Recently, we’ve all been treated to the spectacle of pro-abortion protesters screeching spittle-laden bile at calm and somewhat befuddled pro-life protesters. I’ve avoided the issue of abortion in my blog because life has taught me it is a totally polarized, and polarizing, issue. As such, there really is no winning a debate on the topic if you define winning as persuading someone against abortion. I’ve found that it is very rare for someone to actually switch sides. When it happens, it is usually because the person involved has finally realized that there are things more important than their short-term best interests and convenience, as many women made infertile directly or indirectly by the procedure can attest.
My oldest child was conceived while I was a Senior in high school. I was astounded by the almost universal reaction to this event. Almost to the last person, the question asked was, “Have you scheduled the abortion yet?” This was done by future in-laws (ironically, all good true-believing Catholics), friends, our teachers, the school counselors, medical people, and especially people at the clinic. When we announced our plans to keep our child, the near universal response was a groan, an eye-roll, and the exasperated words, “Oh, God!” You might say we made the wrong choice, but that “potential human being” is about to turn 30 years-old, is my only son, is a journeyman electrician, and has given me 3 totally awesome grandchildren. Sure, my life was harder, but I have no regrets, and I sleep well at night.
Not to say I didn’t waver from time to time in my opposition to the practice. While I would never consider the practice myself, I was occasionally partially persuaded by the arguments of the “pro-choice” crowd. (I hate that euphemism. What’s next? Will murdering an adult become “retroactive choice”?) I could never go totally over the line because, no matter what my mind said, my heart just kept screaming, “Hell no!” I bounced around like this for several years until about 25 years ago, I happened to be reading a book by Ayn Rand. I was reading an essay on human rights, human worth, and human dignity. It was very compelling. Finally, I read something that clicked in my mind and I said, That’s it! That’s why abortion is wrong!” To my horror, when I resumed reading the very next sentence stated that what I had just read was why the right to an abortion was absolute! Talk about cognitive dissonance. This all goes back to what I said about polarization and the difficulty of actually persuading someone by rational argument.
It is one thing to argue with someone who had his facts wrong, or has misinterpreted the facts, or some other issue relating to getting the true facts. The problem lies when people have the same facts, do a legitimate analysis—and come up with exactly the opposite answer than you did! You and your adversary have placed value judgments on the same data and come up with tragically opposite positions. I have come to believe that the pro-abortion stance isn’t so much immoral as it is amoral. In my conversations, and arguments with pro-abortion people, I don’t feel that something is wrong with them so much as I come away with the queasy feeling that something is missing.
The take home lesson there is that these people will never, and can never, be persuaded appeals to morals, ethics, logic, or reason. They can only be, and must be, defeated. To do otherwise is to waste valuable time while people die.
I’ve heard arguments that we should let the pro-abortion crowd have their abortions. That since they tend to be hard-core leftists they will weed themselves out of the gene pool. A good theory, but it breaks down in practice. Leftists import people from other countries to breed the dim-witted left-wing voters they are too lazy, or gay, to breed themselves. Besides, I think that is a rather cynical way to look at it. A newborn is innocent until it can make a conscious choice to do wrong. You have to give them a chance. They might decided to rebel against their parents by putting down the crack pipe and going out and getting a job.
Even the leftists claim that there is a responsibility, or even a duty, to watch out for and protect the weak, innocent, and vulnerable. What is more weak and innocent than an infant? What is more vulnerable than a weak and innocent infant trapped inside its murderer’s body? That truly is an infant in Hell.
