What a middle ground on abortion could look like

Most conservatives have dismissed the Mourdock case as a clumsy flub, one that a more skilled candidate would have avoided. But Mourdock was accurately representing the principled pro-life position: that life begins at conception, and that it is morally inconsistent to discriminate against life conceived by rape or incest. And voters recoiled at the consequence of that principle.

Wrong. Voters recoiled at Mourdock’s claim that a pregnancy that resulted from rape was God’s will, because that in turn implies the rape was God’s will, in which case that would make God pro-rape.

Stoic Patriot on January 31, 2013 at 8:44 PM

Today Christie holds a standard position on abortion: that it should be illegal in all circumstances except for rape, incest, and a threat to the life of the mother. His story illustrates the power of emphasizing the lives of unborn children as they grow and develop. It appeals to those who want abortion to be rarer, but not entirely illegal. It offers blue-state Republicans a way to talk about the issue that falls within the mainstream of public opinion in their states. It’s a way to improve and expand the degree to which fetal life is valued. Ultimately, it requires us to recognize that many people whom we consider to be pro-choice are equally pro-life.

Not really. When it comes to abortion, there are 2 primary modes of consideration — the “discrete” mode and the “continuous” mode. To ignore one and focus on the other misses a key portion of the debate.

The “discrete” mode deals with a very simple, binary issue. Does a child’s right-to-life trump a woman’s right to do with her own body as she pleases, or does it work in the reverse? There are similar questions when it comes to other matters. With guns, does a person’s right to life trump another person’s right to use their firearm however they so please, including discharging a would-be fatal round at whomever they please, or does it work in the reverse? This is a simple either/or question, and is properly answered with the right to life trumping all other rights, because without life no other right can be exercised or enjoyed, thus placing it first among all rights.

The “continuous” mode then deals with at what point one has a life, be it conception, brainwaves, heartbeat, pain, viability, birth, or any other criteria. It requires that we grapple with what constitutes a human being, and distinguishes a human being from what is “just tissue.” I think that the appropriate answer here is that we recognize that any organ of the human body can be replaced, and that losing no individual body part, a hand, a toe, an arm, makes anyone less a person. Rather, what defines an individual human being, what gives us personhood and rights, is the human mind, and the empirical evidence for the mind at work is brainwaves.

The rape and incest exemptions which Mr. Roy discusses are deleterious to the abortion discussion because they, while posturing as part of the “continuous” mode issue, in fact undercuts the “discrete” mode issue by indicating that the manner of conception and circumstances surrounding it, i.e., matters of convenience or comfort of others, trumps the right to life of another person. There’s an old saying: two wrongs don’t make a right, and we shouldn’t be putting forward innocent children as human sacrifices for the wrongs of others.

Stoic Patriot on January 31, 2013 at 8:53 PM