Not so dumb

When I said that Obama’s comment that the beginning of human life was “above my pay grade” was thoughtless, I was missing something. He had to say something along those lines. Since the real meaning of his absolutist pro-abortion position is that there is no point prior to birth when the fetus deserves to live, period, and since he couldn’t afford to state such a shocking idea openly, he was required to act as though the subject was simply beyond his understanding. Yes, his answer made him sound thoughtless and unserious; but that was better than sounding evil.

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Philip M. writes from England:

Your comments about Obama’s lack of honest opinion about abortion reflects what I have noticed in all “debates” I have read about, or been involved in, on this subject. Very few people are actually willing to say “the fetus is not a human life and has no claim on life, therefore it matters not one jot if it is killed.”

When abortion was legalised in this country, many of the supporters of change said that they agreed with legalisation because it would end back-street abortions. This is not the same thing as saying you agree with abortion. Many said, “It is a womans right to choose.” Like the previous reason, this throws moral responsibility back onto the woman, either because you think they going to do it anyway or because you have no right to tell them what to do. In such a way can the moral responsibilty of agreeing with the act itself be avoided. I cannot think of any other issue where the act (killing a fetus) is so neatly side-stepped and turned into an abstract argument about something else (women’s rights, sexism). Imagine if you asked a man his opinion on domestic violence, and he told you that although he was ambivalent about it himself, he thought it was a man’s right to choose how he treated his spouse. We would not let someone get away with this approach.Yet I hear it all the time concerning abortion.

Here is the question: with legalisation, who takes moral responsibilty for the act of abortion? The Government say they are only giving woman the choice. Do women who have abortions regard the moral responsibilty as theirs, or do they think to themselves that it must be OK if it’s legal? Who does the abortionist regard as responsible? Who does Barack Obama think is responsible? My feeling is there is something within a woman’s nature that on the whole would flee from taking on this moral resposibilty, preferring instead a fudge, or blaming the situation itself (“it just wasn’t the right time”) or the society that told them it was OK. As someone who believes in difference between men and women, I would not necessarily say they are wrong in this.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 19, 2008 01:03 AM | Send