An Editorial On Abortion In Today's College Newspaper

Jillian wrote this in the paper today:

Editor,

I was appalled to read the column titled "Abortion a modern-day injustice" in Monday's Daily Lobo not only for its staunch hypocrisy but its clever misuse of "the facts." Comparing the injustices of slavery and racism to that of abortion and the reproductive rights of women is about as naive and ludicrous as one might consider arguing.

Questioning the legality of abortions brings up a number of moral and religious issues that will never be solved in a society as mosaic as the one we live in today. Knowing that this argument will never find a definitive agreement between sides makes it intractable. Legal abortions protect a woman from several injustices that anti-abortion supporters neglect, like incest and rape. Legal abortion does not force a woman to have an abortion; it merely gives her the choice.

To criminalize abortion removes a fundamental human right, inviting the government into a place it simply does not belong. If to "render to a human being what he or she deserves" comes at the expense of denying those same rights to another, than aren't we cooperating in quite the cyclical dilemma?

Calling legalized abortion "the greatest injustice of our time" is to deny the occurrence of so many civil rights injustices currently inflicted upon our freedoms as Americans and human beings. The banning of same-sex marriages, employment discrimination, ideological litmus tests and the weak definition and enforcement of hate crimes are only a few of the horrific injustices plaguing the civil rights of our time.

Jillian Downer
Daily Lobo reader

Here was my response:

Jillian,

Thanks for your comments. I would like to interact with them a bit:

You said: "Questioning the legality of abortions brings up a number of moral and religious issues that will never be solved in a society as mosaic as the one we live in today."

Saying something is religious seems to imply that it is relative to personal opinion and skirts the issue. I am not asking anyone that is pro-abortion if they have religious convictions on the matter. What I am asking them to consider is if a fetus should be considered a member of the human family or not. If they are not a member of the human family, why not? This does not necessarily have to be a religious claim. A simple biological test will suffice. Actually most people have ceased to claim that a fetus is not human, but rather they claim that this section of humanity does not yet have the right to life that others of us already do.

You said: "Legal abortions protect a woman from several injustices that anti-abortion supporters neglect, like incest and rape."

I am horrified that a small number (proportionally speaking) of abortions take place as a result of incest or rape. I can hardly think of a more tragic situation that a woman could be placed in. Rapists need to be punished to the full extent of the law for what they have done in placing a women in the position to have to choose between the struggle of carrying a child to term and then giving it up for adoption or choosing to kill the child. I am grieved over these types of sickening situations. But I am left to ask this question: Should the baby have to pay for the crimes of the father? All of the unthinkable horrors of rape are completely the fault of the rapist, not the child. The child should not have to pay with his/her life for something they had nothing to do with.

You said: "Legal abortion does not force a woman to have an abortion; it merely gives her the choice."

Our nation was founded on the desire for greater individual freedom. We are a people of choices. I am very much in favor of women having all sorts of choices. Things such as, where she should live, who she should vote for, what career she desires, who she should marry, etc. I am just not in favor a woman's right to have the choice to kill an innocent child.

Let me ask you this: Do you think a woman should have the right to kill her child once it is born? I assume your answer will be “no”. But why not? What is the difference between abortion and infanticide? Is it the size of the baby, the level of development, the baby’s environment, or the baby’s degree of dependency? It seems that this is a crucial question to answer in our discussion of reproductive rights.

You said: “Calling legalized abortion "the greatest injustice of our time" is to deny the occurrence of so many civil rights injustices currently inflicted upon our freedoms as Americans and human beings.”

I would never say that we should deny that there are grave injustices occurring all over our world all the time, but I just can’t seem to shake the idea that 45 million babies killed since the Roe vs. Wade is proportionally different that other injustices that take place around our world. Do you think we would feel different about this issue if it was 45 million toddlers being put to death? What is the difference between this scenario and the current one we have with abortion? Again, we have to discuss the difference between abortion and infanticide.

I don’t claim that the abortion issue is emotionally, legally, or physically simple. It’s not. But protecting the rights of ALL humans it a central issue of our day that needs to be dealt with in the context of humble conversation. I hope you’ll consider my words as a means to serving that end.