The New Abolitionist Imperative

As the drama of Virginia Governor Ralph “Coonman” Northam, abortion enthusiast and racist moonwalker, continues to unfold, the revelation of seemingly multiple incidents of past racism have entirely overshadowed his abhorrent abortion comments. While every aspect of the Northam ordeal deserves discussion (WFB Jr. Jr. does a great job doing so here), it is truly unfortunate that after a fleeting moment of national attention and discussion, the world’s leading cause of death fell yet again to the background.

Brushing aside the abortion conversation is nothing new: newly announced 2020 independent presidential candidate Howard Schultz recently did exactly that while appearing on the View, stating “I think the most important thing facing the country right now is not the issue of abortion or the cultural issues that divide us.” But relegating abortion to a “cultural” or, as is likewise common, “social” issue is about as reasonable as describing America’s history of slavery in the same terms. While many balk at drawing parallels between slavery and abortion, the similarities are often unavoidable and this case is no exception: the abysmal practice, once condoned and protected legally (the justification of which hinging on pseudoscientific arguments, such as phrenology, that denied the humanity of an entire subset of people) cannot be viewed as a minor “cultural issue” for which differences of opinion are valid and acceptable.

It was for this reason that a large portion of the Whig Party in the mid-1800’s defected and formed the Republican Party: there was a scientific and moral imperative to abolish slavery, and they recognized it. So to now with abortion. While the pro-choice movement has shamed pro-lifers into softening language and has reframed the argument into a women’s health issue, the fact that as a nation we are condoning and legally protecting the mass killing of preborn lives is every bit as morally and scientifically indefensible as slavery; as with founding father slaveholders, it is this barbarism which will plant an asterisk by the accomplishments of today’s leaders and thinkers when looked upon historically. As such, there exists now a new abolitionist imperative to end this practice.

When viewed through a lens of intellectual honesty and objectivity, the scientific arguments for where a life begins are unassailable. Conception is the earliest stage of human growth, at conception all of required characteristics of life as defined biologically are met, and conception is the point at which a unique set of human DNA is created. The science is clear: life begins at conception, regardless of how one may feel about that fact.

Though on the surface it seems paradoxical, this case has been articulated by Peter Singer, one of the best known voices for abortion rights. In an interview with the San Francisco Review of Books, Singer stated “My view of when life begins isn’t very different from that of opponents of abortion. It isn’t unreasonable to hold that an individual human life begins at conception. If it doesn’t, then it begins about 14 days later, when it is no longer possible for the embryo to divide into twins or other multiples.” In the same interview he dismissed viability as being a suitable metric in this conversation, as it “varies with the state of medical technology, and for that reason doesn’t seem a good place to draw a line.”

Singer justifies abortion by applying the philosophical concept of “personhood” as being different than being a human being. Because Singer holds this view from an intellectually honest perspective, he cannot define an unborn human as not having achieved the standards of “personhood” and also make the claim an infant has, arguing that “the fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings. This conclusion is not limited to infants who, because of irreversible intellectual disabilities, will never be rational, self-conscious beings. We saw in our discussion of abortion that the potential of a fetus to become a rational, self-conscious being cannot count against killing it at a stage when it lacks these characteristics - not, that is, unless we are also prepared to count the value of rational self-conscious life as a reason against contraception and celibacy. No infant - disabled or not - has as strong a claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time”.

While I profoundly disagree with Singer regarding abortion and infanticide, he is among the few that follow this “personhood” distinction to its only logical conclusion. Singer has taken much criticism for this position, but I would argue that this is the only logical pro-choice position. If you consider yourself to be pro-choice, but are uncomfortable with infanticide or even with denying that an infant is a person, you are holding an inconsistent position.

This line of thinking would seem to be the ideological origin of the recently passed bill in New York and with the proposed bill in Virginia. Polling has consistently shown that Americans overwhelmingly do not support the concept of late term abortions, and it should follow that most Americans would then be uncomfortable (to say the least) with the idea of infanticide. Most pro-choice positions, then, are rooted in ill-conceived, ill-defined, or outright intellectually dishonest logical origins. An example is the completely disingenuous nonsense abortion stance peddled by the likes of Senator and former Vice-Presidential nominee Tim Kaine, who describes himself as being personally opposed to abortion, but politically pro-choice:

If abortion were not the ending of a life, there is absolutely no reason to be “personally opposed”; in fact, I would be personally for it: I have a wife, a daughter, and five younger sisters who know and will always know well that I would never presume to be more capable or equipped of making decisions about their lives than any of them are and moreover I would never have a desire to do so.

But the science makes it clear that each abortion is the ending of a life. Singer, one of the most important ethical thinkers of our time and ardent abortion supporter, makes it clear that there is no personhood line that doesn’t likewise apply to killing infants. And it is universally agreed upon, across creed and culture, that the murder of innocent life is inherently wrong. At this time, there is no fight more worthy, no fight more necessary, than the fight to save the millions of innocent lives being taken every year in our country. This is the right side of history.

- John Dos Passos Dos