Abortion and Slavery
by Jim Hewes
The film Harriet portrays a moment when the enslaved woman Minty—better known as Harriet Tubman—asks her “owner” for permission to start a family. He refuses, reminding her that any child she bears would belong to him. That scene evokes a chilling truth: under slavery, a person could be reduced to mere property, their humanity denied. This historical injustice offers a profound, though sensitive, parallel to the modern issue of abortion. It got me to thinking about the parallel relationship of slavery to abortion. I don’t believe that it’s a coincidence that June 19 marked the official end of slavery in the United States and is near June 22, which marks the Dobbs anniversary, which overturned the horrendous abortion decision of Roe v. Wade.
A Global Tragedy
Some might wonder about the relevance of comparing slavery in the past to abortion in the present. Walk Free estimates that about 50 million people worldwide live as slaves. According to the World Health Organization there are many more abortions worldwide — around 73 million. In other words, 200,000 pre-born children are killed each day because they also are dehumanized and treated as disposable objects.
A Word of Caution: We have to be careful in using such a comparison because slavery, especially in the United States (like the Holocaust to the Jewish community) has a designated meaning and a deep wound to a specific group of people, namely the African American community, which has looked at slavery as the nation’s original sin, whose effect reverberates for generations. The arguments for abortion and slavery are not always exactly the same.
Control over Life and Body
In slavery, some slaveholders forced Black women to give birth (sometimes after a rape) to produce new slaves, future property. Enslaved women were acutely aware that they didn’t “own” their bodies, unlike the perception today of women (even if this perception is skewed). Although many women feel pressured to have an abortion by partners, parents, and a culture of death, many still describe abortion as an act of desperation—a way to escape an unbearable situation, even if it leaves lasting emotional wounds.
Where enslaved persons were denied ownership of their own bodies, many women today are told they have total autonomy over their pregnancies. But this autonomy often exists in a vacuum of fear, pressure, or lack of support. Crisis pregnancy centers and pro-life communities strive to offer the alternatives that so many women long for.
Life, Death and Personhood
Both the arguments for slavery and the arguments for abortion rely on a central claim: that a human being is less than human, sub-human. The dehumanization of Black people relied on unscientific and immoral claims that they were inferior. The dehumanization of pre-born babies relies on similarly unscientific claims that they are “a clump of cells” or part of a woman’s body. The two approaches also championed a form of “choice” that focused on the belief and feelings of the slaveholder and the mother, over the fundamental rights of the enslaved and pre-born children.
Pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood define abortion as “health care” to destigmatize the reality, as slavery was normalized as an ordinary part of the economic stability. Slavery opened up economic possibilities for slaveholders. Similarly, abortion is advocated in order that women can gain education and continue economic progress. In fact, both slavery and abortion advocates claim that if these practices were abolished, there would be a negative economic outcome.
The Illusion of Freedom
In abortion, only the mother gets a “choice,” and only slaveholders, not the enslaved, got a vote. In both cases, the person with the most to lose was excluded; both in the name of so-called “freedom.” It’s not anyone else’s business what they do with this commodity (products of conception). The slaveholder’s “property rights” and the mother’s “reproductive rights” are framed as inviolable freedoms, despite the human cost.
Dred Scott in 1857 was (just like Roe vs. Wade) a 7-2 decision. In the decision, Justice Roger Taney said Blacks were nonpersons without any protection of their human and civil rights. In Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun held that pre-born babies were also nonpersons. Pre-born children are still not considered persons under the 14th Amendment — the Dobbs decision returning abortion policy decision to the states continues to mirror slavery, which was legal in some states until the Civil War.
The Dred Scott decision told the abolitionists they couldn’t impose their morality on the slaveholder. Those who support and promote abortion state the same thing to pro-lifers—don’t impose your morality on women. Those who support allowing abortion often state that if you are against abortion, then don’t have one. Who are you to impose your morality and laws on us? Those who held the enslaved or supported slavery might have also said that if you don’t like slavery, then don’t hold a slave. Who are you to impose your morality on us or enact laws that hinder us from holding slaves? Slavery advocates promoted the idea that slavery was good because it was sanctioned by the nation’s highest court. Millions of Americans tragically believe abortion is okay just because it is still legal in many states.
The reason abortion is supported for the poor is that what is available to the rich should be available to the poor. The problem with this statement is that the premise is wrong. Abortion is seen by some of the wealthy as a good thing, and so should be available to the poor. Back in the 1860s, we would find that mainly the rich could afford slaves. Would those supporting abortion for the poor also want to see the poor given money so they could afford slaves? They wouldn’t because of the immorality of slavery. So, too, abortion is not helping the poor but only trying to aid the poor to kill their own.
The Power of Truth and Image
Abolitionists wielded education and imagery as powerful tools, showing the brutal reality and indignities of how slavery was such a scourge on society. They accomplished this through engravings, stories, and exposés. The pro-life movement today does the same, using fetal imagery, sonograms, and developmental milestones (heartbeat, brainwaves, fingerprints, etc.) to expose the humanity of the pre-born. One may not always remember what they are told, but they will remember the pictures. As philosopher Nicholai Berdyaev said: “The greatest sin of this age is making the concrete abstract.” Abortion, like slavery, thrives when the victim is hidden from view. The images of pre-born children remain completely left in the shadows to perpetuate the falsehood of what abortion really does to an innocent, helpless voiceless, human being.
So, supporting either abortion or slavery is a failure for people to see the intrinsic evil of their practice, and to see that no person could own another, within the womb or outside the womb.
Conclusion
The ultimate question that connects slavery and abortion is: who counts as one of us? It is clearly reflected in this statement:
Dred Scott and all slaves were told that they were not persons but property and we’re telling babies in the womb that they are not children, but they are property of their mother. It was ‘inconvenient’ for slaveholders to not have slaves; and it’s inconvenient’ for mothers to have children they don’t want. But that doesn’t make them any less human.”
— Lynne Jackson, great-great-granddaughter of Dred and Harriet Scott
Statues of Dred and Harriet Scott outside the St. Louis Courthouse where the case started.
==========================
For our post discussing the Scott case, see:
Our Experience with Overturning Terrible Court Decisions
For another modern-day application, see our project website, Peace and Life Referendums:
Finally Abolishing All Slavery
I have a valid question to ask, if you don`t mind. Can a person personally oppose abortion, support abortion rights and still be an endorser of the consistent life ethic? This is an accusation that many pro-lifers do against it. In fact, some of your endorsers I really don`t think qualify as pro-life if they opposed overruling Roe vs. Wade, like James Martin.
Fr. Martin, as far as I’m aware, has never made any public statement about Roe v. Wade. He has, as recently as 2019, described himself as pro-life, a statement he has contextualized with regard to his LGBT ministry as downstream of a consistent life ethic: “I cannot deny that I see the child in the womb, from the moment of his or her conception, as a creation of God, deserving of our respect, protection, and love.”
https://www.americamagazine.org/2019/01/07/martin-why-i-am-pro-life
I believe that an anti-Dobbs position is sometimes ascribed to Fr. Martin because he’s perceived as a prominent Catholic liberal because of his ministry, but I think both his characterization as moderately pro-choice and Liberal in the political sense are misreads of his work and public statements
I can’t find a record of James Martin being a CLN endorser, and he’s not on our website’s selected list of endorsers. We (CLN, on whose Board I serve) have several times quoted him or referenced an article by him. I reviewed all of these, and all were clearly pro-life and not “pro-choice.” In a CLN Board discussion of your comment, some Board members noted that they were unaware of Martin ever taking a “pro-choice” position. I found a record of him criticizing media coverage of the Dobbs decision for not including pro-life voices. He has said he respects some people who oppose pro-life laws and court rulings, but does not agree with them.
CLN seeks to be a diverse coalition of people believing that there are threats to life on our six core issues (including abortion), and we need protection of life on all of them. That is how our Mission Statement is worded. We accept people and groups with different views on what is effective in protecting life. Some of them don’t think the legal restrictions are very helpful, so don’t work on that, but I don’t know of any who support legalization efforts. Some are anarchists and oppose laws in general.
We don’t police endorsers or member organizations, but when something comes to our attention that seems to conflict with our Mission Statement, we contact them for clarification. We have removed some names from our lists of endorsers and member groups because we questioned whether they still supported our Mission Statement. The purpose of this is not to punish them, but to avoid confusing people who look at the lists about our position.