Couric's Question and Framing the Debate [Jay]

So why is it so hard to answer the Katie Couric question? Even some of my pro-life and radically behind Palin friends are concerned that she did not answer the question. But is this an indication of some inability to articulate her pro-life beliefs? A little bit, but it is also a pure and simple fact that most politicians are Jacks (or Jills) of all trades and masters of none. So when she is asked a question about abortion it would be silly to expect her to respond with the same proficiency as Frank Beckwith or Scott Klusendorf. She simply is not working on this issue at that level.

But let’s not miss the nature of the question. This is the real rookie mistake that most people make in dealing with interviewers. The question is:

If a 15-year-old is raped by her father, do you believe it should be illegal for her to get an abortion, and why?

What if we flipped the field on the interviewer? What if we offer a question for an answer?

Let me answer you by asking you this question. An innocent human being is conceived after a father rapes his daughter. Why should we be allowed to kill that human being?

The problem with Katie Couric’s question is that it presupposes that abortion is a right that pro-lifers wish to restrict or deny. This is simply not the case and we must be clear about that at all times. We live in a land with unjust laws as it pertains to the unborn. I recognize that many nations allow and often times even help pay for abortions but that does not make it a right as we understand natural rights. So do not play that game.

If you think that Couric does not presuppose that then look at the follow up:

But ideally, you think it should be illegal for a girl who was raped or the victim of incest to get an abortion?

What is missing from both questions? Perhaps the unmentioned human being that will be killed by the abortion? Both the question and the follow up focus on a woman her situation and a procedure. What kind of person wants to stop her from getting an abortion? She needs an abortion because she is a victim. Of course the women in question are victims of terrible crimes and those crimes and the criminals that perpetrated those heinous assaults must not go unpunished. But every abortion is a violent and deadly assault against a human life and that fact is absent in either the question or the response.

Palin must not answer this question the way it is posed. She must clarify what is missing from this discussion; the innocent human being that is being killed to pay for another’s crime.

Abortion is wrong because it kills an innocent human being for elective reasons. Anytime anyone asks a question that leaves the unborn human being out, it is our responsibility to put them right back in front and center.