At Huffington Post, Dr. Leonard Peikoff writes:
On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade 40 years ago, there is still no one defending the right to abortion in fundamental terms, which is why the pro-abortion rights forces are on the defensive.
abortion
Archive for Tag “abortion”
Dr. Peikoff in Huffington Post: Abortion Rights Are Pro-life
Roe v. Wade: Forty Years Later [podcast episode #01]
On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court handed down the decision on the landmark case of Roe v. Wade. With a 7-to-2 majority vote, the court struck down state bans on abortion, prompting a national debate that continues forty years later.
That decision — as well the subject of abortion itself — remains divisive. Activists on both sides debate whether and to what extent abortion should be legal, how the Supreme Court shapes the law on issues of constitutionality, and the role of morality and religious views in the political sphere.
On this episode of Eye to Eye, ARI’s new podcast, hosts Jordan McGillis and Amanda Maxham sit down with Dr. Onkar Ghate, ARI’s senior fellow, and Tom Bowden, legal analyst, to discuss the political, legal and moral questions surrounding abortion.
Some of the topics covered include:
- Ayn Rand’s view on abortion and the Roe v. Wade ruling
- The legal basis for the Roe v. Wade decision
- The state-level attempts to undermine Roe v. Wade
- Abortion and individual rights
- The labels “pro-life” and “pro-choice”
- “Personhood” amendments
- Ayn Rand’s view on the nature of sex
- Health care, abortion, and contraception
- Abortion and the Tea Party movement
- The separation of church and state
- The morality of abortion
- Objective legal interpretation
- The future of the Roe v. Wade decision
Podcast: Play in new window
Listen to or download this episode (Duration: 44:16 — 20.3MB)
The debate over abortion
A quick note to acknowledge the great questions and comments we received from some VFR readers in reaction to Debi Ghate’s two posts on the issue of abortion. I wanted to highlight a couple of articles that offer further food for thought. My colleague Tom Bowden offers some observations here on issues relevant to the “personhood” question, and you may be interested in this editorial from Dr. Leonard Peikoff on the right to abortion.
The sanctity of a woman’s right to decide
Personally, I have found the recent discussion about abortion to be much more disturbing than all of the back and forth about the economy and foreign policy. Setting aside the more absurd positions (pregnancies from rape are “something that God intended to happen“?), what we’ve heard in the past few weeks has been a debate about whether there should be exceptions to an outright ban on abortion (for rape, incest, etc.), whether one’s Catholic dogma should influence one’s legislative agenda, whether new Supreme Court appointees will affect Roe v. Wade and by how much, etc. The more serious-sounding discussions have been about where to draw the line on abortion.
All of these positions assume that a woman should not have the absolute right to make decisions about her own body and life. In the case of abortion, the decision is often complex and difficult. It carries with it consequences that can be life-long. If a woman does decide to abort, there may be many around her who disapprove, even vehemently, with her choice. But it is still a decision that only the woman involved can make, and it should be her legal right to do so. What motivates anti-abortionists to want to substitute their judgment for the woman’s?
This passage by Ayn Rand helped me understand why anti-abortionists advocate what they do (Ayn Rand wrote this in 1981, when there were some women’s groups protesting against abortion):
The question of abortion involves much more than the termination of a pregnancy: it is a question of the entire life of the parents. As I have said before, parenthood is an enormous responsibility; it is an impossible responsibility for young people who are ambitious and struggling, but poor; particularly if they are intelligent and conscientious enough not to abandon their child on a doorstep nor to surrender it to adoption. For such young people, pregnancy is a death sentence: parenthood would force them to give up their future, and condemn them to a life of hopeless drudgery, of slavery to a child’s physical and financial needs. The situation of an unwed mother, abandoned by her lover, is even worse.
I cannot quite imagine the state of mind of a person who would wish to condemn a fellow human being to such a horror. I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion. Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos, which is a piece of nonsense no one could experience, but hatred, a virulent hatred for an unnamed object. Judging by the degree of those women’s intensity, I would say that it is an issue of self-esteem and that their fear is metaphysical. Their hatred is directed against human beings as such, against the mind, against reason, against ambition, against success, against love, against any value that brings happiness to human life. In compliance with the dishonesty that dominates today’s intellectual field, they call themselves “pro-life.”
By what right does anyone claim the power to dispose of the lives of others and to dictate their personal choices?
Frum’s solution to the abortion debate: social engineering
David Frum’s October 29, 2012 article caught my attention. Frum has previously favored the idea that abortion should be legal in the first trimester and illegal thereafter unless it is necessary for the mother’s health.
This position, of course, seems more reasonable than some of the downright loony positions Republican politicians have taken recently (“rape” versus “forcible rape”?). However at the end of the day, Frum seems willing to accept some limits on a woman’s right to an abortion. In my view, this is one issue where any restriction is a violation of a woman’s right to her life.
But there’s another interesting issue that Frum’s article raises. He suggests that we ought think about how to reduce the number of abortions by creating the kind of social conditions that increases the likelihood a woman will keep the child. As he puts it: “Abortion is a product of poverty and maternal distress.” Reduce poverty and maternal distress, and the number of abortions will go down even if they are legal and accessible, according to Frum.
Notice the social agenda that Frum is advancing: it is desirable to reduce the number of abortions, it is desirable to provide economic security to women who might get pregnant and it is desirable to create conditions under which they might keep their babies.
Frum isn’t explicit on how this agenda is to be advanced. It may mean introducing legislation in varying forms to create the necessary conditions. Employers might have to pay benefits, perhaps welfare payments would increase, maybe there would be laws requiring certain pay levels for women.
Whatever the government-sponsored mechanism, Frum’s solution is still one in which society is trying to engineer a certain outcome with respect to abortion. This misses the point as badly as those who want to ban abortion outright.
Frum’s kind of thinking brings to mind the “safe, legal and rare” advocates for abortion. Yes, abortion should be safe and it certainly should be legal. Whether or not it is “rare” is nobody’s business but the individual woman’s, who must make and be responsible for what is often a difficult decision about her life and body.
Don’t assume Kagan will uphold abortion rights
If John McCain had been elected in 2008, a woman’s legal right to procure an abortion would be in grave danger right now.
Remember, McCain ran for president on a campaign promise to select judges who agree that Roe v. Wade is “a flawed decision that must be overturned.” Before the 2008 election, there were already as many as four votes to overturn that decision (certainly Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and possibly John Roberts and Samuel Alito). Now add the two successors that McCain would have selected (to replace retiring Justices David Souter and John Paul Stevens), and voila! A strong majority, ready to sweep aside Roe v. Wade, could be in place on the Court.
The fact that the nation has been spared such a “McCain Court” is perhaps the only reason to be glad that President Obama is in office at this critical juncture. To his credit, Obama made clear his support for abortion rights during the campaign. And just recently, speaking about the search for a successor to Justice Stevens, Obama said: “I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women’s rights.” Read the rest of this entry »
Anti-abortion’s religious roots
The fact that Dr. George Tiller was gunned down in church tragically highlights a central fact in the ongoing abortion controversy—that laws against abortion are products of religious faith.
There is no secular, rational basis on which the law could declare a first-trimester fetus to be a human being. It doesn’t take a degree in medicine to understand that such a fetus is a biological part of the pregnant woman’s body. Though a fetus has the potential to be born as a human being, the realization of that potential depends upon the woman’s continued willingness to nurture the growing fetus in her body up to the moment of birth.
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