. But, unfortunately, he did nothing to bring about such a result. The issue over abortion is power and politics…choice. Abortion is not a good thing, but the right to an abortion is. That is very odd logic. The thing itself is evil but the authority to do the evil is good.

That is why it is disingenuous to posit that “I do not believe in abortion, but who am I to say a woman should not have an abortion.” If it is wrong to abort a baby, is it not wrong for everyone? Here again, moral right or wrong is no longer perceived as indicia for determining the validity of a choice. If so, some choices may be proscribed by an ethical system that overrides an individual’s preference. And, that is clearly outside the purview of personal choice.

The USSC has also weighed in on this issue of legislating morals. In fact, there is doubt whether there is room for any legislation of moral behavior in this republic. Citing the dissent of Justice Stevens in Bowers v. Hardwick, Justice Kennedy for the majority in Lawrence v. Texas (striking down the Texas statute criminalizing sodomy), the case that overruled Bowers, states:
..the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.[2]
One can only imagine what conduct heretofore adjudged morally abhorrent will some day be deemed “a personal, intimate choice central to the dignity and liberty of the actor.”

The USSC has eliminated morality as an objection to abortion legislation. We see this in the especially gruesome partial birth abortion (PBA) controversy. Even the AMA recognizes PBA is different from other abortions because the fetus is “killed outside the womb”.[3] Yet, five Justices struck down a Nebraska PBA law in Stenberg v. Carhart because it contained no exception for the “health of the mother” and because it “imposes an undue burden on a woman’s ability to choose an abortion. In the Congressional fact finding that accompanied the passage of the Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, it was determined that PBA is never necessary to protect the health of the mother. Three Federal District Courts have enjoined enforcement of the law and the Eighth Circuit in Gonzales v. Carhart held that the federal law criminalizing PBA is unconstitutional because it lacks a “health of the mother exception” in spite of the Congressional findings.

[1] Ibid, p. 264.
[2] For a more complete discussion of the impact of Lawrence and how, in the view of Justice Scalia, it could be the death knell of all legislation based on community standards of morality, see William C. Kriner, “When Rights Become Wrongs”, SGM Magazine, Vol. 1 No. 4 (January 15, 2005).
[3] Two procedures are used in PBA. Dilation and Extraction (D&X) is where the abortionist pulls the child from the cervix intact, subsequently using instruments to “extract the intracranial contents” of the child by collapsing the skull prior to delivery. Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) occurs when the abortionist uses medical instruments to pull the child from the uterus through the birth canal and while being forcibly removed from the mother the child, due to the fragility of its tissue, is ripped apart. Both of these procedures are used to abort in later stages of pregnancy.