Parallels of Veganism and Pro-Lifeism
by Kristin Monahan
Kristin Monahan
I compare abortion and animal farming/exploitation.
Similarities between Veganism and Pro-lifeism
- Both are centered around the idea of respecting life, especially that of the particularly innocent, vulnerable, voiceless, helpless, and defenseless.
- Concern for the right to life is present in both. With pro-lifeism, the unborn child is being killed, so the focus is on the child’s right not to be killed and to continue her or his life. With veganism, animals are being killed, so the focus is on the animals’ right not to be killed and to continue their lives.
- Concern for the rights not to be harmed and to bodily autonomy, as well as the right not to be seen as property to be disposed of as someone else sees fit, is present in both. In abortions, children are dismembered with medical tools or sucked apart or poisoned. This harms them and takes away their bodily autonomy as their bodies are being destroyed. They are considered their parents’ property, and disposed of at the will of their parents. With animal farming/consuming/exploiting, there are many different ways the bodies of animals are harmed and their bodily autonomy is taken away as they are treated as objects. Animal abuse includes being beaten over the head in some factory farms, the stress of being artificially inseminated and having to give birth, being constantly milked, or going through training in circuses. Animals are literally considered the property of farmers and are at the will of those who farm them, train them, or are otherwise considered their owners.
- Both point out that if people can’t stand to look at gruesome pictures (abortion pictures/slaughterhouse pictures) of the end result of supporting the killing on unborn children and animals, then they shouldn’t be supporting the killing in the first place. If one finds the pictures offensive then you are saying that something you support is offensive — so why are you supporting it?
- Both see the mass killing happening right before our eyes and understand it as prejudice and oppression. Both have trouble understanding why after learning our lesson about past oppression, we continue with these present ones. Some on each side make comparisons to the Holocaust, slavery and racism.
- Both mention that abortion or animal consuming/using aren’t necessary and talk about other options. Why should we go out of our way to cause death and destruction when we don’t have to?For abortion, there’s adoption (open, closed, or semi-open); safe-haven/safe-surrender/baby-Moses laws which let you leave the child at any police station, hospital, or fire department, no questions asked; kinship care or guardianship care giving the child to a family member or close friend to be raised, long-term or short-term; or a ton of options for help if the woman thinks she can be a parent, such as financial help, daycare, baby drives, housing, rights for pregnant women in school or workplace and things to make having babies easier such as desks that fit the stomachs of pregnant women or set-ups for her to work or learn from home. There’s also talk of artificial wombs.With veganism, there’s a vegan version of everything. There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of edible plants that we have discovered so far. If it’s possible to make it vegan, someone has probably created it. There are tons of vegan options at every store and you can veganize fast food meals as well. Those who are poor, as many of us are, can be vegan. There are vegan leathers and soaps and so on.
- Concern for the right to continue living so as to continue to use other rights and choices is present in both. Pro-lifers often talk about how the most important right is the right to life, as all other rights would be meaningless without being alive to use them. Vegans often point out that animals are here for their own reasons, just like us, to have their own lives and do their own things. They aren’t here to be objects for the use of humans.
Similarities between Non-veganism and Pro-choiceism
- Both use a “choice” argument, forget the victim and their choices, and act like the perpetrator needs to have a choice to harm the victim. With animal using and consuming, they think the ones partaking in the use or consumption need to have a choice. Often you’ll hear something like, “It’s my choice to eat meat. You can’t infringe on other people’s choices. If you don’t eat meat, that’s your choice, but you can’t tell me what to do.” With abortion it’s the same, the mother getting to choose to take her unborn child to a facility to be dismembered and killed. “It’s my choice. You can’t infringe on other people’s choices. If you wouldn’t get an abortion, that’s your choice, but you can’t tell me what to do.”
- Similarly, both focus on the bodies of those committing the killing or harming instead of the bodies of the victims and act as if disregarding the victim’s bodily autonomy is the bodily right of another. For abortion, “It’s my body, my choice,” and sometimes “If it’s in my body, I can kill it.” For animal consuming/wearing, “It’s my body, my choice. I get to choose what goes in/on my body.” Both actions require harming and killing someone else’s body, but only the bodies of the ones doing said harming will ever be paid attention. Forgetting the victim and acting as if the other side is in the wrong because they’re infringing on the rights of those taking away the rights of others is an old way to pass off discrimination.
- Both use overpopulation as an excuse to kill the victims. With abortion, they say humans are overpopulated and thus we shouldn’t have anymore—and also that we should spare children life in the overpopulated world. With animal consuming/using, they say animals are overpopulated so we need to kill them so that their overpopulation doesn’t get in our way.
- Both use qualities such as sentience, consciousness, intelligence, and size to belittle victims and excuse killing and harming. They say those yet to be born can’t feel pain, aren’t conscious, aren’t intelligent, or are so small. This therefore makes them lesser than us, so we can kill them. They say those of other species can’t feel pain (the classic “fish don’t feel pain” myth for example), aren’t conscious, aren’t intelligent, animals like insects are so small. This therefore makes them lesser than us,. so we can kill them.Both arguments not only are incorrect for—at the very least—some of humans yet to be born and some animals but also forget that many born humans, such as infants, other children, and those along the wide spectrum of disabilities and diseases, who also fall in those categories yet who still have a right to life. How can you argue that if one isn’t intelligent, they can be killed, if you understand that a born human who is mentally challenged needs even more protection than the average person? Their argument is a “might makes right” attitude. “I’m bigger than you/smarter than you, and I can kill you because you have fewer abilities than I do, so I should be allowed to have that choice.”
Discriminating against a group based on their abilities—ableism—is another classic way to discriminate and is closely tied to eugenics. You have to look at someone’s differences and pretend that makes you better to get people to successfully oppress a group. For the unborn this process is dehumanization. For other animals it’s speciesism.
- Both argue that these practices have been happening for so long, are natural, and that people will still do them even if they’re outlawed. Abortion is ancient, so women will find a way, they say. Animal eating is ancient and is what we need to do, they say. God aborts babies all the time, they say. God put animals on earth for us to use, they say.
- Both try to brush off criticism saying the practice is legal, as if being legal makes something OK, or that a legal practice can never be made illegal.
- Both defend at least some abortion or animal killing/harming because of special circumstances. With abortion, they say “It’s ok if it’s before a certain number of weeks/if the pregnant woman was raped/if the child has a disability,” etc. With animal killing they usually justify eating animals if accompanied by the labels “humane,” “organic,” “grass fed,” “cage free,” or “free range” without realizing the problems with these. Or they justify killing specific animals: “I wouldn’t eat a dog but a pig is different.”
- Ultimately, both look at our differences from the victims rather than our similarities and use that to exert power and control, and to “other” them to the point of death, dismemberment, and exploitation.
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For more of our blog posts on similar topics, see:
Suffering and Injustice Concern Us All
Abortion and War are the Karma for Killing Animals
See the list of all our blog posts, put in categories
Conscientious Objectors
Excerpt from
Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion
Section of Chapter 14: Differing Perspectives on Specific Populations (pages 234-237)
book edited and this chapter written by Rachel M. MacNair
references turned into links
For centuries, when militaries drafted people, some refused on grounds of conscience. In the 20th century, several nations recognized a legal exemption for conscientious objection, generally allowing people to do other service instead. Now there are countries in which doctors, nurses, and midwives who refuse to participate in abortions are losing licenses or jobs.
Abortion-as-Option Perspective
Global Doctors for Choice funded a supplement issue of the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics devoted to the issue of conscientious objection to abortion. It documents that the world-wide prevalence is extensive, documents harms they understand as arising from this, and argues for a balance for patients’ rights between health workers’ rights.
Fiala & Arthur (2014) believe in no such balance, and published their paper explaining why conscientious objection status should not apply. We quote here from their popular-media summary:
Reproductive health care is the only field in medicine where freedom of conscience is accepted as an argument to limit a patient’s right to a legal medical treatment. It is the only example where the otherwise accepted standard of evidence-based medicine is overruled by faith-based actions. . . . the exercise of conscientious objection (CO) is a violation of medical ethics because it allows health-care professionals to abuse their position of trust and authority by imposing their personal beliefs on patients. Physicians have a monopoly on the practice of medicine, with patients completely reliant on them for essential health care. Moreover, doctors have chosen a profession that fulfills a public trust, making them duty-bound to provide care without discrimination. This makes CO an arrogant paternalism, with doctors exerting power over their dependent patients—a throwback to the obsolete era of “doctor knows best.”
Denial of care inevitably creates at least some degree of harm to patients, ranging from inconvenience, humiliation, and psychological stress to delays in care, unwanted pregnancy, increased medical risks, and death. Since reproductive health care is largely delivered to women, CO rises to the level of discrimination, undermining women’s self-determination and liberty. CO against providing abortions, in particular, is based on a denial of the overwhelming evidence and historical experience that have proven the harms of legal and other restrictions, a rejection of the human rights ethic that justifies the provision of safe and legal abortion to women, and a refusal to respect democratically decided laws. Allowing CO for abortion also ignores the global realities of poor access to services, pervasive stigma, and restrictive laws. It just restricts access even further, adding to the already serious abrogation of patients’ rights. (Fiala & Arther, 2014b).
A similar argument is made by Ben Rich (2015).
Abortion-as-Violence Perspective
Since the abortion-as-violence perspective is that abortion kills a human being, the analogy to conscientious objection in the military is understood to be quite appropriate.
The entire Global Doctors for Choice special issue only mentions once the actual motivation — and words it as a disagreement on when life begins. This is a very tepid and incomplete way of wording the problem.
Fiala & Arthur [quoted above] assert the motivation is to keep women in their traditional roles as wives and mothers and to produce children to be soldiers and citizens of the state. They cite no documentation of this point. Documentation would be difficult to come by. If found, it would likely be in people other than those risking licenses and losing jobs.
Here we have people considering the topic of conscientious objectors at length, yet they do not offer a forthright account of the CO’s actual motivation. This is not what one would expect of people sincerely trying to understand the phenomenon.
Publicized conscientious objectors:
Sweden, Ellinor Grimark
Scotland, Mary Doogan and Concepta Wood
Croatia, Jaga Stojak
New York City, Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo
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For more excerpts from Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion, see:
Introduction on using multiple perspectives
From Chapter 4, War Causes Abortion
See the list of all our blog posts, put in categories.
Quick Responses
by Rachel MacNair
While there’s not much you as a consistent life ethic supporter can do with the obstinate, many people who don’t agree with us on life and peace issues are willing to listen to what we have to say.
A lot of questions really require in-depth answers, and when you have the time to provide those, that makes for the most productive discussion. But what about those many occasions when you have a chance to say something, but not very much?
These are responses that I’ve found effective in such situations, so I share them. I’d be delighted if people who have other questions and quick answers share those in the comments below.
Question: What about overpopulation?
If we’re going to kill people to address a strain on the environment, wouldn’t it be more efficient to kill the people causing the problems? Like, say, executives of large polluting corporations? Little babies aren’t the ones causing the problems.
Note: This response of course requires that people understand abortion to be killing. But the question about overpopulation often comes up after you’ve made clear that you think of abortion as killing – raising the question is a way of skirting around the point. We of course aren’t in favor of any killing, efficient or otherwise, but this answer points up the absurdity of suggesting one kind of killing is OK. I had one group I shared this response with immediately turn to talking about how the poor in India weren’t the problem, and while they were expounding, I thought my work was done and headed out.
Question: Do you really think war is never necessary?
If you have a continuum, and on one side you have pacifism and on the other side you have conquest and genocide (I have my hands outstretched to show the two sides),
then on this continuum, “just war” – the notion that war is justified under very strict conditions involving protection of innocents – goes right next to pacifism. (I move one hand from the side to put it right next to the other hand).
Just war is pacifism with exceptions.
Just war advocates deem pacifists naïve to think that there aren’t times when war is occasionally necessary for defense, as a last resort. Pacifists hold that the just war idea is naïve, to think that we can have a disciplined war without things getting out of hand. But really, whenever the just-war criteria are in fact strictly adhered to, either approach would get rid of most of the wars we actually have.
And there are plenty of proactive things we can do for peace that all people of good will agree on, where a just-war/pacifist distinction makes no difference.
Note: Consistent-lifers can be either pacifist or strictly- just-war, so the idea of getting along is already in the consistent-life community. But I used this response several times with conservatives at a National Review conference, and it always made sense to them.
Question: Back Alley Butchers
Richard Mucie in Kansas City was a doctor convicted of manslaughter in the horrific death of a woman from abortion back when it was illegal. His medical license was revoked and he went to prison. Then Roe v. Wade came down. He went to court to get his license back, and set up his abortion clinic, literally on Main Street. Women had no warning of how poor a doctor he was, and they had much less legal recourse when injured.
This is a clear case, but there have been “front-alley” scandals over and over again [mention your local one, or the most recent one].
The problem isn’t with the legal nature of abortion, but with the nature of abortion, period. When a doctor keeps a focus on doing abortions, this is not favorable for providing sensitive care to the mother.
Question from pro-lifers: Doesn’t the Consistent Life Ethic water down the abortion issue?
Response 1: It puts the issue in the context of violence, where it belongs.
Response 2: It gives peace movement people who are inclined to buy the pro-life argument a sense of permission to be pro-life, because it puts the issue in terms that are comfortable for them.
Response 3: It’s common for peace movement people to think in terms of connecting issues, so naturally when peace advocates join the pro-life movement, issue connections is how they’re going to think. Objecting to it would be like objecting to Priests for Life for being too liturgical.
Question from peace and justice activists: Isn’t the Consistent Life Ethic a sneaky way of giving us right-wing propaganda?
You should see how many pro-lifers criticize us as being part of a plot to water down the abortion issue.
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See more of our blog posts with lengthier points responding to challenging questions —
Abortion:
A Pro-life Feminist Critique of the “Rape and Incest Exception”
Difference this Time: Prolife Heroism (vigilante violence at abortion clinics)
War:
Self-Defeating Violence: The Case of the First World War
Finding Common Ground on and Learning from World War II
Would Nonviolence Work on the Nazis?
Euthanasia:
Figuring out Euthanasia: What Does it Really Mean?
Death Penalty:
Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Death Penalty
Different Ways of Looking at Issues
Editor’s Note: As usual with our blog, opinions expressed are those of the author only. Our mission statement includes opposition to poverty but doesn’t include the issue of “gun violence.” Our general policy is to accommodate a variety of different strategies—including different laws or public policies—to advance our mission, provided those strategies are nonviolent and honest. Sarah Terzo is on CLN’s board of directors.
by Sarah Terzo
Sarah Terzo
Members of the Consistent Life Network freely decide what public policies to support on issues such as gun control, immigration, and other issues not directly tied to our mission statement. Different members address issues as they see best and, as long as they’re in accord with our mission statement, members often differ in how they see our core issues best addressed.
People have different ways of looking at issues. We don’t always see things in “black and white” terms. While everyone in CLN should oppose “poverty” and “gun violence,” we may have differing views on the best approaches to move forward on those issue. We’re a network including people with different political philosophies and perspectives, united by our common desire to protect people from violence.
I know someone who believes there should be armed guards in schools. To me, that seems like a violence-promoting position. But if you drill down to the reasons why he believes this, you see that his motive is not to increase gun deaths. He feels that armed guards will be able to stop an active shooter situation and save lives or, in the best-case scenario, prevent shootings from happening in the first place His point is that if every would-be school shooter knew the school had armed guards, they would think twice about initiating a school shooting. It would therefore act as a deterrent to school shootings. I disagree because I think this approach will create a climate that will lead to more violence, not less. Yet my friend is not motivated by a desire for more kids to get shot, but by his belief in an alternative way to address the violence.
My friend also cited a case during the 1992 Los Angeles riots where a violent mob attempted to murder a family. The father held them off by firing a machine gun in the air. This caused the attackers to flee and saved the lives of his family. My friend believes guns can sometimes act as deterrents for violence. I disagree with his position strongly. But I would not call him anti-life or pro-violence for his position because that’s not the intent of his position. To say he wants to see dead children is untrue.
People can also legitimately differ in their views on how to address the issue of poverty. Some people feel the government should provide support such as food stamps and housing vouchers to the poor. Personally, I agree, and very strongly. But I have a friend who believes these things should be handled by private charities and doesn’t support such programs. She personally gives a great deal to charity and works in a soup kitchen. She claims that her reason for opposing government programs is because the programs’ bureaucracy and all their rules and regulations cause them to be less efficient – not because she thinks poor people should starve.
I’m very much a supporter of government programs, but even I see some major problems inherent in them. For example, recipients of disability and Medicaid can only have a net worth of $2,000 or they lose their health insurance. The people being helped by this program are getting free health care, but they’re also being trapped in poverty by being unable to save money. They also cannot get a part-time job, many of which do not offer benefits, to improve their finances — because if they make too much, their health insurance is taken away. They are, therefore, forced to remain in poverty and dependent on the government.
I know because this is my exact situation. Many other government programs have similar flaws that actually work against the poor.
I believe these government programs should be overhauled and fixed. My friend thinks they should be replaced. My friend and I aren’t disagreeing that poverty should be alleviated. We’re disagreeing on the method of alleviating it. To say that my friend supports poverty and wants people to starve would be untrue, especially when she’s actively giving of her time and money to help the problem.
What constitutes meaningful opposition to gun violence, poverty, and racism isn’t always clear. It would be untrue to claim that my friend who supports guns in school wants dead children or my friend who thinks charity should replace government programs thinks the poor should starve – even though they take a very different position from mine on how to address the issue.
To take certain positions on issues, even if those positions seem entirely logical to us, and to accuse anyone who doesn’t share those positions as being “anti-life,” may not be a fair or honest characterization. I believe it will work against understanding people with different ideas.
It also will work to demonize people on the “other side” and make it harder for people to work together. In not considering that there could be diverse solutions to problems, we may sow division in a way that is not really necessary based on assumptions that are not accurate.
For this reason, while we may agree on opposing “poverty” or “gun violence,” I think it would be a mistake to expect all members of the Consistent Life Network to support the same legislative solutions. Even if we all do support the same legislative solutions (which may be possible) I think it would be a mistake to make that too a requirement. We don’t expect people to have the same view on how to address problems. We should only expect only that we oppose killing people.
My point is that some positions are obvious (people shouldn’t be executed, we shouldn’t drop bombs) while other aspects of social problems can have alternate solutions about which reasonable people can disagree. We expect people to use their own best judgement on how to resolve complex social issues.
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Other CLN blog posts from Sarah Terzo:
Abortion Doctor Says: We are the Executioners
Healing for the Perpetrators: The Psychological Damage from Different Types of Killing
How Ableism Led (and Leads) to Abortion
See the list of all our blog posts, put in categories.
The Real Meaning of Mother’s Day
by Rob Arner
Mother’s Day is the singular day when the culture turns its attention to honor the mothers among us – our own, or those whom we admire. It’s nearly impossible to get a table at a nice restaurant to take your mother out without reservations far in advance. Hallmark and other greeting card companies make a killing by selling us $5 cards with sweet poems and flowery pictures on them.
And we all go along, because we all agree our moms are special and that motherhood is a vital role in society with responsibilities that extend well beyond the nine months of pregnancy (and interminable hours of labor!) Mothers are special, and setting aside a day to honor them just makes sense.
Minister Ghazanfar speaks on Mother’s Day in Afghanistan
But what is the origin of the modern observance of Mother’s Day? Where did it come from? The answer may surprise you, because it comes from a woman of remarkable determination and conviction whose experience of human cruelty caused her to initiate the Mother’s Day movement as a prophetic form of social protest against the savagery of war.
It all goes back to the woman who is most famous for writing the song that became the de facto war anthem of the Union Army during the Civil War: “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Julia Ward Howe, New England socialite and social reformer, was a thoughtful woman of deep moral convictions whose campaigns on behalf of the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and economic justice are well known. Her passion and devotion to her causes is undeniable. But less well-known is her dramatic change of heart with respect to “righteous” warfare.
In the run-up to the Civil War, Howe was one of the most ardent and vocal abolitionists. In 1861, the first year of the war, the song “John Brown’s Body” (about the radical abolitionist who had raided Harper’s Ferry, MD in 1860) was quickly becoming a popular marching song for Union troops. But their commanders, while loving the catchy and inspiring tune, were less enthusiastic about the effect on morale of their troops singing about how “John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave.”
Howe heard the soldiers singing this song as they marched by her home one day in November 1861, and her companion, a Christian pastor, the Reverend James Freeman Clarke, suggested to her that she write new lyrics for the song to make it more uplifting and compelling as a battle anthem. After a flash of late-night inspiration, Howe composed the text of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in order to inject her fervent abolitionist cause with a militant Christian spirituality about the righteous vengeance of God upon the wicked. Perhaps most compelling, certain stanzas of the Battle Hymn of the Republic are written to foster a sense of the soldiers’ cooperation with God in this holy cause. For instance:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
This tune is thus reminiscent of a holy war paradigm, or a crusade, completely identifying the singers with God’s righteous cause. So sure was Howe that the Union cause was holy, justified, and righteous that her theology injects this passion and fervency directly into the hearts of those soldiers who would sing the inspirational tune.
But this was not the end of Howe’s writing career.
In the aftermath of the devastating American Civil War, in which well over 600,000 lives were lost, as well as the carnage of the Franco-Prussian War soon thereafter, Howe was horrified at the human toll these conflicts exacted. In the 1870’s, Howe began a one-woman peace crusade, having repudiated the militancy of her optimistic self-righteous “Battle Hymn” years. She saw the effect of actual human combat and came to see war as just as devastating, if not more so, than the other human social evils she had previously dedicated herself to fighting.
Particularly devastating to Howe were the cries of the grieving mothers she met. These women, who had lost their sons in the senseless carnage of the Civil War, were her inspiration. In 1872, Howe set about campaigning for a “Mother’s Day for Peace” as a way of raising awareness of the fact that every nameless soldier and civilian who had lost his or her life in the horrors of the war had left behind a weeping mother.
The day was, however, mainly intended as a call to unite women against war. It was due to her efforts that in 1873, women in 18 cities in America held a Mother’s Day for Peace gathering. See the original Mother’s Day Proclamation.
Howe rigorously championed the cause of declaring Mother’s Day as an official holiday. She held meetings every year at Boston on Mother’s Peace Day and took care to see that the day was well-observed. The celebrations died out when she turned her efforts to working for peace and women’s rights in other ways. Howe failed in her attempt to gain the formal recognition of a Mother’s Day for Peace. Her remarkable contribution in the establishment of Mother’s Day, however, remains in that her Mother’s Day dedicated to peace was the precursor to the modern Mother’s Day celebrations. To acknowledge Howe’s achievements, a stamp was issued in her honor in 1988.
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More of our blog posts from Rob Arner:
The Consistent Life Consensus in Ancient Christianity
See the list of all our blog posts, put in categories.
Rejoicing in the Gospel of Life?
Tony Masalonis
compiled by Tony Masalonis from a discussion by (in alphabetical order) Tony Masalonis, Bill Samuel, Julia Smucker, Lisa Stiller, Richard Stith
Consistent Life Network blog posts express the opinion of the authors only. Although several of our Board members contributed to it, this post does not represent an official statement by Consistent Life as an organization.
On April 9, 2018, the Vatican released Pope Francis’ “apostolic exhortation” Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad). We aren’t a Catholic organization, but many CLN members are Catholic, and 1.2 billion other people are, so we pay attention when the Catholic Church speaks on our issues.
Gaudete is broad, containing meditations on popular Gospel passages and examples of how to live “holiness” in everyday life. But one part touches directly on what we as consistent-lifers hold dear: Francis refers to the “harmful ideological error” made by those who criticize other people’s work for justice, saying these critics are wrong to act as though:
the only thing that counts is one particular ethical issue or cause that they themselves defend. Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred…. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection. ….
We often hear it said that, with respect to relativism and the flaws of our present world, the situation of migrants, for example, is a lesser issue. Some Catholics consider it a secondary issue compared to the “grave” bioethical questions. That a politician looking for votes might say such a thing is understandable, but not a Christian, for whom the only proper attitude is to stand in the shoes of those brothers and sisters of ours who risk their lives to offer a future to their children.
These words have raised Catholic and non-Catholic eyebrows. In particular, much has been written about the apparent equating of abortion and immigration. Some commentators, including abortion defenders, praise Francis for coming out of what they consider the dark ages, while others sharply criticize him for failing to clearly restate Catholic teaching that abortion and euthanasia are intrinsic evils while other issues are matters of “prudential judgment.”
Even within CLN leadership, we have different takes on Gaudete’s treatment of life issues. In this post we cover some different perspectives within our group, acknowledging that as consistent-lifers, we firmly agree about protecting life and we (perhaps cautiously) celebrate the Catholic Church’s increasing support for the Consistent Life Ethic (CLE).
You Can’t Have Well-being without Being
Some of us acknowledge the validity of “traditional” pro-lifers’ concerns about Gaudete. For most of the endangered people the Pope mentions, their death isn’t the main concern. Rather, we’re concerned primarily about their misery. So Francis isn’t focusing on universal and consistent opposition to all lethal violence.
It’s wrong to ignore the plight of migrants. But it’s also wrong to put economic well-being on a par with life itself.
While none of us in the CLE movement think abortion is the only issue, it’s reasonable for some folks to consider it the key issue. It’s currently the largest example of mass killing in the world, and it involves families attacking their own members.
It’s like people in the U.S. South in the 1950s saying that overcoming segregation was overwhelmingly the most important issue. They’d be wrong to forget other issues, but their courage and stamina should be praised, rather than belittling them as merely concerned about race.
Although Francis clearly asserts the importance of defending the rights of unborn babies, a few sentences later he appears to mock the seriousness of “bioethical issues” by putting scare quotes around the word “grave.” This punctuation choice seems in tension with consistent-life concerns about direct killing.
Many inconsistent pro-lifers are pro-war and pro-death penalty, and closed-minded about migrants. They can and should be criticized for that. But they’re perfectly consistent about opposing the deliberate and culturally-approved killing of the innocent and helpless, shown by their strong, counter-cultural opposition to killing unborn (and newborn) infants and old/sick people – often at great cost to themselves.
“All Lives are Equally Sacred”
Some of us think the Pope is understandably frustrated at people waving the pro-life banner while showing little concern for social justice issues that impact human well-being. He’s also careful to note for the social justice crowd that the lives of the unborn are critically important.
The distinction made above between causing death and causing misery is much weaker than one might suppose. Many suffering from conditions like poverty, trafficking, and forced migration die because of them. Human dignity is a theme in Catholic Social Teaching (CST) going back to Rerum Novarum (1891, generally considered the founding document of modern CST), and CST holds that the right to life includes not only the right not to be directly killed, but also the right to a dignified life. Sanctity of life and quality of life cannot be neatly separated.
Whether or not one reads Gaudete as suggesting abortion opponents are indifferent to lives of the born, it’s evident that many people see abortion as the one issue. Many are Catholics.
Feticide isn’t the only case where a family destroys its own members: it’s the same with euthanasia. And abortion, as horrifying as it is, isn’t the only form of mass killing. War, genocide, and terrorism are excruciatingly common. Euthanasia and executions are rampant in some countries. All the forms of violence we oppose kill in great numbers. Most chilling, the potential death toll of world-wide war is over seven billion – the entire human race.
Consistent-Lifers United in Diversity
Does Gaudete reaffirm the CLE? Negate it? Both? Neither? Parts of the document seem at first to be a ringing affirmation – and then we notice two omissions: the death penalty and war (“peace” is mentioned many times, but in a general sense.) Instead of these forms of direct killing, the Pope includes those who aren’t targets of intentionally lethal violence. We must be equally concerned to protect their lives – but their lives aren’t quite as directly menaced.
It would have also been nice to see more about connections between life issues. Many anti-abortion people are so “single issue,” they don’t see connections between issues, especially poverty. If we address poverty, we begin to address abortion. The 1950s “single-issue” anti-segregationists, unlike many traditional pro-lifers, understood links between issues; they got that poverty was wrapped up in segregation, and that desegregation was a way out of poverty. Talking about abortion and poverty from this perspective might make the document more palatable, even convincing, to some traditional pro-lifers.
However, these deficiencies don’t make Gaudete a bad document. Every statement needn’t address every issue or every angle. Francis and other Popes have addressed other lethal violence well elsewhere. We ourselves don’t talk about every single life issue in everything we say. Popes too are free to focus on a few threatened populations at a time without losing their CLE credentials!
From an article on Gaudete et Exsultate in America Magazine
Towards Harmony
As consistent-lifers, we strive to speak to single-issue abortion opponents just like we should speak to single-issue death penalty opponents or single-issue pacifists: “Hey, folks, it’s really important what you’re doing, and we see why you focus on that. But here are important additional steps some feel called to take in the same direction. We hope you’ll join us, but if you’ve got your hands full already, at least let us know you’re with us.” We should not in any way put these people down, publicly or even in our own minds.
We have different opinions about how successfully Pope Francis has adopted this CLE attitude. In context, his critique of inconsistency shows he’s not denying the gravity of bioethical concerns – certainly not that of abortion, as he says explicitly. Rather, he’s saying they don’t override all other concerns about human life and dignity. It’s true, though, that those quotes around “grave” could potentially be misleading.
But we definitely all agree that building up our fellow workers for life and peace in a “cooperative spirit of peace, reconciliation, and respect in protecting the unprotected,” as our mission statement reads, is the way to go. And although some of us think Pope Francis missed a chance to holistically proclaim a consistent ethic of life in this new document, perhaps by more unequivocally declaring abortion’s gravity and by addressing war and executions, we continue to applaud his excellent overall track record of standing up for all life.
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For more of our blog posts from different religions, see:
Atheism: The Vital Need for Diversity
Christianity: The Consistent Life Consensus in Ancient Christianity
Hinduism: Abortion and War are the Karma for Killing Animals
Islam: Breaking Stereotypes in Fearful Times
See the list of all our blog posts, put in categories.
Finding Common Ground on and Learning from World War II
by John Whitehead
Writing on this blog, Consistent Life Vice President Rachel MacNair recently examined several moral issues related to the Second World War and how we interpret and remember that war today (see The Darkest Hour—“Glorifying” War?). An observation in that piece that struck me was that when a nonviolence advocate discusses war with someone who supports it, a war supporter who “understands things as complicated might be easier to talk into alternative methods of solving problems.” I agree that appreciation of an issue’s complexity can make someone more open to alternate views, even if complete agreement isn’t possible. I offer my own thoughts on how World War II’s moral complexity offers the possibility of finding some common ground between opponents and supporters of the war.
Those who say the Allied war effort in World War II was justified and those who say it was not, even if they can’t agree on this question, can agree on other moral aspects of the war. This area of agreement isn’t merely of historical interest, but is important to remember as both groups consider how to respond to contemporary conflicts.
The crucial point both sides can agree on is this: while stopping the Axis was a just cause (and setting aside whether an alternative to war was possible), the Allied war effort killed huge numbers of civilians. Moreover, to some degree, the Allied war effort didn’t even fulfill its intended goal of saving lives from the Axis. If I were to draw a general principle from this point, it would be
War, even waged in the most just of causes, typically involves killing those whom even the war-makers should recognize as innocents.
The three main Allied nations—Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States—all killed many civilians in their war effort against the Axis. Richard B. Frank, in his work Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire estimates that the United States’ bombing of Japan, including the infamous nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killed over 400,000 Japanese civilians. Also, Britain, and to a lesser extent the United States, bombed German cities such as Hamburg and Dresden—Frank estimates between 300,000 and 593,000 German civilians died in the Allied bombing.
The Nagasaki memorial at ground zero of the atomic bomb in 1945
The Soviet army, while advancing through Eastern Europe into Germany, killed ethnic German civilians through both bombing and more face-to-face methods such as shooting them. Sexual assault of civilian women was also widespread, as was expelling Germans from their homes.
These Soviet actions were the first stage in a prolonged post-war expulsion of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. Over 400,000 ethnic Germans may have died as a result of Allied mistreatment. During the war, Stalin also took the opportunity to settle scores with various ethnic groups within the Soviet Union he suspected of disloyalty, having them killed or deported.
To be sure, the number of civilians killed by Allied policy was smaller than the millions of civilians who died because of Axis policies—and the millions more who may have died had the Axis won—but this is no justification for ignoring or justifying Allied atrocities.
Moreover, even setting aside the means by which the Allies achieved victory, the victory’s ultimate consequences are ambiguous. While post-war Europe, for all its problems, was a more just, less violent place than Nazi-dominated Europe would have been, post-war Asia was a different story. Imperial Japan’s rule in Asia was comparable to Nazi rule in its cruelty and violence, but did Allied victory replace Japanese rule with something better?
Many Asian nations liberated from Japan met one or more of the following fates in the following decades: 1) European colonial rule that provoked wars for independence (as in French Indochina); 2) rule by home-grown dictators and strongmen sometimes as brutal as the Japanese (Mao Zedong in China being the most prominent example); or 3) becoming ground zero for the proxy wars the now-divided Allied powers fought among themselves (as with wars in Korea and Vietnam).
Jizo statues in a Tokyo cemetery, after a Mizuko kuyō (水子供養) or fetus memorial service
Even the most noticeable “success story” of post-war Asia, the democratic and prosperous Japan rebuilt by the United States, has a much darker side that should concern pro-lifers: to cope with the needs of a large population amid a war-devastated economy, Japan took steps to control its population by legalizing abortion, through the euphemistically named “Eugenic Protection Law” of 1948 (which occupying American authorities didn’t block). Within seven years, abortions peaked in Japan at 1.1 million.
If I consider how many people, especially civilians, died to achieve Allied victory and how unjust the post-war order in Asia was, I am not left with a strong impression of war’s ability to defeat injustice. I am left with a sense of war’s terrible costs and moral compromises and how even victory leads to confused, uncertain outcomes.
If a war with as just as cause as the Second World War can be so problematic, how much more so are the wars, past and present, fought for ambiguous causes? The overall impression is one of war’s inadequacy as a tool of achieving justice. This is a lesson that everyone, both those who oppose the Allied war effort and those who believe the war effort was ultimately necessary, would do well to learn.
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For more of our commentaries on the world wars, see:
Rejecting Mass Murder: Looking Back on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Self-Defeating Violence: The Case of the First World War
The Darkest Hour: “Glorifying” War?
Would Nonviolence Work on the Nazis?
Tribalism: A Major Obstacle for Building Bridges
by Rachel MacNair
Rachel MacNair
Two media personalities, one right-wing, the other left-wing, have recently been in the public eye for their comments on abortion. Writer Kevin Williamson has been in the news because he was hired by The Atlantic and then, before starting, was dismissed because of abortion-related comments. Also, John Oliver in his comedy show, Last Week Tonight, did a segment on crisis pregnancy centers. Coming from differing views on abortion, both men’s behavior illustrates what David Brooks has called tribalism. In psychology we refer to this as ingroup/outgroup dynamics.
Right-Wing: Hanging Mothers?
Kevin Williamson, a long-time columnist for the National Review, recently lost an opportunity to be a regular columnist for The Atlantic because of his views on women who have abortions. In a Tweet, now deleted, Williamson apparently said that both doctors involved in abortion and women who had abortions should be hanged. He said something similar in a podcast.
Williamson was placed for adoption, so he’s one of the millions of people who could have been aborted and weren’t. Abortion survivors of this kind might well have emotional reactions as they identify with the baby they once were – that’s one of the many horrific outcomes of mass feticide. But it contradicts the general view of pro-life activists, and thereby misrepresents the movement to outsiders who don’t know this. The title of the podcast episode, after all, is “Everyone Hates Kevin – Again.”
I wrote a blog post about why it is that we pro-lifers in general don’t favor punishing women for getting abortions, with added consistent life insight (Who the Law Targets).
This recent news brought to my mind my personal experience when I met Kevin Williamson, which illustrates the point of how “tribalism” works as an obstacle.
Immediately after the 2016 election, I went on two seminar cruises, each one of an opposing “side” – one with liberal The Nation magazine and the other with conservative National Review. A story I haven’t before told about the National Review cruise concerns the session they had on abortion. Here, only pro-life views were presented. Unlike every other session, the introducer did mention a caveat that they knew not everyone in the audience agreed with the pro-life perspective. Indeed, my assigned roommate was pro-abortion and argued the issue with me.
They had originally had a panel of three that included Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life. But she was offered work on the Trump transition team that was meeting right then, so they needed a substitute.
Well before the session, I saw Ramesh Ponnuru, who’s a writer and senior editor on their staff. He was delighted to see me again; he remembered having invited me to speak many years before at Princeton University when he was a student there and I was president of Feminists for Life of America. I offered to take Charmaine’s place on the panel for the session. Ponnuru said that seemed like an excellent idea to him, and he would ask other staff about it.
They didn’t take me up on the offer. With an all-male panel, they used Kevin Williamson instead.
Top left: Kevin Williamson. Top right: Ramesh Ponnuru. Bottom: Charmaine Yoest
As I sat in the audience, I was antsy, knowing the answers I would have given had I been up there. Answers I knew were more effective with the audiences I speak to. Given that not everyone in the audience was pro-life, and that many who were pro-life weren’t well-versed on the topic and needed those better arguments for their own discussions with friends, a good presentation was really needed.
Here we have a case where a woman with expertise, who could have been replaced with another woman with expertise, was instead replaced by a man who is not as well versed in the usual pro-life arguments. While I may be in the pro-life “ingroup,” which is why I hoped my offer would be accepted, I’m not in the conservative “ingroup.”
Left-Wing: Let ‘em Lie!
I like watching John Oliver. I normally watch every segment of his I can on the web (I don’t have cable). But I must admit I didn’t watch the segment on crisis pregnancy centers, broadcast April 8, 2018. I had read a news story on it, and I knew I’d never be able to enjoy watching Oliver again if I saw that segment. The premise of it was that Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) are allowed to lie, and do lie. If they say something, such as that there’s a link between abortion and women later developing breast cancer, then to Oliver’s mind, the fact that they said it must mean it’s a lie. Some “pro-choice” organizations, after all, have said that the abortion/breast cancer link is not so, and therefore, to Oliver, it’s not so.
John Oliver
John Oliver normally goes after the people who are dishonorably making money or are otherwise callous or violent to vulnerable people. This is why I like watching him. The idea that he has flipped that ethic upside down in this CPC segment has clearly not occurred to him. This is another example of ingroup/outgroup tribalism at work.
I keep up with several late-night comedians; it helps me deal with political stresses, as long as they stay away from the topic of abortion. But I do observe that they make frequent use of cuss words. John Oliver especially has a constant stream of such words in his monologues, at least one per paragraph, even when there’s no connection with what he’s saying. Indeed, there are times when the simple use of such a word brings a round of laughter.
Being someone who’s been known to privately use cuss words myself – especially at my misbehaving computer – I don’t really have an ethical objection. And of course the Consistent Life Network wouldn’t even think of having a position on merely vulgar (not violent or bigoted) language.
But it does strike me that his frequent use of such words further shows this problem: he’s not trying to persuade anybody that doesn’t already agree with him. Even if only a small portion of people he’s talking to find such words offensive, if he’s trying to persuade these people, why use such words? Their very use implies he has contempt for them. Trump voters, especially evangelicals, have noticed this sense of contempt aimed at them, and have responded accordingly.
I think one reason the words are used so much is that the cuss words help define the ingroup. Just using them, even out of any context, is seen as funny for that very reason – giggling in the camaraderie of being us rather than them.
This goes with the prejudicial remarks Oliver made about good people trying to help pregnant women, people who aren’t merely talking but putting in the hard work that’s called for by their principles. From the perspective of Oliver and much of his audience, such people are them, not us.
The Dove Needs Two Wings to Fly
This all goes to illustrate two points we in the consistent-life-ethic movement have been making for years:
- The us/them view (or ingroup/outgroup dynamic) has to be taken into account when figuring out strategy, because it’s always been one of our major obstacles – the very concept of bridge-building is meant to counter it.
and
- As I explain above for both the right and left, the groups who regard themselves as being on different “sides” are hurting their own causes by insisting on sticking only with their own ingroups. Persuasion of other groups suffers.
Fortunately, that problem can be lessened over time. After all, Ramesh Ponnuru expressed that he would have been happy to have me present to the National Review audience. And some of those late-night comedians do occasionally treat unborn children as humans (see, for example, Conan O’Brien “Fetus at Large,” Part 1 and Part 2; Seth Meyers as we mentioned on his current show and on Saturday Night Live, videos unfortunately no longer up).
So, while we’ve known all along that this us/them mentality is a major problem, we’ve also seen over and over again that it’s an obstacle that can be surmounted.
How Euthanasia and Poverty Threaten the Disabled
by Sarah Terzo
This is Part 2 of 2. Part 1 was How Ableism Led (and Leads) to Abortion
Sarah Terzo
Now that abortion has become entrenched in our culture, people are pushing for legalizing suicide. Currently in the United States, usually if someone wants to commit suicide, the police can be called. Suicidal persons will be interviewed. If mental health workers fear they’re in danger of suicide, suicidal persons will be hospitalized. They won’t be released from custody until they can convince mental health professionals they won’t commit suicide. However, in other countries, a suicidal person who is also disabled or chronically ill might be treated very differently.
Countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands allow euthanasia or assisted suicide for people who experience incurable, unbearable suffering, including mental suffering. Such laws enable the suicides of people with physical and mental disabilities. People have been killed or assisted in killing themselves because of conditions such as combined deafness and blindness; autism; and alcoholism. A study documented 37 cases in the Netherlands where people with mental health problems were enabled to commit suicide after refusing treatment that could have helped them. People with disabilities or other severe health problems are being assisted in dying rather than living.
The United States hasn’t yet reached this point, although seven states and the District of Columbia allow assisted suicide for people diagnosed with terminal illnesses. Such laws devalue the lives of one particular class of ill person, but don’t yet go as far as certain European laws.
I might not currently qualify for assisted suicide because my illness—rheumatoid arthritis—is not terminal (though it can lead to premature death). However, people with my condition and other disabilities have been victims of illegal assisted suicides in the United States.
Jack Kevorkian
Jack Kevorkian, known as Dr. Death, helped as many as 130 people kill themselves. Some were terminally ill, but others had chronic but nonfatal conditions. One woman had my diagnosis – rheumatoid arthritis. Despite killing 130 people by assisted suicide over the course of his career, Kevorkian served only 8 years in jail. Would a person who killed 130 able-bodied people get off so lightly?
Another disturbing sign is how the American Association of Suicidology (AAS), a suicide prevention group, now accepts the legitimacy of assisted suicide for the terminally ill. It takes a disturbingly vague stance on more permissive assisted suicide laws. AAS released a paper last fall declaring that “legal physician assisted deaths should not be considered to be cases of suicide.” Therefore they wouldn’t work to prevent it.
The paper does a poor job of explaining why only some suicides should be prevented. It gives 14 reasons assisted suicide differs from the types of suicide they work to prevent. Some of these seem to be arguments for making legalized suicide more readily available: “Suicide in the conventional sense often involves physical self-violence . . . [physician-assisted suicide] is intended to provide the physically easiest, least violent, least disfiguring, most peaceful form of death an already dying person could face”; “The legal status and consequences of the two acts are different”; physician-assisted suicides “do not incur the sometimes substantial forensic and other costs that suicides do . . . They do not invite dilemmas of publicity.”
Arguing that assisted suicide is less violent and involves less red tape resembles the argument that abortion should be legal because of the risks posed by illegal abortions. The point about forensic costs is especially striking – it doesn’t concern the well-being of the suicide victim, but the convenience to society.
AAS also argues assisted suicide is a rational choice for people with terminal illnesses. This argument devalues the lives of the people for whom suicide is considered rational. They aren’t given the same type of suicide prevention services others receive. Moreover, even the comparative narrowness of this argument, which limits allowable suicide to people with terminal illnesses, is qualified or diluted elsewhere.
Although AAS focuses on US law, it acknowledges the more permissive European assisted suicide/euthanasia laws and doesn’t clarify whether it agrees with them. It’s not clear whether the AAS supports assisted suicide for non-terminal patients. The paper doesn’t say whether such laws go too far.
At one point the paper comments that US law denies assisted suicide to people with depression or other mental health issues and allows that in such cases “traditional suicide prevention services and treatment for depression may well play a role.” Elsewhere, however, in distinguishing assisted suicide from more conventional suicide, the paper notes that while certain European laws allow suicide for “unbearable suffering in intractable mental illness” they at least require “heightened scrutiny.” Setting aside the questionable nature of the “scrutiny” in countries such as the Netherlands, this alleged distinction implies that the AAS thinks assisted suicide for mentally ill people is acceptable—or at least is ambivalent about it. This attitude undermines the whole goal of suicide prevention for which the AAS allegedly exists.
All these conditions—laws allowing euthanasia and assisted suicide, especially the permissive laws in places such as Belgium and the Netherlands, the lax treatment of Kevorkian, and the acceptance of assisted suicide by a supposed suicide prevention organization—show how the lives of disabled and nondisabled people are not valued equally.
From the website of Not Dead Yet (www.notdeadyet.org)
Disabled people are vulnerable to being coerced into suicide. Many disabled people fear being a burden to others (of the 1,275 people who have died through assisted suicide in Oregon, over 40% cited “Burden on family, friends/caregivers” as being a concern). They know their disabilities can make life harder for the people who love them. They know their medical care is costly.
This fear affects me in my own life. As someone with bipolar disorder, I’ve been fighting suicidal feelings since I was 16. The knowledge that from some people’s perspective my suicide should be aided, not prevented, because of my disability makes it harder.
The threat of assisted suicide, and the gradual expansion of its use, is just one side of the danger facing the disabled. Disabled people also face the danger of falling into ever-deeper poverty. Supporting oneself isn’t easy for a disabled person: in fact, one study estimates that about 10 years after the onset of a chronic, severe disability, a disabled person’s average earnings decrease by 76%. In the United States, disabled people who’ve never been able to work, can—if they can qualify—get a stipend from the government of between $700-1,000 a month through Social Security. This is nowhere near enough to live on in any part of the United States. If the disabled don’t have family or friends that can take care of them, they have to rely on social programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and rental assistance just to survive. If you count SNAP recipients between the ages of 18 and 59 who have a disability—including those who don’t receive disability benefits—they add up to about 28% of all recipients. For men and women too disabled to work, there are no other options. In the United States, people with disabilities are at least twice as likely to live in poverty as able-bodied people.
Because of high health care costs, even disabled people who work often cannot make enough money to afford treatment for their medical conditions. Without a full-time job, health insurance is hard to come by, so many disabled people rely on Medicaid. One medication I take, only one out of 15, costs $40,000 dollars a year. Very few severely disabled people could earn enough money to pay for a medication like that. I therefore have to rely on the government through Medicaid.
Dependence on all these different forms of government assistance—disability benefits, SNAP, rental assistance, Medicaid—makes the disabled vulnerable to the cuts in these programs that some politicians pursue. If politicians succeed in cutting food stamps, rental assistance, and other social programs, these cuts would disproportionately hurt the disabled. Many disabled people would be thrown even deeper into poverty; some may lose access to housing.
Another harm to disabled people is the stigma attached to receiving government benefits. Even though the structure of our society makes it impossible for most disabled people to survive without government programs, disabled people (as well the able-bodied poor) are made to feel deeply ashamed of their dependence. All too often, people are judged by wealth or productivity, rather than their basic humanity. Disabled people sometimes internalize this stigma. It’s a common cultural narrative that a person must be productive enough to survive without outside support. One way to help the disabled is to counter this narrative when and where it occurs.
Ableism is on both sides of the political spectrum, conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat. Ableism can take the form of support for abortion, euthanasia/assisted suicide, or denying support to the disabled. Defenders of life should oppose ableism no matter who is promoting it or what form it takes.
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For more of our blog posts from Sarah Terzo, see:
Abortion Doctor Says: We are the Executioners
Healing for the Perpetrators: The Psychological Damage from Different Types of Killing
How Ableism Led (and Leads) to Abortion
For other posts on euthanasia, see:
What’s Cruel for the Incarcerated is Cruel for the Terminally Ill by Jacqueline H. Abernathy
Figuring out Euthanasia: What Does it Really Mean? by Rachel MacNair
When “Choice” Itself Hurts the Quality of Life by Richard Stith
See the list of all our blog posts put in categories
Eugenics in Roe v. Wade
by John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe
Editor’s note: this is an excerpt from the book The Roots of Racism and Abortion: An Exploration of Eugenics, pp. 151-153.
The 1973 Supreme Court decisions that ended all legal protection of unborn children were based on eugenics. Despite that, comments about the decisions usually focus on privacy and women’s rights, not on eugenics. So we should look carefully at the ways in which eugenics shows up in the decisions.
(1) The appearance of eugenics in the abortion decisions that is easiest to see is the reference in a footnote to Buck v. Bell, the 1927 case that opened the floodgates for sterilizing people who were considered to be unfit. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court said that the Constitution protects a “right to privacy” and that the decision to have an abortion is an exercise of this right. But, the Court stated, the right to privacy is not absolute; it can be limited in some cases, such as vaccination and sterilization. So the abortion decision was not about women’s rights; it cited a case permitting forced sterilization.
(2) The abortion decisions were written by Justice Harry Blackmun. His approach to abortion follows the lead of Glanville Williams. Glanville Williams, who taught law at Cambridge University, was a member of the Eugenics Society. In 1954, the Eugenics Society voted to support the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA), which set out to remove legal restrictions against abortion. Williams became president of the ALRA from 1962, and was successful within a few years; the British law was changed in 1967.
Harry Blackmun
The longest part of the decision written by Justice Harry Blackmun was his history of abortion laws. This is not a bizarre approach, but it is not the obvious approach either. If it was his intention to discuss abortion at length before examining the case that had come to the Supreme Court, he could have written about the development of the child, or about the methods of abortion, or about various birth control methods. He decided to dwell at length on the history of abortion laws. This is noteworthy, because this is the approach taken by Glanville Williams, in his book The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law, which Blackmun cited.
A startling aspect of Roe v. Wade is its insistence that laws against abortion are recent. But this view is taken from Glanville Williams. Williams wrote: “It is not generally realized that this rule is not older than the beginning of the last century.” Blackmun wrote: “It perhaps is not generally appreciated that the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of states today are of relatively recent vintage.”
The Hippocratic Oath is a stumbling block for historians who want to argue that only Christians oppose abortion. Williams and Blackmun deal with the Hippocratic Oath in different ways. Williams, incredibly, simply skips over it; he quotes Hippocrates on some other matter, but does not mention the Oath. Blackmun addresses it, but finds a way to set it aside. He explains that it represented a minority view among the Greeks, but was later taken up by Christians.
(3) Most importantly, the whole idea of humanity accumulating over time, from zero person at conception through various levels of value in each trimester up to 100% person at birth, is eugenics. The idea of evolution through stages from insignificance to humanity is pure eugenics, based on Darwin’s theories. The whole trimester scheme in Roe v. Wade, with different rules at three stages in pregnancy, is blatantly arbitrary, and that has always struck pro-lifers as a fatal flaw in the decision. But eugenicists are not bothered by arbitrary decisions, since their view is that rights are invented by society, by a social contract based on consensus, not given by God.
Eugenics devalues humans by rating people on a sliding scale. There are different sliding scales, but they all dehumanize vulnerable people and justify various crimes against humanity. The eugenics in Roe v. Wade is not a sliding scale based on racism; it does not assert that whites > yellows > reds & browns > blacks. And it is not a sliding scale based on IQ testing, placing the highly intelligent over the normal, the normal over morons, and morons over imbeciles. It is like the sliding scale in evolution, from protozoa to vegetable life to animal life to mammals to primates to savages to civilized mankind.
Roe v. Wade reflects a belief in the idea that each individual passes through developmental stages that imitate evolution: egg and sperm become a zygote, which becomes a blastocyst, then an embryo, then a fetus, then an infant, then a child, then an adult, then an old person, then a corpse. Of course each person goes through different stages in life; the critical question is whether the person’s worth also rises and falls. The 1973 decisions on abortion reflect the idea that size and weight and complexity— and value and rights—all accumulate gradually.
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For more excerpts from this book, see:
The Jukes and Kallikaks “Studies”
For more of our blog posts on racism, see:
Historical Black Voices: Racism Kills
The Poor Cry Out for Justice, and We Respond with Legalized Abortion (Graciela Olivarez)
More than Double the Trouble: Another Way of Connecting (intersectionality)