Must We Resign Ourselves to Violence?
by Julia Smucker
Once while taking a graduate-level test in cultural anthropology, I had a revelation of sorts. In the class, we’d been discussing what’s revealed when different cultural values come into tension. The test essay question went something like, “What would the repeal of motorcycle helmet laws say about American cultural values, and how does this relate to issues like abortion and gun control?” Seeing these three examples in juxtaposition, I realized that the preservation of human life, essentially a universal value, was clashing with something else that often takes precedence over it in U.S. socio-political discourse – not without controversy, but strongly enough to compete, and often win, against life itself. That something, I realized, is individual autonomy.
The relatively innocuous case of motorcycle helmet laws points to the likelihood that a critical mass of Americans might prefer to endanger themselves – or at least to have the choice of endangering themselves – rather than be required to use a piece of protective equipment. More recently, this has been paralleled in the forceful resistance to precautions against Covid-19, which also has the effect of endangering others. The vigorous pushback that occurs in response to any suggestion of legal limits on guns or abortion has an even more insidious effect: facilitating the direct killing of human beings.
One common defense of the value of autonomy over that of preserving life relies on the premise that the taking of life is so inevitable that it’s useless to regulate. Criminals will find a way to obtain guns no matter what, the reasoning goes, so making it harder to get one will only make law-abiding people less safe because only the criminals will be armed. Or, others argue, women with unwanted pregnancies will find a way to obtain abortions no matter what, so making it harder to get one will only make them less safe because the abortions will be done by illicit and dangerous methods.
I see at least three problems with these arguments.
Problem 1 : Presumption of Unchangeability
The language used to talk about criminality often treats “criminal” and “law-abiding” as fixed, innate categories of human beings. The truth this dichotomy obscures is that nobody is inherently criminal. Anyone is capable of committing a crime or violent act, and anyone is capable of choosing not to. Similarly, generalized narratives about women seeking abortions often presume a universal need or desire for one, which can’t be altered by circumstance. In both cases, an unchangeable nature or an unchangeable necessity is presumed.
In reality, there’s always a conceivable possibility that different circumstances could help lead to different choices – on both the “supply” side (if there are barriers to access making violent choices harder) and the “demand” side (if certain underlying causes that may lead to violent choices are addressed before a situation gets to the point where violence is considered). In all issues, if we want to reduce violence, we should be doing everything in our power to make it less easy to kill, and easier to choose life over unnatural death in all circumstances.
Problem 2: All or Nothing
Some arguments against regulation set an impossibly absolute all-or-nothing standard on the effectiveness of any public policy measures meant to curb violence: they must be 100% effective at stopping every occurrence of the thing they’re meant to prevent, or else they’re useless.
Another related dichotomy presumes that legislative means of preventing violence must either be the only solution or have no part to play at all. But if we’re serious about preventing violence, we should be using every tool in the toolbox. No tool, legislative or otherwise, is likely to be 100% effective in preventing all violence. But there are tools, legislative and otherwise, that could prevent some violence. Wouldn’t any human lives saved from violent death or trauma be worth the effort to prevent such tragedies when we can? If not, what is it exactly that’s worth more?
Problem 3 : Same Reasoning, Flipped Sides
As explained above, both arguments use strikingly similar logic whether applied to legal limits on guns or legal limits on abortion. As someone who considers human life to be of higher value than individual autonomy no matter the issue, I answer in both cases that even if we can’t save all human beings from being victims or perpetrators of violence, we should be doing all we can to save as many as we can. But for those who weigh life and autonomy differently depending on the issue, the arguments undermine each other. If you argue that regulations on guns are useless unless 100% effective, how do you answer someone who argues the same thing about regulations on abortion, or vice-versa?
What pains me most in these debates is having them with people I agree with on other life-and-death issues. People see us defending life on one issue, and then just as vehemently defending some means of inflicting death, and they see hypocrisy. Sadly, they’re not wrong (even though some who call out such hypocrisy are blind to the same hypocrisy the other way). I can only answer that not all of us think that way. Giving credence to charges of pro-life or pro-peace hypocrisy only hurts the cause.
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For a post on a similar topic, see:
Guns and Abortion: Extremists Resemble Each Other
For more of our similar posts from Julia Smucker, see:
Threats to the Unborn Beyond Abortion
The Price of Violence: When Dehumanizing the Vulnerable Hurts One’s Own Causes
What Does it Mean to be Inconsistent?
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