Why do liberals support abortion?

As for tying down single mothers or condemning people to poverty, there is that ancient tradition of adoption. Of course we as prolifers might start chipping away at all the barriers to adoption modern law has put in place, and make it a little easier to adopt.

I have to ask a death merchant in “Pro-choice” garb, how many wrong choices does it take to make murder a “choice”?
1. Choose not to honor your mother and father.
2. Choose to have premarital sex.
3. Choose not to take measures to prevent pregnancy.
4. Choose to take the risk when not emotionally or financially mature to accept the responsibility.

Any one of these may cause one to face the choice of causing a death. Horrible thought.

My rhetorical thrust: If all your choices to this point have been wrong… What makes this one right?

It is not a matter of choices being right or wrong, pregnacy just happens Tom. It even happens to young christian kids that have taken a vow of celibacy.

If abortion is to be made illegal David T, what criminal sanctions do you think are appropriate. Do you envision a fine or imprisonment? What about the woman who tries to “self abort’ or drives down to Mexico for a medical proceedure. Are they guilty of a crime? Should they be arrested? Texas Tom says this is murder — what is an appropriate prison time for murder? What happens to the children of a convicted murderer?
Can you see what i mean by the lesser of two evils David?

Veith, I suspect that the answer to your question lies, in part, in the definition of “liberal”, which isn’t too interesting. You seem to be considering the state-control axis alone in your question (where “conservative” equals “maintaining liberties”, though that is a fairly recent definition, and therefore not technically conservative).

I think “liberals'” attitudes towards sex are, in fact, pretty liberal. And that is definitely part of the problem. Sex has become the sacrosanct thing — see how we worship it at every street corner! And, flying in the face of the biological reality, having children has not. The old way was that sex was for building families. Now sex is for fun, with the possible side effect that children might result.

The more I think about it, the more I realize how much this is the attitude of so many people I know. Everyone assumes you’re having sex, but people can be really shocked when you decide to have a child, as if you’d decided to move to Eritrea or get a face tattoo.

Somewhere in there, liberals got convinced (how I don’t know) that children aren’t alive/human when they’re in the womb. This is certainly key to pro-choice attitudes — without it, it all falls apart as so obviously wrong. But there’s nothing liberal about believing it.

No, the more I think about it, this is very much about liberal attitudes towards sex. It is assumed that sex is always happening and should not be condemned. And “forcing” an unprepared mother to have a child is a way of punishing or condemning her foolish, sinful behavior.

And Christians preach mercy and compassion to those who have been especially affected by an abortion choice. The consequences of abortion action are dire enough – 2 lives are lost in every abortion through the slaughter of the innocent and the slaughter of the soul. Hit hard by the law, these people need to hear the sweet Gospel of the Lord’s accomplished forgiveness for them. Lord, have mercy.

Thanks to john and Matt who have given some good food for thought from the side of those who are pro-choice. I hope I get to read more here.

The “liberal” acceptance of abortion confuses libertinism with freedom. Liberals have scant understanding that we human beings are free only to conform ourselves or not with the moral law including that which condemns the taking of any human life.

The most cogent statement of this view is by John Winthrop as follows:

…For the other point concerning liberty, I observe a great mistake in the country about that. There is a twofold liberty, natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal. The first is common to man with beasts and other creatures. By this, man, as he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty to do what he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good. This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with authority and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just authority. The exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes men grow more evil and in time to be worse than brute beasts: omnes sumus licentia deteriores. This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, which all of the ordinances of God are bent against, to restrain and subdue it. The other kind of liberty I call civil or federal; it may also be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and man, in the moral law, and the politic covenants and constitutions amongst men themselves. This liberty is the proper end and object of authority and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard (not only of your goods, but) of your lives, if need be. Whatsoever crosseth this is not authority but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to authority; it is of the same kind of liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free….

Most contemporary modern “liberals” regard the very assumption of moral law as a conceit of those pesky conservative religious nuts.

tODD @ 10 & 11:

Really good comments, tODD. For example, ” ‘Conservative’ equals ‘maintaining liberties’…is a fairly recent definition” is quite true. My late father used to say that he was a “classical liberal”, by which he meant he held the same constitutional philosophy as James Madison, and the legal theory of Frederic Bastiat. Unfortunately we are at the mercy of labels, as when Lutherans try to call themselves “catholic” or “orthodox” or even “evangelical”. Accurate labels all (in their day), but if a Lutheran uses them now they just confuse everybody.

You also said, “liberals somehow…got convinces that children aren’t…human when they are in the womb”.

I think this is the same reason that the southern states once tolerated slavery. At this country’s founding, many southerners raised their voices the loudest in the cause of liberty, yet somehow they came to look as their slaves as sub-human. To the end, they tried to frame their “choice” to own slaves as a constitutional issue, as if the “freedom to own human slaves” were not an obvious oxymoron.

I doubt that john (@3, 6, and 8) would argue that a woman who killed her infant, or toddler, child was simply engaging in making a choice “at a difficult time in [her] life”, or “the lesser of two evils”. Yet he somehow overlooks the humanity of the mother’s victim if she murders her child in the womb.

One last thing, john. Every crime has always existed, regardless of laws restricting it. All of them are often committed with the approval of corrupt police. And above all, all of them are much easier for the rich to commit and get away with. It is even true that they all have been, at one time or another, committed by Christians who have promised not to do something like that. So what? None of those statements have very much to do with whether or not a particular act should be a crime.

Argh! that smiley face with the sunglasses was supposed to be an “8” followed by a “)”, but the programming changed it.

Along with liberal and humanist views on sexuality come certain thoughts related to feminism: namely, that it’s somewhat unfair that a God (or Nature, evolution, or whatever) created women with bodies that seem to have less sexual “freedom” than men’s do. Therefore, it is felt to be appropriate to even the score and give women the same “rights” that men seem to have: to have as much sex as they want without necessarily dealing with the responsibilities and biological consequences that come with it. In short, women are practically being taught to despise their own bodies and biology; taught that men are physically superior and that they need to take extra steps to be more like men; taught that if other people do things that are wrong and get away with it, then they should also be able to do wrong and get away with it, too. It’s all quite sad…

tODD

I don’t know what god pro-abort liberals believe in, but if they refuse to see the shedding of innocent blood in abortion as a great evil, then they’d have a difficult time building a case that they believe in the God of the Bible. And, I don’t think that it is an exaggeration to say that liberals regularly elevate the human will above what God has clearly spoken in scripture about moral values.

God says that if you love Him, you’ll keep his commandments. Not only do liberals break the commandments of God, they often refuse to even acknowledge that the commandments exist in the Bible in the first place. Conservatives may fail in keeping the commandments, but at least they acknowledge that they exist, and this is what they strive to “conserve” in our culture.

Liberals want to ignore the Bible and set their own rules and call themselves “Christians.” I think they are engaging in self-deception.

Kelly #20. good points.

If men are as obsessed with sex as we all think, women are squandering the power that they have always had, and until recently used, to get men to behave in a certain way. By trying to be like men, and basically “giving it away”, they have given up that power.

tODD @ 13
Thank you; yes, I am pro-life.

Manxman @ 15 & 22,
As someone who used to say pretty much what you say, your analysis isn’t so much incorrect as it is shallow and unhelpful. Of course abortion is a form of rejecting God’s law. But liberals don’t wake up in the morning, consider how to reject God’s law, then decide to support abortion. People are that sinful but not that simple. You mention self-deception, and you are correct. Nevertheless, doesn’t self-deception at least imply a portion of conscious thought that genuinely thinks allowing abortion is an expression of goodness? Don’t we have to engage that layer both for public debate and to win over individuals?

I’m a Christian post-abortion counselor. Most folk, regardless of “liberal” or “conservative”, Christian (who make up 43% of those who have had abortions) or not,
find there is great comfort in NOT being the only one to have experienced something. One tends to justify one’s sins in this way…

1/3 of all pregnancies now end in abortion. So 1/3 of our population is involved in abortion in some way. There is safety and comfort in the sheer mass of others “like me”.

And the Church has been largely asleep at the wheel for all these years…not to mention the years when Roe and Doe were coming down the pike.

We’ve no one to blame but ourselves.

Q: What are you doing, personally, to save a pre-born life? Talking about it, throwing money at it, or truly saving it?

You’ve had 49 million chances…

You know, I realized the other day that the problem with things like abortion, divorce, murder, birth, etc. is that our eternal souls are involved. God created our souls to be eternal–we know that because there is heaven and hell; and because we were made in his image, an eternal being. So I think that because of that dynamic, that mothers who abort their unborn (and yes, they are mothers at that point, whether they like it or not) will always be affected by that eternal soul in one way or another, just like many are divorced but are still affected by their ex. And that’s the problem with divorce and abortion: they are lies. People think that the “problem” will just go away if they get rid of it. I feel sorry that they believe that lie and want to find ways to support them on the other side, thus truly walking the talk.
And I’m glad that #1, Matt C, shared. Those are the true reasons, I think…other than control over one’s body. Still, I feel sorry for you that those things can make someone feel that they have the right to decide which eternal soul lives and which one dies.

Kelly (@20) I believe men will be held equally accountable by God for eggs they fertilized and refused to support/marry the mother/welcome the child. This is what I taught my sons.

Anon #31: Why do I get the feeling that if we were to all start talking about the good things we were doing with our local pregnancy centers, as well as one-on-one support, as well as the opportunities we’ve taken to talk to young women about their options and God’s standards *before* they find themselves in the situation that pregnant women have (usually) chosen, we’d be accused of being Pharaisees for bragging?

Rose #32: I’m glad to hear it.

john @ 35:

Every so often a mother, usually during a period of great emotional turmoil, sometimes with the complicity of her significant other, kills her newborn child. On those occasions my experience has been that the legal system takes into account the difficult and often traumatic circumstances that led her to make such a choice, but the usual criminal penalties of incarceration followed by supervision and treatment are generally imposed. Because of the difficult circumstances, such a defendant usually gets less incarceration than a cold blooded killer, but the specific sentence would have to vary from case to case.

On the other hand, anyone who would kill a baby for money ought to be treated like any other paid assasin. The particular penalty would vary from state to state, but would be very severe indeed.

So, now my unanswered questions for you are:

1. Do you think the usual penalties for killing a child (by the mother or by a paid killer) are appropriate? and

2. Why should the penalties for killing an unborn child be any different?

Kelly:

I think your first comment was really insightful. In a very real way, the feminist embrace of abortion is a rebellion against nature.

Consider humanity as a species. We are mammals, which means that our young are utterly dependent on adults, usually parents, to survive. With the great majority of species on this planet that is not true. The female sea turtle buries her eggs in the sand and never thinks of them again. The female salmon lays her eggs, a male swims by and fertilizes them, and they both promptly die.

With higher animals there may be a period of parental care, but it is very short. Birds usually push their young out of the nest in a month or two. Many mammals are born able to walk, and are weaned within a few months. A few mammals may stay with their mothers for a year or two.

But WE have to care for our young for 18 years! Our young could never raise themselves, and women are more disabled by child birth than most other species. Shoot, until very recently, our children couldn’t even EAT without their moms for almost a year. So the family is a very necessary institution for us, simply by our nature. You and I, and most of us here, believe that this is God’s plan for His creation.

But my point is that we cannot control this. It is our nature. We may think it is not fair to us, and particularly not fair to women, that reproduction should require so much time and effort, but all the resentment and stupid rebellion against nature in the world will not change the biological facts.

Different cultures have reacted to the biological facts in different ways. Some (at least some asian cultures that I am aware of) have chosen to treat children as the property of the parents; or maybe of the father. In such cultures it has been common to abandon (that is, kill) babies that were undesirable for some reason, such as being deformed, or girls. Our culture, guided by God’s Word, has traditionally chosen to regard children as people who must be protected and raised to adulthood.

So, I guess I agree with Manxman about this much. The farther our culture gets away from Christianity, the less respect for inconvenient life our people will have, and the more our people will reject the idea that their responsibility to protect their children is more important than their selfish interests.

John,

If you examine pre-Roe abortion laws and penalties, you will find that in most states women who obtained abortions were either granted immunity from prosecution (as in New Jersey, New York, and others) or given light sentences (as in Wisconsin for example). That does not confirm the Supreme Court’s assumption that those states did not therefore regard abortion as murder; to the contrary.

What it means is that those states took other things into consideration. For one thing, they granted women immunity from prosecution so as to ensure their untainted testimony against those who performed the procedure. After all, she was often the only reliable source of incriminating testimony. Moreover, legislators tended to see the woman as the second victim of abortion, often driven to commit the deed out of desperation. They took that into account. The real or primary perpetrator was the abortionist.

Essentially, pre-Roe legislation sought to reduce abortion by balancing a variety of considerations: the personhood of the unborn child; the evil of abortion; the mother’s need for mercy in light of her circumstances; and the need to prosecute.

Presumably a similar balance could be struck today, although it would undoubtedly take time and wisdom.

Laura@28 I need to take issue with your idea that “1/3 of our population is involved in abortion.” First, the Allen Guttmacher Institute’s numbers estimate that 22% of known pregnancies end in abortion, not 1/3. Those getting these abortions amount to 2% of American women. 47% of those women have had a previous abortion. Almost 10% of the total have had three or more.

I’m not sure if you’re the one offering women comfort with these numbers, or have some other point, but I think accuracy is important.

#40 tickletext

“Moreover, legislators tended to see the woman as the second victim of abortion, often driven to commit the deed out of desperation. They took that into account. The real or primary perpetrator was the abortionist. ”

This line or moral relativism would lead directly to social chaos. This reasoning is about as wrong as it can get…..

we are ALL the victims of sin. those sins we commit, those we contribute and participate in with others and those sins of others perpetrated upon us. But guilt is still guilt and sin is still sin.

This “need to prosecute” and so to grant immunity to get testimony has it´s place. but in the context you present it it, this looks like some of the crassest hypocracy I could imagine.

I am a woman who seeks out a doctor to give me an abortion and then turn on that same doctor claiming that he victimized me. Really.

I will say that the focal point of those pre-Roe laws was to reduce abortions, which I think is a legitimate aim of law. However, I do have some doubts about the “second victim” notion. While I think that there is a moral sense in which women are victims of the abortion culture, I am not sure whether that should be applied as a legal rubric.

Moreover, legal scholars have suggested that the “second victim” perspective may have partially been due to the paternalism of the pre-Roe era. So I certainly would not favor a paternalistic measure which denies women moral agency.

But what bothers me about the argument from pity that John and many others have made regarding criminalizing abortion is that it tends to leave the abortionist out of the equation altogether.

Also it is interesting that abortion is an issue where anti-abortion liberals are pro-free market (let’s reduce demand) and conservatives are pro-regulation (make legal proscriptions).

Also, there is going to be hypocrisy and moral entanglement no matter what the law is. You have already noted that in your Brazil the abortion rate is very high despite (or because of?) abortion being illegal. But to my (very limited) knowledge, very few women are actually imprisoned there. (That’s according to articles like this: http://tr.im/csz2 ).