Op-Ed: Of Course the Left Knows Abortion Is Killing for Convenience
The recent Supreme Court decision to return abortion to the political realm of the states was a victory for the law and the Constitution.
But this does not mean those who support life have won the argument. They will have to fight in each of the 50 states and will likely fail in some.
For the left, this has been a bruising experience. Although they have been losing in the court of public opinion for some time, they championed the idea that the way to advance their agenda was by non-democratic means, especially using unelected judges.
So, not surprisingly, we will likely see some new arguments develop that perhaps reveal more about the left’s agenda and their view of life generally.
A good example is from the feminist writer Sophie Lewis, writing for the reliably left-wing The Nation magazine. We don’t read The Nation very often, but when we do, it is always a deeply disturbing experience. Here are a few choice excerpts:
“There is something infantilizing about denying the fact that embryos die when we scrape them out of the bodies of which they are a part. It sentimentalizes pregnant or potentially pregnant humans as fundamentally nonviolent creatures to imply that we can’t handle the truth about what we are up to when we opt out. … In my view, recognizing that gestating manufactures a proto-person requires acknowledging that abortion kills a proto-person.”
Lewis is being frank with her readers. Quit kidding yourself. You are not just making a “health care” choice, you are killing a baby, or in her words, a “proto-person.” In a strange way, we admire her candor.
“We humans do kill, when necessary: Victims of assault sometimes kill in self-defense, targets of persecution sometimes kill for justice — or just to reduce the number of their persecutors — and the colonized sometimes kill for liberation. Mothers living in unspeakable conditions (including chattel slavery) have been documented to kill their children as an act of mercy. … As long as people are performing pregnancy on this earth, they must be free to change their minds about seeing it through.”
With the wide variety of ways to avoid pregnancy — including self-control and birth control — where is all this forced pregnancy coming from? Is a baby an invasive species, like fungus?
She surely can’t believe that the abortion issue is about the very rare occasion of forced insemination. It is about women having casual sex and being angered that by the laws of nature, they carry the consequence — the child. It is not fair that they can’t walk away as a man can. It is not fair to be bound by the rules and regulations of nature. So it is rage against either God or nature, take your pick.
Lewis seems to be suggesting that killing a baby is like killing in self-defense. It is like hand-to-hand fighting at the Chosin Reservoir. It is “kill or be killed.”
Or maybe it is like defending the home against an unwanted intruder — in this case, an unwanted intruder who has hijacked her body. There is no recognition of the possible consequences of sex and that she created the intruder herself by her actions.
Moreover, Lewis forgets that humans are hardly peaceful creatures. They kill for domination of others, to take other people’s stuff, and sometimes just for the thrill of it. This killing instinct is not a good thing, and it has taken us a long time to control these primal forces. It is part of what one hopes civilized society would do. But Lewis seems to be drifting toward the idea that killing is not such a bad thing. In fact, the title of her essay is “Abortion Involves Killing — and That’s OK!”
All mothers of all species defend their babies, except, it would seem, animals that have come through women’s studies programs.
“What would it mean to acknowledge that a death is involved in an abortion? Above all, it would allow for a fairer fight against the proponents of forced gestating. When ‘pro-life’ forces agitate against feticide on the basis that it is killing, pro-abortion feminists should be able to acknowledge, without shame, that yes, of course it is. … This choosing is our prerogative. A desire not to be pregnant is sufficient reason in and of itself to terminate a gestatee.”
The reader is urged to read Lewis’ complete article so you can satisfy yourself that we are not cherry-picking passages here. A desire not to be pregnant is a license to kill.
Abandon the old “pro-choice” arguments, she says. Say it straight up. It is killing for convenience and women should be proud of it.
Most laws suggest lethal force can only be used to defend your life or another person’s life. Life does not end with pregnancy, so what are you defending against? Being inconvenienced, being distraught, being confused?
The problem is that once you justify killing a baby as a defense against inconvenience or extended responsibility, what do you do with all the handicapped folks who are not only inconvenient for nine months, but can be inconvenient for life?
Have we reached the point in our highly educated and opulent society where we are ready to kill off the people who get in the way of a life free of expense, emotional burden and frustration?
Lewis is developing a new legal doctrine: “Your honor, I killed him because he got in the way of my narcissism.”
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