The Moral Case For Abortion

With Roe v. Wade’s anniversary this month and the March for Life canceled, I think we should consider the moral case for abortion and at least understand the views of those who advocate for abortion rights.

“The fetus is the most subordinate of all the developmental stages of the human being in their organic structure. This is fact, unchanging, immovable, everlasting fact, fixed by the hand of the Almighty, but whether so at the beginning of all things, or by subsequent decree of the Eternal, mortals are not permitted to know. We know the fact, and God holds us responsible only for our mode of dealing with it, and when we wilfully shut our eyes, disregard and ignore it altogether, and impiously strive to degrade women down, or to force the fetus up, to “impartial freedom,” or a forbidden level, we are blindly striving to reverse the natural order, and to reform the work of the Almighty.” (Source)

The fetus is biologically inferior to adults. (Source)

Abortion had existed throughout history and was the natural state of mankind. The Greeks had abortions, the Romans had abortions, and the English had abortions until very recently. (Source)

If abortion were banned, there would be widespread unemployment and chaos. This would lead to uprisings, bloodshed, and anarchy. (Source)

The fetus has no social utility and is not capable of surviving outside a womb. Therefore, it is the right of the woman to terminate a pregnancy as she wishes as it is her body and she is under no obligation to maintain the fetus if it becomes a burden to her. (Source)

A large portion of [Americans] believed [abortion] to be a sin, and would consider it as an obligation of conscience to abolish it if they should feel themselves in any degree responsible for its continuance, and that this doctrine would necessarily lead to the belief of such responsibility. I then predicted that it would commence as it has with this fanatical portion of society, and that they would begin their operations on the ignorant, the weak, the young, and the thoughtless —and gradually extend upwards till they would become strong enough to obtain political control, when [those] holding the highest stations in society, would, however reluctant, be compelled to yield to their doctrines, or be driven into obscurity. But four years have since elapsed, and all this is already in a course of regular fulfilment. (Source)

Alexander Stephens wrote of abortion and the belief in natural rights at the founding of this nation:

It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. 

Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of the fetus and the born. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew." Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the fetus is not equal to the man; that fetal subordination to the human is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. (Source)

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In engaging in the exercise above, it really is remarkable how few words must be changed from defenses of slavery to defenses of abortion. In fact, the whole of the abortion industry stands in echo to the defenses of slavery.

It is my property vs. it is my body.

It cannot survive in the wild vs. the same argument for abortion.

It is not human vs. the same argument for abortion.

If you don’t want a slave, don’t have one vs. if you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one.

It would be economically harmful to end it vs. the same argument for abortion.

Just read the pre-Civil War tract entitled “The Negro’s Place in Nature” and consider how few words must be replaced to make it about the fetus and abortion. Consider:

My object is to attempt to determine the position which one well-defined race occupies in the genus Homo, and the relation or analogy which the [fetus] bears to animated nature generally.— We have heard discussions recently respecting Man's place, in nature; but it seems to me that we err in grouping all the different races of Man under one generic name, and then comparing them with the Anthropoid Apes. If we wish to make any advance in discussing such a subject, we must not speak of man generally, but must select one race of species, and draw our comparison in this manner. I shall adopt this plan in comparing the [fetus] with the [adult]. Our object is, not to support some foregone conclusion, but to endeavor to ascertain what is the truth, by a careful and conscientious examination and discussion of the facts before us. In any conclusion I may draw respecting the [fetus’s] character, no decided opinion will be implied as to the vexed question of man's origin. 

Even the economic arguments are much the same. In the pre-Civil War South, Southern slave owners argued that Northerners had entire housing and economic systems devoted to caring for the former slaves in the same way abortion advocates look at the cost of orphanages of the unwanted child as bad. The southern slave owners argued that slavery was a good and economic savings just as the pro-abortion argue that abortion saves money and gives women advantages.

Ultimately, they all come down to property ownership arguments that choose to view a human as something less than a human because of the form it takes.

Roe v. Wade is nothing more than a modern retelling of Dred Scot. The abortion movement will scream and complain at the comparison, but not only do they know it is true, but abortion, like slavery, is predatory in black communities across America as rich white people fund the killing of black children.

We should not forget nor should we deny that the arguments of slavery and abortion are only a few words removed from each other. The moral case for abortion is the moral case for slavery.

Remember that.