I watched
this video, discussing the terrible shooting of a Dr. Tiller who performed late-term abortions, and a woman named Sharon
Lockhart made what is possibly the most thoughtless comment ever. Talking about the pro-life man responsible for the shooting, she then asked,
"What right does he think he has to make a decision about someone
else's life--when he doesn't think women have the right to make a decision about their own lives?"
She just sums up the problem with the pro-choice debate. It's talk about talk. It's such a Western "convenience" mindset. Nobody thinks that women shouldn't have the right to make decisions about their lives. This, in fact, was one of the great successes of the 20
th century, that women were able to make substantial progress towards equality with men. Increased female labor participation rates have brought millions of families out of poverty.
The question, rather, is about something more fundamental, something we all understand. Now, the man who killed the doctor had no right to do such a terrible thing--this is obvious, and it was rightfully pointed out that "pro-life" means pro-life--but neither does anybody else. Generally, none of us have a blanket "right" to take life--and most of us know this without needing excuses when we think about it. It is not a "pro-life" concept at all, or a by-product of religious thought. In a sense it
hearkens back to John Donne's 17
th century meditation on the interconnectedness of life and of the responsibility each person has to another:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
--From John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII.
What we've failed to grapple with--in particular as an increasingly secular society--is that each of us has a
sacred obligation to those around us, and that this obligation extends from all of us to mothers, to children, and to the unborn fetus that will grow to be an infant, a child, mother or father, and so forth. It is the same principle at work protecting Dr. Tiller that also ought to protect his female clients and the children they carry.
We'd like to pretend that there's no moral question, that there is no ethical concern. This is unfortunately the case on nearly every pro-choice website--it's "rights" and convenience talk (a "surgical procedure") more than anything else. There's no mention of an ethical controversy--just talk of logistics (transportation, money, etc) and how you'll feel afterwards (counseling is an option). Even the smartest people have got it wrong, and that's because brains will only get you have the distance. The only way to finish the race is to live a life that indiscriminately overflows with God-given compassion for others.
"What right does he think he has to make a decision about someone
else's life--when he doesn't think women have the right to make a decision about their own lives?" Right back at you--beyond key exceptions, what right does the mother have to end the life of her unborn child? In all honesty, I could never understand how this was so difficult to understand.
