Thoughts on Abortion

I got to thinking about abortion while reading Freakonomics. Levitt made big news with some empirical work that attributes the drop in violent crime in the late 90s to the widespread legalization of abortion with Roe vs. Wade in 1973. The theory is pretty straightforward – an unwanted son born to a woman not ready to raise a child, and likely to do so without the help of a father, is more likely to be a violent criminal when he reaches his late teens. To the extent that abortion reduces the number of boys born into such circumstances, crime 16 years down the line will be reduced.

It is not a normative argument about the desirability of abortion, though clearly some took it that way at the time. It would be a rather barbaric argument for abortion, and the authors are the first to point this out, saying that it is rather rude to tout the public benefit of a “private sorrow.” And that phrase is what struck me – that abortion amounts to a private sorrow. It seems to me that this a presumption, a big one, on the part of the authors and those with similar sentiments; it is not obvious to me that abortion is a private sorrow for all who choose abortion, and there is substantial evidence that seems to point the other way.

On the National Mall each year there is a pro-choice rally where women hold placards bemoaning the fact that Barbara Bush didn’t have the right to choose, and hawking t-shirts that proudly boast “I had an abortion.” There are those who feel terrible sorrow in the aftermath, and there is even an organized group of such women who try to counsel young women away from the choice, but they are never permitted to participate in the pro-choice rally in any official capacity.

Apparently the sorrow, for some, is permanent and they are willing to make it public to spare others the same, but the pro-choice position is not about making an informed decision, it’s about making the “responsible” decision. The roots of the very movement were eugenicist and racist in nature, seeking to advocate the choice of abortion for those considered incapable of the duties of parenthood, particularly black women. But it has morphed to become a choice that is “right” under any and all circumstances, so long as it is voluntarily chosen.

What kind of person flaunts the choice and wears it as a badge of pride? The familiar bumper sticker is “how can you trust me with a child if you can’t trust me with a choice?” There is a strange internal logic to that bumper sticker that works only under the assumption of an utter lack of kindness on the part of the woman who would think such a thing. The logic is the operative logic of Levitt’s theory: the “right” choice is to abort the baby so that you won’t abuse it as an unwanted child, which would lead only to unhappiness for the kid and perhaps others down the line. It assumes abusing your own child is an unavoidable consequence of having it. The truth is that a woman who thinks such things can’t be trusted with a choice or a child.

That is where the pro-choice position has evolved, but its origins were captured in a slightly different bumper sticker phrasing: “we can’t trust them with a child, so we can’t let them have a choice.” And a large part of that origin still remains. There is a large segment of the pro-choice movement who treat the decision to abort, under certain circumstances, as the moral choice. Whether it be some ailment the child will be known to suffer from, or the socio-economic status of the mother (and it is more often the latter than the former) women are told it is the responsible thing to do. When the attempt is to justify abortion as the right choice, not just for the self-interest of the mother, but for the child, it betrays the deep materialism of the underlying mindset – some lives are worth more than others, and you can tell those worth living by their length and their comfort. If I were an atheist, I’d be right there with them. But I am not, and so I view the materialism of the pro-choice view as a sad philosophy that breeds a culture of death.

The legality of the practice gets so much attention that I think sometimes it obscures the ugliness of the pro-choice philosophy. There is a cold-heartedness to it that it cannot hide behind a banner of freedom as it tries so desperately to do. And the shame of it is this – that young woman, scared and facing the decision that the Supreme Court has granted them, face a culture that is clearly split on the question of the legality of abortion, but fundamentally less split on the issue of the morality of abortion. If I had a dime for every Democratic politician who says they believe it is immoral, but thinks it should nevertheless be legal, I’d be a rich man.

If you believe that, why wouldn’t you be critical of those who advocate the morality of it, who counsel countless women that it is the right choice? It never happens; instead these politicians wring their hands about legislating morality and it being a private choice. When someone claims to be a believing Christian, claims to believe life begins at conception, and then begs off of the issue by saying he doesn’t want to impose his morality on others, I want to scream that it is your duty to try to at least influence people to make the right decision. But for a guy like Kerry, his personal pro-life stance coupled with his laissez faire attitude towards the decisions of others is the equivalent of viewing heaven as being like a posh private school that he is entitled to attend, but let’s face, not all are worthy of it.

We rightly look at a woman who has abused her child and regretted her birth with moral disdain. Should we applaud the woman who, sensing she will do the same, aborts her child instead? I’d like to think that there aren’t many women who fall into this category; certainly many of them who choose to abort could and would be loving parents if they decided otherwise. That’s the choice, and the behavior, that should be encouraged and applauded. Print up t-shirts that say “I didn’t have an abortion.” That should be the badge of honor. As it stands, the “choice” has boiled down in many cases to the crassest of consumer choices.