The Virtual Abbey

In Britain, they are debating whether to restrict abortion to the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, rather than the current 24. Spiked magazine offers their reasons why abortion should continue until week 24.

For sake of clarity, I think if you read the article and replace the word "abortion" with "murder", you'd get a clearer view of the many fallacies they list.

1. Women need access to safe, legal abortion. History tells us that women with unwanted pregnancies will try their best to end them, sometimes with severe risk to their health. The 1967 Abortion Act was a humane piece of legislation, borne out of the understanding that women need and deserve to control their fertility, not be penalised because of it (2).

Women can control their fertility by three means. The first, is by abstinence. The second, is by only having sex during infertile periods of their monthly cycle. The third method is, though legal, illicit -- by using widely available methods of birth control. There is no obvious need for abortion.

2. There is no right number of abortions. Nadine Dorries’ campaign cautions that there are 200,000 abortions per year in Britain, and that it is ‘time to slow down’. But what is the right number of abortions for anti-abortion activists: 100,000, 100, one? For the anti-abortion movement to haggle over what might be a more acceptable number of abortions is as nonsensical a stance as it is unprincipled.

Well, the author has a point here -- I can no more justify 200,000 murders than I can one. But I'd suggest that while an individual murder is a grave moral crime, mass murder is certainly worse. It is worse for those who are murdered. And, of course, there is an absolutely correct number of abortions that should be performed each year. That number is zero.

3. There is no right time to have an abortion. Women never set out to have abortions – they are always the least bad option at a difficult time. While earlier abortions are easier, safer and less unpleasant than those in later gestations, there are a multitude of reasons why women may not have accessed abortion earlier on. None of these make that woman’s abortion any less necessary, or her any less deserving of it. Women need abortions when they need them, not when somebody else thinks is the right time to have them.

I think it is easier to simply end this paragraph at the first sentence. But there here is indeed a reason to limit the number of weeks -- the scandal involved is less.

4. Women should not be pushed or panicked into having abortions before they have made their decision. Developments in early abortion techniques and provision are progressive because they expand choice for women, giving women seeking abortion the option of having it sooner rather than later. A reduction in the time limit would reduce choice, and risk pushing women who are agonising over whether to continue their pregnancy into making a decision to terminate it before they have definitely decided that that is what they want to do – as well as forcing other women to continue an unwanted pregnancy to term.

Of course, this is an excellent argument for a mandatory waiting period before an abortion is carried out. Does the author support that?

5. There is no right reason to have an abortion. Among the many reasons cited by women as to why they had an abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy, a 2007 study found that ‘I was not sure about having the abortion, and it took me a while to make my mind up and ask for one’ was one of the most important (3). Women can be deeply ambivalent about their pregnancies, and think very carefully before seeking abortion. Research shows that women do not take their abortion decisions lightly, and that these are personal decisions based on complex circumstances that policy cannot even begin to prescribe.

Again, simply end the paragraph at the first sentence. The reason it takes so long for some women to make up their minds is because they recognize what they are doing is gravely immoral and it takes a good deal of time to rationalize it.

6. Women often make their abortion decisions based on their desire to be good parents. It is a common misconception that women seeking abortion do not want children. Yet almost half (47 per cent) of women who had abortions in England and Wales in 2006 had had one or more previous pregnancies that resulted in a live or stillbirth (4). Research shows that an important factor in women’s decision-making about abortion is how well able they feel to be a good parent to a baby, or another baby, in the context of their particular family circumstances (5). In a social context where there is a great deal of pressure to take parenting very seriously, why should women be penalised for understanding that they cannot do that at a particular moment in time?

I'm not sure I understand the logic here. Because one wishes to be a good parent, one ought to be allowed to murder the child. In other words, because I recognize I am potentially a poor parent, I'm allowed to murder my child instead. Better that the child be dead than I learn to love?

7. Changes in women’s circumstances can mean that a wanted pregnancy becomes unwanted. Women who have wanted to be pregnant, or reconciled themselves to pregnancy, may find themselves seeking abortion when something in their lives goes badly wrong: the death or desertion of a partner, the discovery of fetal abnormality, or a major change in financial or other personal circumstances, to name a few reasons. For these women, the option not to have to go through with a pregnancy conceived in very different circumstances is crucial to retaining their reproductive autonomy and some control over their lives. To be told that she is ‘too late’ on the basis of spurious arguments advanced by the anti-abortion movement is insensitive and inhumane.

Of course, this argument could be used to justify child murder outside the womb, as well. You've become inconvenient, Timmy.

I'll let you work through the rest of the list. There is not one good excuse in there. It is impossible that there could be, for a very simple reason -- there is no good justification for murder.

Hat tip to Carl Olson.