Safe, Legal, and Rare

"Look, no one's for lynching," the speaker said to the citizens gathered around him in the town square. "Both sides can acknowledge that killing a black man is a bad thing. But can't we work together to work to eliminate the root causes of lynching, while still acknowledging that it is sometimes a necessity, and ought not to face a legal penalty?"

Most of us would immediately recognize such a speech as not just imprudent, but deeply evil. And yet, thirty-three years today after Roe v. Wade, we still hear such arguments about abortion. In today's New York Times, William Saletan calls for a "war we can all we can support." Saletan's compromise is not new. It calls for pro-lifers to abandon legal protections for the unborn while pro-choicers acknowledge that, "It's bad to kill a fetus."

And, of course, we know what Saletan would identify as "truly anti-abortion": support for the state's expansive sex-education, contraception, and "morning after" pills, coupled with the legal abortion guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. "What we need is an explicit pro-choice war on the abortion rate, coupled with a political message that anyone who stands in the way, yammering about chastity or a 'culture of life,' is not just anti-choice, but pro-abortion."

What we are seeing here is the conscience the apostle Paul tells us about in Romans 2. The bald fact is that even in the most hardened abortion activist knows, in his heart of hearts, that it is "bad to kill a fetus." But we are also seeing the callous searing over over the conscience the apostle warns us about.

"So we're agreed?" the speaker asked. "Let's stop yammering about anti-lynching laws and a 'culture of life' and let's acknowledge that it's bad to kill a black man. Let's work together on poverty and education about the proper relationships between the races. And in the meantime let's work to maintain a more careful segregation, so we don't have black men alone with white women, which is the most often cause of lynching in our community."

And no one seemed to notice the corpse swinging in the tree above the town square.

Comments

[little gidding]

Under the new regime, in which the institution of the family will have been banished, the phrase "safe, legal, and rare" will actually apply most forcefully, not to abortions (because most of us will have sterilized anyway for the good of Society), but to children, who will be rare, and whose birth will have been licensed by the State (and therefore legal), and preselected for all kinds of physical and mental disabilities (and therefore "safe").

[little gidding]

Sorry. Replace "preselected" above with "winnowed" (or something).

[Tough questioner]

What would you say to my friends who explain they're "pro-choice" because they don't want women to die from ectopic pregnancy? Exactly how much risk should the law compel a woman to take?

[little gidding]

I would ask them to consider whether the present arrangement resembles anything like one in which only women in danger of dying are placed in a separate category. The answer is no; most abortions are performed for no such serious reason. Therefore, why would they choose to defend being "pro-choice" for what's in place, by that qualified defense? To me, such an objection sounds like it is offered in a non-serious way. That's what I would ask.

[Janet]

You know that, "to save the life of the mother" condition has always puzzled me. Before most people thought about "aborting the fetus" (or baby as they may have thought then), would any doctor have let a pregnancy continue that was killing the mother?! (granted knowledge and technical skill). I think not. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the old fashioned, naturally pro-life doc have attempted to save the Mom first and the baby if possible or if necessary have terminated the pregnancy, sadly knowing the fetus would not survive, and done all this with normal, judicious medical sensibility.

[GL]

Whatever one may think about Legal, we should all work for Rare. My hope is that Roe v. Wade will be overturned and the issue of abortion can again be legislated in each of the 50 states. Exactly what form those new laws should take is complicated, but that the goal should be to make abortion rare should be agreed to by all. What we on the pro-life side must remember is that law is a means, not an end: the end is to save as many lives as possible. Criminalizing abortion is likely not all it will take to reach that end. I have no problem with working with pro-choice legislators (federal and state) to enact laws that make abortion more rare so long as we are not required to compromise our ability to continue to challenge Roe v. Wade.

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Abortion is such a hard issue for most people, because it shows this world in all it's imperfect complexity. Nobody I know really thinks abortion is right... but sometimes it is the lesser wrong. And that's why it has to remain a choice.

[Michael Bauman (not Dr.)]

Well, payday, you may not know anybody who thinks abortion is right, but I've heard folks on national TV and elsewhere make the claim that it is the only virtuous approach to pregnancy in many situations (the ones you undoubtedly classify as a lesser wrong).

There is a difference between something being wrong and something being evil. Abortion is evil.

The trouble with using the law and the language of right-to-life is that what the state gives, the state can take away. Blessed be the state.

The law can help reform people's conscience but it will never stop abortion. The narcisstic and infantile attitude with which we approach sex, marriage and family these days guarantees it.

It is not just about overturning Roe vs Wade which, IMAO, would do little to impact the abortion reality.

It is about realizing the horrible sinfulness into which we have fallen in our approach to everything to do with family, sex and children.

St. Maximus the Confessor wrote about the steps to salvation and the healing of the rift between men and women was the first step. Does anyone think that abortion is not really about men and women no longer trusting one another, no longer willingly making ourselves vulnerable to one another instead just using one another as live action blow-up dolls and nothing else? We refuse to enter into the mutual submission that God calls for. Our refusal makes it impossible to fulfill our task of dressing and keeping the earth--bringing it to fruition in accordance with God's will. That includes populating it among many other duties, joys and responsibilities.

ALL of the liberal social issues that they think demand intrusive even tryannical government action would be ameliorated extensively if we would learn to be men and women together under God and in God. We still have to avoid the utopian/chiliastic impluse of the modern age, but great changes would occur.

That is not to mention the incalcuable harm that is done to the souls of those who participate in the willful the killing of a unborn child in prusuit of a
'lesser wrong'

God save us from such sophistry!