Q&A: What Do You Say to the "Keep Your Religion to Yourself!" Objection? (Jay Watts)

This past weekend I was speaking to a group at Northwestern University from Students for Life of Illinois as part of that organization’s annual summit. I made the case for life appealing to the three-step strategy that I generally outline:

1)   Simplify the issue by focusing on the single most important question concerning the right or wrong of abortion, what are the unborn?

2)   Argue our case using science and philosophy. The science of embryology tells us that from the moment of fertilization the unborn are a whole, distinct, and living human organism. Philosophy tells us that there is no essential difference from the embryo or fetus that we once were and the more mature human we are today. Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependence do not do sufficient philosophical work to explain why it was ok to kill us then, indeed it was a Constitutionally protected right, but that if someone did the same thing to us at this stage in our life it would be the worst moral offense one human being could commit against another human being.

3)  Argue well, in a way that aims to win people with good arguments and not merely to beat people down with information.

During Q&A, a young woman asked the following question: What do you do when someone says this all just your religious view and shouldn’t be pushed onto others that do not share your religion?

My answer:

As I understand that objection, it claims that the belief that all human beings share a common intrinsic dignity by virtue of what we and are owed basic duties and obligations, not the least of which is to refrain from killing them, is by its nature a religious argument. My response has three parts.

First, it isn’t clear that this is true. None of the arguments that I provided are religious by nature. There are atheists that would reject the suggestion that objective moral values require a theistic worldview. Sam Harris appeals to objective morality when he condemns the practice of female genital mutilation in certain Muslim cultures. He isn’t arguing that those cultures violate a western cultural norm, but that the practice itself is objectively wrong for all cultures. Atheists like Sam Harris and Michael Martin have worked hard to ground objective moral values in a non-theistic worldview precisely because they acknowledge the existence of those values. Whether I believe that they can succeed in doing so is irrelevant to this point. It can be accepted that an appeal to objective morality is not religious by its nature.

This leads me to my second point; I never mentioned my faith or personal beliefs as part of my argument. It is true that I am passionately and unapologetically Christian and that my faith informs every area of my life. So what? I never said abortion is wrong because God said so. People objecting to our case need to address the science and philosophy, not my faith. This argument commits either the Genetic Fallacy (the pro-life argument was birthed out of religious communities) or amounts to a plain old Ad Hominem attack (Jay is religious therefore he is wrong). Objectors have a responsibility to interact with the arguments presented regardless of who is presenting them or what motivation I may have for putting forth the arguments.

Dr. Condic presented the case for the identification of early human life as a new independent organism from fertilization. (Maureen Condic was also at this event. See her article here). I presented the philosophical case that the best explanation of our experience of a shared universal human dignity that transcends cultures and subjective interests is that our dignity and value are grounded in our humanity. Replying with, “Yeah, but religion..” hardly addresses either of those arguments. Put them back on the hot seat and make them answer the question, “What are the unborn?”

Finally, why do they get to decide without argument what considerations are allowed into the marketplace of ideas? Who empowered them to declare that secular humanist reasons and materialistic naturalistic reasons can be publically advocated, but so-called religious reasons cannot? I have the right to advocate for my beliefs and try to convince others that my views offer the best explanations and solutions to the questions we experience in our world. If they want to argue that their worldview is superior then they need to make that case, but they don’t have the right to make it in a vacuum where other competing worldviews have been shut out of consideration. 

In truth, they are inconsistent in their objection to religious reasons informing advocacy. Where is the handwringing when Bono dedicates his considerable influence to acquiring help for people in Africa suffering from Aids and poverty? He clearly states that his desire to help is born out of his Christian faith, and yet he is applauded for those efforts. When HBO’s documentary program VICE ran a story about George W. Bush committing U.S. aid to help Bono establish programs that transformed the manner that some African countries fought Aids, no one cried foul when Bush stated his and Bono’s shared Christian values were his motivation for action. It is only when we stand up against one of the sacred pets of the progressive culture like abortion that they suddenly demand a litmus test for having a public voice on issues.

In a nutshell, I will talk about what I want, when I want, wherever I want, and they better come with more than “Shut up because you are religious!” if they wish to stop me. They had better be ready to make their case, because I won’t be deterred from making ours.

(Note: This is the answer as I gave it. It was heavily informed and influenced by the works of Hadley Arkes, Robert George, Greg Koukl, and Scott Klusendorf. All credit where credit is due.)

Q & A: What Bad Arguments Do You Hear the Most? [Jay Watts]

*The following is a duplication of a discussion I had after receiving a question through personal email/message. I thought it might be worth sharing and mildly edited it for posting. The dialogues are reflective of actual conversations that I have had and relate my personal experience talking to people about this issue over the years.*

Question: In terms of arguments appealing to pity, ad hominem and so forth. Which would you say is the most popular you have heard, and how do you normally respond?

Answer: Hey _______, I would say that you hear them all about as often as you talk to someone about important moral issues. What I mean by that is that most people don't have a clearly thought out position on moral issues, especially abortion. Every once in a while I talk to someone with a sophisticated defense of the pro-choice position, but that isn't the norm. Most people that I talk to generally have a point of view on which they haven't reflected too deeply. When that point of view is challenged, they can be initially more interested in beating back the challenge than examining the basis of their beliefs. When it comes to beating back a challenge, it seems that any stick will do.

They may start with presupposing the truth of their position:

Objector: Abortion must remain legal to protect privacy rights.

Me: But would you think that your neighbor must be free to abuse his 2 year old daughter in the privacy of his home? If not, then why not?

Obj: Of course not! My neighbor's child is a living human being that should be protected from abuse.

Me: So if the unborn are human in the same way, then privacy is not a justification for their abuse either. You assumed that they were not in your appeal to privacy, but that is exactly what you have the burden to demonstrate through argument.

Then they may move to ad hominem:

Obj: Well you shouldn't be allowed to talk about this anyway. You are a man and can't ever get pregnant. (or as I heard at one university, my arguments are white and Western.)

Me: I would like to respectfully point out that I argued through the science of embryology that the unborn are an independent human organism from fertilization and argued from philosophy that all humans share a common substantial nature that carries with it intrinsic value. Neither of those points is impacted by my gender, race, or geographical location. Arguments are right or wrong, valid or invalid, supported by evidence or refutable, but they are not male or female, caucasian or other, or subject to defeat by the compass rose. They have no gender or race. When you appeal to those things you are attacking me, not the arguments I offered in support of my beliefs and that is universally understood to be a fallacy, a mistake in reasoning. We have enjoyed a respectful conversation to this point, so please let's continue to try and focus on the issues and not me.

Then often I get the appeal to misery/begging the question combo:

Obj: Well if we make abortion illegal then women will die in dangerous back alley abortions again. It must remain safe and legal.

Resp: First of all, for whom is the abortion safe? Every successful abortion necessarily destroys a nascent human life. When we ignore their lives in this discussion we make the same mistake you made with the privacy issue. If women were determined through desperation to take action that resulted in the deaths of two year-old children it would be considered terribly wrong to protect those women as they did so. Even if we recognized they were legitimately troubled and driven through understandable stress, we couldn't make it safer to kill two year-olds and call ourselves a moral society. The burden is still on you to demonstrate that the unborn are different from you, me, or two year-olds in some morally relevant way. If they are valuable human life, you are arguing that we ought to protect a few from the tragic consequences of their wrong actions at the expense of more than a million other human lives a year in the United States alone.

Now, let's look at the evidence of the numbers of women that died every year from unsafe abortion prior to 1973. Any single death is inarguably a tragedy, but you will find that the numbers were wildly exaggerated to create a powerful argument from misery and by-pass ever having to consider, as a culture, the truth of what was being asked for in a right to abort our unborn children. (See here and here and here)

The best defenses are a strong familiarity with the arguments and the ability to patiently narrate the conversation. Point out the mistakes our objectors are making in an effort to clear their thinking; not to merely prove that you are right. They will marshall their every resource to beat back a challenge, and the overwhelming majority of those resources may be nonsense. Help them to see that. Our goal is to unsettle them in their views, not necessarily to win the moment. My experience is that if you are willing to help clear out the weeds and weather the initial storm most people can be reasonable and respectful in this discussion.

Take a hostile person and move them to the modest position of seeing our arguments as more reasonable than they previously thought. Take a neutral person and move them toward a position that recognizes the equal value of all human life including the lives of the unborn. Take a person who shares your beliefs but lacks any accompanying action and inspire them to do something. Take the advocate beaten down by years of abuse and perceived lack of impact and reenergize them and equip them to carry on.

The Value of Narrating a Conversation [Jay Watts]

The more I talk to students and detractors after presentations, the more convinced I become of the importance of narrating the conversation for all involved and listening.

For example, two students approached me after a recent talk to challenge me on the position that human life conceived in rape is intrinsically valuable and that destroying that life might not be the best response to the evil of rape. They were outraged and one of them, the young man, stated that my position was inhumane.

I pointed out that my position, however difficult it may be for them to understand, stemmed from what Christopher Kaczor refers to as an inclusive view of human value. If I believe that the best arguments indicate that all human life is equally valuable by virtue of what they are rather than some capacity or what they offer the rest of society then protecting an innocent human life regardless of the circumstances of its conception is merely intellectual consistency. We talked about how the rape exception is only relevant if they accept that the unborn are valuable human life, otherwise it is not the reason they think that abortion ought to be legal but a ploy to put me on the spot. Finally, I demonstrated that the options they offered, abort the child or face crippling and recurring psychological damage while raising the child of her attacker, weren't the only ones available.

We discussed this issue with a little more depth for a few minutes. They seemed to sense their position was faltering a bit. When I pressed them on whether they genuinely believed the right thing to do was to kill the child, the young man suddenly said, “I don't believe that there is any right and wrong in an objective sense. We decide what is right and wrong as a society.”

Right there the conversation took an unexpected turn, and it is important to point that out for everyone. “If you truly believe that there is no objective right and wrong then you have no axe to grind with pro-lifers. You don't recognize abortion is wrong, but only because, in your view, it isn't objectively wrong to kill anyone. We are just animals pursuing our nature. Humans killing humans is no different than chimps killing chimps or dolphins killing dolphins; both intelligent mammals that have been known to kill within their species. We are all just pursuing our nature. Unfortunately, if your view is correct than neither of our positions is morally superior to the other. We determine victory by securing the necessary political power to defeat our opponents. That is neither good nor bad. It is merely the way it is.”

I pointed out this was a radical departure from the earlier argument they were offering and that in this view they were just arbitrarily picking a criteria that made it wrong to kill certain human beings by social contract or some other means. None of the arbitrarily chosen points objectively trumped the others. 

Suddenly, they began to assure me that I was wrong, and that consciousness offered the best mark for determining value. The young lady emphatically stated, “It is the only thing that separates us from the insects and other animals. It is why we can just squash an ant but it is wrong to squash children.”

This new twist required that we all recognize what had just happened. It also set up the opportunity to point out some interesting inconsistencies in their views. “First of all, this young man claims he thinks there is nothing that we can do to another human being that is objectively wrong. But right now you both are claiming that consciousness is what makes us valuable. As I mentioned previously in my talk, consciousness isn't attained until months after we are born. Does that mean that both of you are willing to follow that view to its full implications and state that there is nothing morally wrong with killing newborns?”

Both of them affirmed this was the case, with the young lady categorically stating that she would own that position. “Can I just point out to both of you something that I find a little startling in our conversation? We started with you aggressively and emotionally challenging me on my position on rape and abortion as inhumane.” The young man hung his head and smiled a little.

“I called you inhumane and then I just said there is nothing wrong with killing newborns.” I nodded in agreement.

Both of these young people came into the conversation emotionally charged. We talked for an hour, with a couple of other students joining in, and it was respectful and reasonable the rest of the way. We made certain to define our terms and be consistent in our arguments. As we wrapped up our time together, they both promised that when I came back they would be better prepared.

That may not sound like a win, but you need to listen closely to what they acknowledged. By narrating the conversation for them we kept from getting bogged down in category errors (of which there were many) and demonstrated how retreating to a position to avoid the harder aspects of our view introduces contradictory elements into our larger worldview. Neither of these students recanted their views on the spot, but they did walk away recognizing that their opinions were entirely unsupported by arguments. That is a good start.

My Rules for Q&A [Jay Watts]

If you talk to groups here is a simple thing to remember about audience interaction. You may have heard the question a million times, but this is their first time asking you. Whether they are inquisitive in their manners or aggressive, they now have the opportunity to respond and choose this as their best possible question. We must respect that and use this as an opportunity to effectively reach our audience.

I love Q&A time and here are some tips I follow that help me continue to enjoy it:

1 – Q&A is part of your presentation!

The talk doesn't end when your outline runs out. How you talk to your audience will be a big part of what they remember about you. Your interaction will go considerably smoother if you prepare for this part of the job by thinking about what questions are raised by your position and what is an effective way to explain your ideas to people hearing them the first time. Which leads to point 2.

2 – Avoid technical language and find clear illustrations.

We grow comfortable with words that others never use or hear in the course of normal conversations. Using words that are over their heads doesn't make us look smart; it raises their suspicion that we are full of it. C.S. Lewis once said that if you can't simplify what you are trying to teach in order to be understood then you probably don't understand it yourself. Think through how you might answer objections and then ask yourself, “Will this make sense to someone that has never talked about this issue before?”

3 – Be gracious.

Don't be dismissive. When I tell someone that their question comes up a lot, I never refer to it is common. I try to encourage them that their question is obviously a concern that a lot of people share. 

Instead of thinking of it as a question that I hear all of the time, I recognize it as a piece to understanding the puzzle of the person in front of me. Similar questions indicate similar concerns or often similar mistakes in reasoning. The questions may be simple to you, but it is clearly something that is clogging up their thinking process. Help them sort it out.

This is still true even when the questioner is hostile; even when the question is clearly an attack and not a question. They honestly think whatever they are saying is powerful or embarrassing for you. When you handle it graciously and with a clear response it speaks volumes to everyone watching. Obviously some of the students I've talked to have a preconception, perhaps fueled by others they trust and love in their lives, about what kind of person I am or what kind of arguments I will present. It is a privilege to undermine those negative views in front of an audience by being both well informed and friendly in the face of hostility.

4 – Don't try to score points against your audience.

We are there to present the truth in love in the hope that (a) those who agree with us will be better equipped to defend their views in a gracious and impacting manner and (b) that those who disagree with us will reconsider their views in light of new information. It is not our job to show how smart we are at the expense of our audience. We win when we clearly communicate our ideas and make certain our questioner sees the areas of disagreement.

Sometimes We Just Mean Different Things [Jay Watts]

One of my favorite conversations in the Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory didn't make it into either movie. Willy Wonka brings his guests to a room with what he describes as square candies that look round. All of his guests correct him that the candies are actually square candies that look perfectly square from their perspective, but Wonka continues to insist they look round. Finally, determined to prove his point, he opens the door to the room and, as he does so, all the square candies on the table look round to see what is happening. They are square candies that look round.

I love that scene, and it highlights a problem that often arises in important conversations, especially centering on issues in which we invest ourselves emotionally. We mean different things when saying the same words. These definition problems corrupt conversations to such an extent that the only way to move forward is to back up and clear up the confusion.

In the last two years I know of at least three different pro-choice advocates in high profile exchanges that claimed that it is common knowledge that life doesn't begin at fertilization. All people educated in biology, so they say, understand that life is a continuum and there is no point at which we can definitively say “life began there.” The parents were alive, the gametes were alive, the zygote is alive, the embryo is alive, and on and on. How can pro-life advocates claim life began at fertilization when that event is surrounded by life?

Others routinely object to the claim that life begins at fertilization because it is silly to attribute to a single celled organism or undifferentiated cellular mass the same status as a reasoning, feeling human being. Human life can't begin at fertilization unless you think that zygotes and embryos are like you and me.

If all the parties involved are arguing in an honest spirit, which does happen, then we are very much like Willy Wonka and his guests arguing about the square candies that look round. What do we mean by looks round? What do we mean when we say life begins? We need to both ASK clarifying questions and OFFER clear definitions. Instead, we often plow ahead getting more and more frustrated that otherwise reasonable and moral people seem to be so blind to the strength of our positions.

The claim that life begins at fertilization is a scientific claim supported by embryology. It isn't wrong to say that life is a continuum from a macro perspective, but that fact doesn't mean we can't recognize individual organisms. Our claim is that the life of an individual human organism begins at fertilization, and this is nearly universally acknowledged. Dr. Ronan O' Rahilly and Dr. Fabiola Muller address this in Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd ed.(2001):

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte”

So we can concede that life begets life begets life without getting so confused that we can no longer see individuals. After all, Ryan Gosling and I are both living human beings that are products of life within a continuum of life, but few people would have trouble distinguishing us as individuals. In the same way, doctors like Malcolm Potts may argue that life exists in a continuum with no clear beginning, but he apparently had little trouble differentiating the mother from her unborn child when performing abortions or when affirming the autonomy rights of the former over the right to life of the latter.

The people arguing that life can't begin at fertilization because we can't equate zygotes and adults are making a different kind of error. It is a simple category mistake. That human life exists and begins at fertilization is a matter of scientific observation. Anyone with a passing knowledge of genetics can affirm that adult Jay actually has quite a lot in common with zygote Jay. The organism that I am now began at that moment. The DNA that determined so much about the adult that I am was in place from the beginning and central to the self-coordinated development that moved me through all the subsequent stages of growth. Who I am today is a product of who I was then and the sum total of environmental influences I have encountered.

But that isn't what they usually mean. They are claiming that embryonic life lacks some deeper meaning or value. Since it is obvious to everyone, so they say, that all the aspects that make life valuable are absent in nascent human life then it is clear that valuable human life can't begin at fertilization.

This is a philosophical claim. Our claim is an appeal to science. We need to be equipped to help them see the difference. When the life of an individual human organism begins is a question of science. If they wish to claim that morally meaningful human life is differentiated from biological human life then they need to be prepared to offer philosophical arguments to that point. We also bear the responsibility of defending our philosophical position that human life has value by virtue of what it is, not what it can do or offer society. All of these arguments are philosophical and are of a different category than the question of when life begins.

Sometimes we just mean different things when saying that same thing. It is our job to clear these points up with clear definitions and not be swept up by our passions into an argument corrupted from the outset by misunderstanding. That way, we are not like Willy Wonka trying to convince a group of people that candies that clearly look like squares look round. 

I Offended You? So What? [Jay Watts]

A young woman sat with her arms crossed and lips pursed while shooting me a look that must have been intended to vaporize me on the spot. I was talking to her and some of her fellow students about abortion and the pro-life position, and it clearly made her unhappy. She finally raised her hand and the whole room seemed to gird their loins for what was about to come. I asked her, “Did you have a question or comment?”

She rather forcefully said, “I am offended that you would come here and say these things.”

My response was as follows:

Ok, let's talk about that for minute. I have presented an argument in support of the position that abortion is objectively wrong because it unjustly takes the life of an innocent human being. The lines of evidences that I appealed to were scientific (the identity of the unborn as a human life from fertilization) and philosophical (human beings have value by virtue of what they are not what they can do or how I feel about them).

I also understand that hearing people argue for views you disagree with can be unpleasant. It bothers you to hear someone say you are wrong, just like it bothers anyone including me. I can get really irritated over people disagreeing with me about trivial things. It is natural to have emotional responses to discussions about all sorts of things, but especially about something as objectively important as abortion.

Anytime someone disagrees with us and offers arguments for their position there are only a few options open to us in response. (1) We can quietly listen, consider their views, weigh the counter arguments, and decide they were wrong. (2) We can listen, consider, weigh, then decide we are wrong and adjust our beliefs appropriately. (3) We can listen, consider, weigh, and then decide that we simply lack sufficient information to come down on one side or the other. (4) We can offer counter arguments on the spot addressing the specific lines of evidence offered.

All of those are perfectly appropriate. There are certainly counter arguments to everything that I have said today offered by genuinely brilliant people at an academic and sophisticated level. I've read them and learned from them, though I obviously found them less than persuasive in the end. I encourage you to find and read them and would be happy to point you in the right direction.

But when you say that you are offended, all that you are doing is telling us how you are emotionally responding to what I am saying. I already conceded that we all struggle with our emotions in this kind of conversation, both in my original talk and just a moment ago, so you aren't adding anything to the discussion that addresses the substance of what was argued.

Finally, and I'm not saying you are doing this, but when some people say they are offended what they are really saying is that I'm upsetting them so I ought to stop talking about abortion. I reject that all together. No one has a right not to be offended. Sometimes there are questions of such importance that we are compelled to engage in public discussion knowing that it will be upsetting to do so. Imagine how you would feel if someone suggested that you shouldn't be allowed to argue for positions with which they disagree simply because they are incapable of controlling their emotions. 

Blogging Dellapenna Pt 2: Midwives and A Few Good Men [Jay Watts

(Post 1)

Chapter 1 of Joseph Dellapenna's Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History entitled “Only Women Bleed” has several sections and for the purposes of eating this elephant in manageable bites (a metaphor I have always found a bit unsettling as an elephant lover) we will focus only on the first point. A broad discussion of the new orthodoxy of the history of abortion. There are two key points to this new orthodoxy:

1) Abortion has always existed in societies and has been an accepted practice with little to no social condemnation. (This argues that the unborn have never been understood as persons within society.)

2) Abortion laws in the United States were established to protect the women often injured and sometimes dying from unsafe abortions. (This argues two things: Now that abortion is safe for women restrictive laws are no longer necessary, and the unborn have never been understood as persons under the law.)

As I am writing this, a character on an episode of the old sitcom Bewitched is claiming that women in the pioneer days gave birth during lunch and were back at work in the fields by late afternoon. Modern women are simply making something complicated that is naturally easy. I know this is shocking to suggest, but it may be that childbirth is not so naturally easy as a character on an old sitcom would have you believe.

Dellapenna begins with an interesting introduction on the odd nature of human childbirth in comparison with other animals. He notes several differentiating factors including our large brains combined with a narrow pelvis designed for walking upright, the inability of women to bend enough during childbirth to remove the baby alone, and the inability to do certain tasks alone like unwind the umbilical chord if needed or clear mucus out of the baby's mouth. These all require the human birth process to be assisted. Other mammals can give birth in seclusion, but when humans do so, Dellapenna argues, we probably face the highest incidences of fetal and maternal death of any mammal.

As a result, assisted delivery has been a part of the human birthing experience for as far back as we have records. Why does this matter to the history of abortion? Because midwives and what passes for doctors throughout history (I will give ample reasons in the next few posts for my mocking what people used to call doctors) have been intimately involved in child birth in a way that other members of the community have not been.

Dellapenna acknowledges that it can be taken as axiomatic that as long as women have been getting pregnant there have been women so desperate to avoid having a child that they would risk just about anything to end the pregnancy. And who would these desperate women go to for help? Those people most identified with pregnancy; midwives.

Part of the new orthodoxy is to assure us that abortion has not been the social and moral taboo that people like me try describe it as today. Dellapenna points out two curiosities in regards to our historical records concerning midwifery that seem to raise questions about that claim from the outset. The two are so intermingled that it does no real good to enumerate them separately.

Midwives practiced medicine in a time when medical knowledge was deficient at best. They experimented with herbs, oils, and other techniques to assist in labor and pain management. Given their total lack of knowledge of microorganisms, the importance of sanitary conditions, and the impact of numerous environmental and physical factors on the efficacy of any solution it is understandable why people would have limited basic expectation from their midwives. Dellapenna quotes historian David Hunt as saying, “[i]t was hoped that she [the midwife] would cut her nails, wash, and remove the rings from her hands before beginning.” Even though there seems to be evidence that midwives were safer than doctors, it is not surprising to learn that women and children did die during lboth pregnancy and labor under the care of midwives, and, as there is little so dear to most properly functioning emotional beings as family, it is understandable why midwives developed an unsavory reputation.

As a response to this reputation Dellapenna says, “It is no wonder then that even the earliest regulations enacted for midwives included requirements that midwives demonstrate themselves to be 'of good character' and prohibited them from certifying the cause of death of someone under their care (mother or child). Ecclesiastical regulations requiring midwives to have licenses from the church expressly forbade abortion and infanticide”.

So what? Remember the scene in A Few Good Men (spoiler alert) with Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) on the stand. He claimed the he ordered all of the marines not to “Code Red” Santiago (the victim) and ordered Santiago to be immediately transferred from the base the very next morning to protect him. At the same time, he claims that his orders are always followed. Lt. Kaffee (Tom Cruise) sees some inconsistencies in this story. If Santiago was to be transferred why didn't he pack or call anyone to give them the good news? If Col. Jessup's orders are always followed, why was it necessary to transfer Santiago to protect him? Kaffee asks, “Why the two orders?” The events are much more consistent with Jessup being the bad guy who is lying to cover up the truth of what happened.

In our best Kaffee attitude let's ask some questions. If abortion held no stigma and enjoyed widespread approval, why did the midwives have a bad reputation? Why did being of good character require an oath not to participate in abortions? Quoting Dellapenna, “By the nineteenth century, the moral reputation of midwives had become so suspect that they were often characterized by novelists as 'drunken incompetent slattern[s].' That such an unsavory reputation arose in large measure from the association with abortion and infanticide belies the claim of abortion rights activists that abortion was socially accepted until the late nineteenth century.”

One could get the impression that a certain point in the new orthodoxy has been conceded in all of this discussion. Abortion, whether it was accepted or despised, has been common and was a normal activity for midwives. That point will get more attention in the future but we can address it now with one final lawyerly moment from Dellapenna as we close out this post and move on to the next section.

“In the remarkably detailed diary of midwife Matha Ballard for the period of 1785 to 1812, when many historians now insist that midwives were commonly performing abortions, there is no mention of even a single abortion. We cannot assume that Ballard simply did not report such activities; her diary includes accounts of incest, illegitimacy, child abuse, and other unsavory activities. If Ballard did abortions so routinely that they did not strike her as significant, it would still be extraordinary that, in such a detailed record of the events of her life, she would not mention it even once. Either Ballard, considered abortions even viler than the activities she recorded or she neither did nor knew of any.”

Either way, they fit in the new orthodoxy about as well as Jessup's two orders in his explanation of the events in A Few Good Men.

Blogging Dellapenna in December [Jay Watts]

Throughout December and early January I will be rereading a few books. One of them will be the massive Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History by Joseph Dellapenna of Villanova University School of Law. I am preparing a talk for the 2014 SALT Conference in Montgomery, Alabama that will include some elements addressing our need to know the history of abortion in the United States in order to counter the largely fabricated narrative often offered to defend current abortion laws.

The central issue is always what are the unborn and what are our obligations (if any) to them. So any appeal that centers on arguing that people in the past didn't believe the unborn were fully human and that abortion has always been common fails to address the central issue. It is no more decisive than arguing that prior to the 18th century slavery was widely embraced and had been historically accepted so the African slaves must be a class of human life we are allowed to enslave.

That said, there is wisdom in understanding the world we live in within the context of the events of the past that brought us to this moment. Ecclesiastes 1:9 says: “That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.” We wrestle with moral issues that are rooted in ancient questions but feel altogether new because the medical science and technologies that raise the questions are novel.

Also, the hole in our knowledge begs to be filled. As a result, myths framed as history can thrive in the absence of a substantial response. As Hadley Arkes says in Natural Rights and the Right to Choose, we end up absorbing the premises of the other side. He shares a story about Lincoln's aggravation with General Meade celebrating driving the Confederate invaders “from our soil.” Lincoln was said to have responded, “Will our generals never get that idea out of their heads? The whole country is our soil.” Dellapenna points out in Chapter 1 that “even strongly anti-abortion authors like George Will have reiterated the new orthodoxy, presumably because this spurious history has become so thoroughly embedded in the popular culture that it has taken on the aura of unquestionable truth.”

Considering the emphasis Blackmun placed on the historical argument justifying the majority decision in Roe v. Wade, it is important to examine what Dellapenna calls the new orthodoxy and see if the history of abortion framed by men like Cyril Means and James Mohr corresponds to the best evidence that we have available. Admittedly, this will not answer the question of whether or not abortion is wrong, but it may help us to understand where we find ourselves and how we got here. If we discover that our past is a bit more brutal than we hoped, it certainly would not be the first time that this was true. And as Christopher Kaczor points out in The Ethics of Abortion, if we are justified in treating another class of human beings in this manner, in defining them as something less than us, then it will be the first time in history that we were right.

As I reread Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History, I'll simultaneously revisit Marvin Olasky's Abortion Rites and Arkes' Natural Rights and the Right to Choose. The blogging will follow Myths, but I'll frequently reference the others as well. I hope that this will serve to expose some fantastic work that others have done to correct the new orthodoxy while introducing many of you to books that have enriched my understanding of this issue.

LTI Q & A #2: Abortion is Self-Defense [Jay Watts]

I recently received this question via e-mail and decided to share my response on the blog. Here is the original message:

Hi,

I recently engaged in an online discussion where one of the commenters said, "I actually think a fetus is at least becoming human, although it hasn't quite gotten there yet, but I support abortion as self-defense. Any thing that threatens a woman's life, happiness, health, finances, and general well-being is something she can choose to defend herself against.  I am wondering how you would respond to this objection/argument.  Thank you all for what you're doing!  I've learned a lot from Mr. K and others!

Response:

This is a tough argument, but not because the substance of the claims are particularly sophisticated. The problem is the arguer is confused about what they are arguing and this commonly leads to confusion in the audience. This is something that we really need to look out for, because in the world of on-line arguing (a world I try hard to avoid) failure to respond immediately is understood as an indication that a comment has some intellectual force.

Here is a good way to begin. Let's ask ourselves questions. How is this person justifying abortion? Why do they think it is a good thing or minimally a necessary thing?

This commenter thinks that abortion is justified as self-defense. This justification is generally a form of the principle of double effect. Defending oneself from an unjustified or unprovoked attack is a good action. If you defend yourself intending to defend yourself and an intrinsically valuable human being dies as a result – because they were attacking you and your defense required killing them – then the act of causing the death of the attacker is justified because you did not intend to do evil. Your intention was to stop or limit evil and the death was a result of the good intentions. The killing was not the purpose of the action. You meant to save yourself and your attacker got killed in the process.

But this is weird. Self defense is a justification. The commenter begins by saying that they believe that the unborn aren't human yet. So if the unborn are not human then why justify your actions toward them at all. Killing non-human life doesn't appear to be the kind of action that requires a system of justification intended to provide moral reasons for killing an attacker. If the unborn are not human then no need for this extra step. The justification is that they are not human in the same way that you and I are and that's that.

Let's give our arguer the benefit of the doubt, though. They actually believe that the unborn are human beings and appeal to self-defense. This argument sounds reasonable enough because it appeals to a commonly held intuition. If a person intended to do me harm or intruded into my house then many people agree I am justified in taking action to protect myself that may end in the death of the aggressor.

But the commenter applies standards that might not be so obviously true by intuition, right? Life? Absolutely. Happiness? So would she be justified in killing a boyfriend in the process of breaking up with her? Do we permit lethal action when our happiness is threatened? If so there some people who talk in movies that are in for a surprise the next time I go to a theater. Health? To what degree? Some lady pushing a whooping cough little kid in the grocery store is threatening my health. The coughing and feverish fellow on MARTA who went to the Falcon's game when he should have stayed home with the flu is threatening the health of us all. Do we condone lethal action in those cases? Flu can be fatal, so this is not trivial. In the last 30 years 3,000 to 52,000 people in the United States die from flu every year with more recent averages being in the 25,000 to 36,000 range. Are inconsiderate people fighting through their symptoms to expose us all a threat we can terminate? Finances? So the guy that is better at my job than me threatens my financial security and I want to rid myself of this threat. Kill him or no? The two year old that got sick at the wrong time threatens the finances of the single mother and her two older children. Kill her? If not, why not? General well being? That is so vague as to mean anything inconvenient. The power of the argument is that most people accept the principle already, but the application here is so broad as to put anyone a woman encounters on any given day at risk of being killed as an aggressor.

Let's look at the traditional self defense model. Is the unborn analogous to a dangerous aggressor? Is it trying to hurt the mother? No. The mother's body and the unborn are working in concert to create a safe environment for the nascent human life to develop and receive nourishment. Most pregnancies do not represent an immediate threat to women. The properly working reproductive system is working in accordance with it's purpose and not being invaded by a parasite or foreign pathogen. Unlike the home invader, the unborn is exactly where it is supposed to be given the predictable and understood developmental process that all human life goes through. Except in the cases of rape, the unborn is not only where it is supposed to be but is there as a direct result of the actions of the woman. This seems wildly different in nature than the kind of aggressor that we accept can be killed by our common intuitions.

So how would I handle this commenter? I would point out that they seem to be confusing their arguments. If they think the unborn aren't human in morally important ways then they need to argue why that is. If they think that women are justified in taking morally important life because that life is analogous to a dangerous aggressor then they need to defend two points: (1) their insanely broad concept of behaviors that justify killing human life and (2) how a life that is exactly where it ought to be in a natural physical relationship that is not - under normal circumstances – dangerous or threatening is comparable to home invaders, assaulters, and attempted murderers.

Hope that helps.

Why Not Thank God for Abortion? [Jay Watts]

Yesterday my Twitter feed and Facebook Newsfeed blew up with Toure Neblett. Toure talked on  MSNBC about his past experience facing an unplanned pregnancy conceived in a serious committed relationship with a woman he was pretty sure he didn't want around for the long haul. (See Video Below) Since he was not ready to be a father - especially not with this woman- the decision of the girlfriend represented a great moment of freedom for Toure and prevented what he characterizes as messing up three lives. The abortion later opened the door for him to have children with a woman he presumably liked a good bit more than the former girlfriend and rise through the ranks of journalism to the point that he could share this story with us all. He wrapped up the tale by thanking God and country for abortion.

I wanted to look at his statement, because at the end of a weird week of videos and articles marking the 40^th anniversary of the Roe/Doe decisions it gives a good a launching point for discussing the foundational issues in the abortion debate.  

Issue 1: Why not Thank God?

Toure – like many people that choose to leap headfirst into the abortion discussion – completely misses the point. The right or wrong of the abortion issue hinges on identifying the life we wish to kill and determining what our moral duties are to it, if any. What is the unborn?

If the unborn life in question is not a human in morally relevant ways - that is if they are not like you and me - then why not thank God for abortion? I am grateful for all sorts of medical advances that make it safer to deal with pathologies today than it once was. If I get appendicitis, then thank God for appendectomies. If you watch Downton Abbey and endured this week's excruciating episode then we can all thank God for medical advances that make it safer for women to receive emergency cesarian sections. Doctors delivered my first child by “urgent c-section” because my wife had high blood pressure and wasn't progressing in labor. I thanked God for our doctor's expertise. 

Notice there is a pretty big “IF” hanging in the air, though. I used the following illustration to make the point in a recent presentation. On December 25^th 1992, I was driving to my grandmother's house in order to celebrate Christmas with my father's family and inadvertently caused the death of innocent life. Their was nothing I could do to avoid what happened, but innocent life was lost none the less. The scene tortured me, and I replayed it over and over in my mind. I was haunted... for about an hour and then I started drinking ice cold Cokes and opening presents and forgot all about it.

How do you evaluate my reaction to that scene? There is critical information missing isn't there? What was the nature of the innocent life I inadvertently ended? Does my emotional response seem a bit more appropriate when you find out it was a suicidal squirrel that ran in front of my car? (for reasons known only to the squirrel) I haven't the foggiest idea how many ants die every time I take to the road and never spend a single moment mourning or regretting the deaths of the bugs that routinely slam into my windshield. I would think it odd if a person told me they were bothered by the death of a dragon fly on the ride over to my home. If - on the other hand - I had inadvertently killed a child then my quick recovery due to Christmas presents and drink would demonstrate a dangerous lack of perspective and would call into question my entire character. It seems morally defective to get over killing a child so easily. I would expect to never fully recover from something so horrifying.

In the same way, the nature of the life in question is central to our evaluating abortion and our response to it. If the unborn are not human in the same way that we are then Toure's response is entirely appropriate, but he needs to argue for that. If he is merely emoting then his commentary is no more than, “Hurray abortion!” If he is sharing his preference then his commentary is no more than, “I prefer abortion to having the responsibility of raising a child.” It ought to be obvious that neither expression informs us about the nature of the act of terminating a human life prior to birth for reasons of convenience. They tell us something about Toure.

It is true information in the same way that my 8 year old daughter tells me something true when I tell her that it is wrong to not like bacon. She responds, “Daddy, when I put bacon in my mouth I don't like the way it tastes.” This is subjectively true information that tells us about the subjects, Toure or my daughter, but is true information that doesn't progress the evaluation of the issue. It fails to address the nature of the object, the nascent human life. Whether or not that life is human life and possesses moral worth are objective questions about the nature of something external to us. How we feel and what we prefer are simply irrelevant to the question at hand.

I fully admit that Toure's career trajectory may have been improved as a result of that abortion and that this fact makes Toure happy and grateful. But what was the nature of that life that was ended?

If it was a human life in the same way that you and I are human life then I don't care a whit how grateful he is about the outcome of aborting his child. It is wrong to kill others so that we can avoid inconvenient responsibility. Aborting the child was good for him, but it was the violent end to a life only just begun for another. A life that was deemed in another recent creepy addition to the discussion at Salon “So what if abortion ends life?” by Mary Elizabeth Williams, “A life worth sacrificing.” (more on this in issue 2) So he prevented messing up three lives by terminating one of the lives to spare the other two the burden of loving it. That is a less inspiring story.

We argue using science and philosophy that early human life is the proper object of the basic moral duties and obligations that are owed to all members of the human family. (See here) Toure responds that his life was made better by aborting a particular unborn human life. Bully for you, Toure. Now explain why you and others have the right to do so based on the nature of the life that was destroyed.

He comes close to offering an argument based on bodily autonomy rights by quoting the words of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and saying he can't imagine telling a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. The problem is that "I can't imagine..." is not the same as arguing "It is wrong to...". Toure frames the discussion by offering autobiographical information again. Then he demonstrates he doesn't have the slightest clue what bodily autonomy rights are by his silly statement concerning the unsolvable medical argument of when life begins. Scholars that argue bodily autonomy rights don't talk like that. They concede a living being and the intentional ending of a life of value. They simply believe and argue that the woman's right to control her reproductive system supersedes the rights of the unborn life. Toure's inclusion of that quote felt more like an intellectual accessory intended to dress up an otherwise ill conceived rant. He isn't the first person to throw around quotes he doesn't really understand to underscore his point and he won't be the last.

The rest is like a shotgun blast of arguments passing by in quick succession. He mentions the stability of the family, nation building, back alley abortions, and the bald assertion of the right to choose. He does so deftly while conceding that seeing life developing in the child he wanted caused him to waiver, but not enough to overcome his certainty that women need to be free to do with their bodies as they please. We will cover some of this in future posts. There was a lot there and little of it addresses the central issue in any way or would be accepted as justification for killing newborns for example. We are again presupposing they are worth less so we are free to do with them what we will. (Next post, Jay! Next post!)

Toure is free to thank God for whatever he wants. If the unborn are human in the same way that you and I are then he is thanking God for the freedom to destroy his children so that he can pursue his career unfettered. If he is a bodily autonomy rights guy then he is thanking God that his girlfriend didn't want to carry his child and destroyed the life growing inside her before it developed enough to have competing rights worth considering. If he doesn't believe the unborn are valuable human life then he is merely thanking God for advances in medical science.

Of all the options, the only one that doesn't make Toure sound like a self-centered creep is the last. But if that were his view it makes little sense to hope that abortions are rare as he does. If the unborn don't morally matter have as many abortions as you like. I don't hope that tooth extractions remain rare. Alas, this is just further evidence that this guy has no idea what he is talking about.

HT: John Stonestreet

Issue 2 – Abortion is necessary for the lifestyle and culture we live in to continue as it is. (Next Post)

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