Applauding abortion

In the wake of the leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft majority opinion that would overrule Roe v. Wade and restore the power of the states to deal with the issue of abortion democratically, New York Attorney General Letitia James revealed she’d had an abortion earlier in her career. James told a crowd at a pro-abortion rally that she’d been newly elected to the New York City Council and decided to terminate her pregnancy: “I walked proudly into Planned Parenthood and I make no apologies to anyone.”

James’ comment follows a new narrative by which pro-abortion groups and individuals deal with the killing of unborn babies. At the Democratic National Convention in 2016, a speaker and many women embraced the advice to “Shout your abortion!” In recent years, we have heard various high-profile women give testimonies in which having the “courage” to abort their baby led to the achievement of personal goals and greater fulfillment. At the 2020 Golden Globe Awards, actress Michele Williams expressed gratitude for the abortion she claimed enabled her career. Instead of the old focus group–tested line from the 1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare,” the new approach is to applaud abortion as an empowering and moral choice for women to make.

Choosing abortion is a way of putting yourself first. It is true for the mother. It is true for the men who often pay for abortions to avoid an obligation. It can be true for an entire society complicit in the abortion industry.

An abortion involves three people, one of them completely subject to the desires of the other two. If those other two want the child, then the unborn baby effectively assumes the status of a person according to the law. Injuries to the child can be the basis of legal liability. A crime that kills the mother of an unborn baby may be punished more severely than the death of the mother alone. This wanted child is likely to become the subject of ultrasound photos that are saved as phone images, printed and framed, and shared on social media. There may even be gender-reveal parties for such children so that interested parties can share the excitement and perhaps plan for future gift-giving. This child has a future.

If those other two people don’t want the child (or if just the mother does not want the child), then the unborn baby assumes the identity of a non-person. This non-person may be killed essentially at will. The child may be subjected to crushing clamps, chemical burns, and other methods of death and dismemberment.

It is beyond strange to live in a society that embraces both realities. The unborn child is a bit like the philosophical parable known as Schrödinger’s cat. Depending on who possesses the box, the child is either alive or dead. Although the child in each scenario is biologically the same, we appear to be largely content to allow his fate to rest entirely on an act of will.

Until recently, few beyond the most hardened feminists would have likely expressed pride in their abortions. It was generally understood by most people on both sides of the issue that an abortion is a tragedy and a scandal. Even now, much of the argumentation on the issue seems to acknowledge that fact. When pro-abortion advocates complain that abortions are more likely in a nation without certain healthcare benefits or childcare entitlements, they are implicitly claiming that more of those things would result in fewer abortions, which would be good.

This turn toward making no apologies for an abortion and for praising abortion for having made one wealthier and more famous is not a moral advance of any kind. Instead, it represents an embrace of psychological unreality and denial. A mother has killed an unborn child. This is nothing to celebrate. Where else should an unborn child be safely kept than in his mother’s womb? Instead, these no apology/celebratory claims about abortion represent callousness and self-flattery in a culture where we increasingly refuse to live up to duties and commitments.

There is a kind of desperation evident when we claim things that are so obviously untrue. It is not good to have had an abortion. Whatever goals were achieved came at a tremendous cost to a person with no voice or power. The sooner we face the reality of abortion, the better our society will be for it.