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\r\nJulia Smucker<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Last October, in one of a series of opinion pieces in Slate on how the political left should approach the U.S. Supreme Court, Christopher John Sprigman<\/a> made the point that the liberalization of abortion laws that came with Roe v. Wade, without popular consensus in its favor, has proven disastrous for the left by giving the right a tangible, long-term foil against which to militate. \u201cThe price of Roe,\u201d he summarized,<\/em> \u201cis all the progressive change we gave up when Roe<\/em> helped push the center of American politics to the right.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n More recently, Washington Post<\/em> columnist and former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson<\/a> mirrored Sprigman\u2019s argument from the opposite side of the political aisle, warning of the steep costs to the moral credibility of \u201cinstitutions on the right,\u201d and particularly the pro-life movement (though without treating these as entirely synonymous), from willingness to associate themselves with the corrupting influence of Donald Trump.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Being a political independent in part because of the consistent life ethic, I\u2019m \u00a0resistant to the framing of life issues in conventional left\/right terms. Nor do I find motivation in prospects for political advantage or disadvantage for a given ideology. Nevertheless, I sympathize with both writers\u2019 concerns to the extent that they desire to protect human beings who are vulnerable to violence and other indignities.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Furthermore, the juxtaposition of their arguments points to a more significant overarching concern from a consistent life perspective: the promotion of public policies that hurt the vulnerable is costly not only to those directly harmed, but also to the protection of other<\/em> vulnerable human beings by extension, whenever nonviolent and life-affirming policy goals become bound together with violent and life-denying ones.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Gerson, to his credit, does attempt to dissociate the pro-life movement from political \u201cconservatism\u201d as conventionally understood, introducing the movement in his column as having \u201ctraditionally been in a different category.\u201d He explains, \u201cIf you believe that a fetus is a member of the human family from its first moment \u2026 then opposition to abortion is inherently a social justice issue. It is the defense of the weak and voiceless against violence.\u201d This framework for what it means to be pro-life leads naturally into the necessity of consistency, \u201cto care equally for the lives of women in crisis\u201d and \u201cfor the health and welfare of children after birth,\u201d to \u201cbe opposed to the dehumanization of unborn children and the dehumanization of refugees and migrants.\u201d As an issue of defense of the weak, Gerson argues, \u201cThe legitimacy of pro-life sentiment is demonstrated by its consistency.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n To sacrifice this consistency for the sake of political gain is not only harmful to those dehumanized by the policies and rhetoric of \u201cTrumpism\u201d but also, by association, to the pro-life movement itself. Associating with misogyny, nativism and racism, abuse and cruelty, he elaborates, comes at a serious cost to pro-life claims to stand for women, social inclusion, charity and reason. The price of \u201cthe Trumpification of the pro-life movement,\u201d then, is the very credibility of the movement\u2019s basis in compassion.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Sprigman frames the price of Roe<\/em> more in terms of the advancement of an undefined \u201cprogressive\u201d ideology for its own sake, but to the extent that what he means by \u201cprogress\u201d overlaps with justice toward vulnerable human beings, his point parallels Gerson\u2019s. To serve his argument against over-reliance on the Supreme Court to effect justice, he mentions some of the more glaring examples of unjust Supreme Court decisions, such as its affirmation of slavery in Dred Scott<\/em>, of detention of Japanese-Americans in Korematsu<\/em>, and of discrimination against travelers from primarily Muslim-majority countries in Trump v. Hawaii<\/em>. Ironically, Roe<\/em> fits this pattern in a way that Sprigman doesn\u2019t acknowledge, if one looks at it as a pattern of failure to protect human beings from dehumanization and violence. But even though Sprigman sees Roe<\/em> itself as a positive by virtue of its conventional association with \u201cprogressivism,\u201d he\u2019s still skeptical about whether it\u2019s been worth the obstacles it\u2019s created to more laudable goals related to nondiscrimination. The price of Roe<\/em> is not only millions of prenatal lives, but also the victimization of numerous others by the broad license given to other forms of violence and exclusion, sometimes in the name of fighting against Roe<\/em>. ==================================<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n For more of our blog posts from Julia Smucker, see:<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Amnesty International\u2019s Blind Spot <\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Defining Reproductive Justice: An Encounter<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The Redemptive Personalism of Saint Oscar Romero<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Media Stories on Abortion Access<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Julia Smucker Last October, in one of a series of opinion pieces in Slate on how the political left should approach the U.S. Supreme Court, Christopher John Sprigman made the point that the liberalization of abortion laws that came with Roe v. Wade, without popular consensus in its favor, has proven disastrous for… <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/1-blog-gerson.jpg\")
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Both legalized abortion and the broad bigotry of Trumpism are already negative things in themselves, with immeasurable costs to human dignity. That\u2019s all the more reason for people on both sides of the aisle to let go of goals that are counterproductive to their best ideals and belie claims of compassion for the vulnerable \u2013 ideally for consistency\u2019s sake, but at least for the sake of the lives they do seek to protect.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n