On abortion

There is a helpful piece by Robert P. George in the latest issue of The City; it is taken from his opening comments from the National Press Club in D.C.

Having cited Obama's words at the 2009 Notre Dame commencement, George says:

The President is right. His view regarding the status, dignity, and rights of the child in the womb, and the view shared by Professor Kmiec and myself, are irreconcilable. A chasm separates those of us who believe that every living human being possesses profound, inherent, and equal dignity, and those who, for whatever reasons, deny it. This issue really cannot be fudged, as people sometimes try to do by imagining that there is a dispute about whether it is really a human being who is dismembered in a dilation and curettage abortion, or whose skin is burned off in a saline abortion, or the base of whose skull is pierced and whose brains are sucked out in a dilation and extraction (or "partial birth") abortion. That issue has long been settled--and it was settled not by religion or philosophy, but by the sciences of human embryology and developmental biology.

So it is clear that what divides us as a nation--and what divides Barack Obama, on one side, from Robert George and Douglas Kmiec, on the other--is not whether the being whose life is taken in abortion and in embryo-destructive research is a living individual of the human species--a human being; it is whether all human beings, or only some, possess fundamental dignity and a right to life. ("Obama and Abortion," The City (Summer 2009): 68)

Each group seeks to protect individual rights, and couches their case in "rights" language. The differences lay in how each camp understands those rights. For pro-lifers, individual rights are extended broadly, reaching the unborn. For those on the pro-choice side, individual rights are directed to the mother's right to choose. Pro-choice people do not believe individual rights should be applied to those humans that are unborn and unwanted.

A convergence of contradictions: Obama's inauguration

Below I argued that the celebration of MLK Day and the anniversary of Roe v Wade in the very same week is ironic. Why? Because each day underscores America's difficulty to understand what exactly a human is. Whereas MLK Day trumpets progress, Roe v. Wade bellows regress. Our criteria for denying humanness has shifted from race to visibility, viability, and desirability.

Interestingly, these two days, MLK Day and Roe v Wade (Jan 22), are bridged by the inauguration of Barack Obama. This seems more than just happenstance, for the bundle of contradictions that these two days represent converge poignantly in the person of Barack Obama. On the one hand, Obama radiates the successes celebrated on MLK Day. Regardless of one's politics, Obama's inauguration is a monumental moment in American history. Tuesday will act as a reverberating echo of Monday's celebration. And yet, on the other hand, Obama's radical pro-abortion stance is a sobering reminder of the confusion that still remains.

What exactly is a human?

Putting aside the question of human nature (see below or here), there is an even more foundational question to ponder: what exactly is a human? It is a question this country has struggled to answer and two days next week underscore that struggle.

Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day celebrating the steps made in racial equality. For much of our history blacks were not considered human but mere chattel property. The election of Barack Obama is a shining example of how far America has come in the race department.

Three days later will be the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision which legalized abortion. Whereas skin tone decided whether or not one was human for the first two-hundred years of American history, now it a different set of factors. Here are three: visibility, viability, and desirability.

1) Can we see you? (visibility)

2) Can you survive outside your mother's womb? (viability)

3) Do your parents choose you? (desirability)

If not, then "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" do not apply.

That these two days fall in the same week is a curious irony. One day celebrates a step in the right direction, the other day is a reminder that we still arbitrarily deny humanness to those we deem different. What is consistent in both cases is this: If there is power to be gained, the powerful will trample the helpless for gain. In the case of slavery, blacks were exploited for the purpose of personal wealth. In the case of abortion, unborn humans are killed for the purpose of personal autonomy.

(additional note: I do not want to be blithe about the trauma that accompanies women considering abortion. Those of us opposing abortion must lovingly apply the same concern for the unborn to their hurting mothers.)