We've talked about a lot of controversial topics and talked a lot about "controversial topics," but I think abortion might still be the most controversial thing out there. It also tends to spawn some of the least productive conversations. You can occasionally alter someone's opinion on gun control policy or immigration laws, and maybe even berate them into admitting they don't have a good reason to oppose gay marriage. Changing someone's opinion on abortion? Forget about it. I told Daniel I thought he did a good job handing the topic, and I think the class actually managed to keep things surprisingly civil. But I don't think anyone did any big 180's.
Probably a lot of it has to due with simply irreconcilable feelings about sexuality. Some people hold very stigmatized views of sex and don't want anyone doing it for fun; anyone who breaks their rules of what constitutes "proper conduct" needs to be shamed for their licentiousness. Most people aren't so extreme about it, but I don't think we can fail to acknowledge that this stigmatization underlies this entire debate in a big way. Any talk of women facing the consequences of their actions tends to be laced with slut-shaming judgment.
There's also the partially distinct matter of opposing ideas over how to conceptualize a newly conceived embryo; some say its a life, some say it isn't (yet). It's all very subjective... But at the very least, I don't think you can claim it's alive in the same sense as you or me. It doesn't truly have consciousness until birth, and hasn't even formed much of a brain by the time an abortion would likely be occurring. We should probably stop going overboard with the anthropomorphizing
As I said (twice, somehow?) in my comment on Tucker blog: Personally, I feel like this discussion of what the child would want, while well-intended, is a bit absurd in all its abstractness. We're talking about the retrospective will of a theoretical person that doesn't even exist and may never exist. Of course most currently living people aren't going to wish they were never born, regardless of the adversity they may have faced. But that's a big different than this, which is essentially a debate over the desires of an imaginary individual.
With all the suffering in the world, do we really have time to be worrying about imaginary individuals? Yes, sure, every time a women gets an abortion that's a child that could have been. It's a potential child. But every time a guy and a girl are in a room together there's a potential child about nine months out on the horizon; are they murdering a child if they don't do it right then and there, in whatever space available? Every time a woman's ovaries release an egg she could be making a baby; is that baby's blood on her hands when she's ovulating and doesn't take the opportunity to have unprotected sex? Are condoms actually the most lethal weapon man has ever created?
Look, babies are all good and fine, but I'm skeptical of the suggestion that we share a moral responsibility to create as many of them as possible. Putting aside the technical difficulties of maximizing productivity, I don't know what we'd do with them once we had them. The planet is already passing carrying capacity, particularly given our consumption patterns, and I'm not sure as a nation we're prepared to properly support these millions of people some want to force into existence. We already neglect a lot of the ones we do have. I don't know... Honestly, sometimes it seems that those most interested in life prior to birth are not nearly as concerned as they could be with helping actual, living, breathing human beings with feelings and consciousness.
I won't pretend I like abortions--they aren't fun and cheery. But they serve a legitimate function and I don't think we should be trying to limit access to them.
Some do see condoms as weapons of mass murder, all joking aside. It's also telling, as you suggest, that a large concern for life doesn't seem to be the overriding instinct behind anti-abortion movements. Either does a huge concern about deserving or innocent life, for many a conservative politician is vigorously anti-abortion while talking about the necessity to tolerate civilian casualties as the necessary price of the latest war for whatever. That makes me suspect highly, as you do, that the real concern is something else, namely, a need to police and moralize sexuality. Or, I should say, other people's sexuality, and women's in particular. Rich and powerful men--the one's who lead anti-abortion movements in most cases--will still find ways to get access to abortions for their mistresses and girlfriends as needed (as in a few high profile cases recently), and at the end of the day I sometimes wonder if this does not come down to a sheer delight in regulating the lives and in particular the sex lives of those without power.
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