As the pro-life movement has evolved, it has undergone a paradigm shift from a morals-based argument against abortion to a rights-based one, arguing for protections for the unborn in language pioneered by progressives in the Civil Rights and anti-war eras and carried forward through organizations such as Amnesty International and the ACLU.
This is roughly the point made in a fascinating New York Times piece, How the Pro-Life movement Has Promoted Liberal Values.
Left unmentioned is the thorny question—for pro-life and pro-choice advocates alike—of when, exactly, the unborn acquire rights. This question has always been on the table and is indeed baked into the fabric or Roe v Wade, which established a sliding-scale rule for when the state’s interest in protecting a fetus trumped a woman’s right to privacy under the 14th Amendment.
Seeing the debate this way makes the pro- and anti- argument one of degree rather than fundamental difference. To a conservative Catholic, the human rights of an embryo become operative at the moment of conception; to liberal justice Harry Blackmun, author of Roe v Wade, they are operative at the point of viability; to some, they are operative at a baby’s first breath. But in all cases, there is the question of human rights, the appropriateness of their application, and their relationship to the rights of the mother—to privacy, to life (when continuing a pregnancy is life-threatening), to having a say over when and with whom to have a baby.
The rights question, while putting the debate on equal terms, underscores why there can never be universal consensus on abortion from a moral, ethical, religious or legal standpoint in the same way there has always been for, say, infanticide. This is why there should never be a constitutional amendment banning abortion, as it would enshrine in the Constitution the beliefs of some religious factions to the exclusion of others, which is itself inherently unconstitutional.
No comments:
Post a Comment