There are many different arguments against abortion, but most of them have a similar structure.
Generally, they start with the nature of the unborn. The claim is made that the unborn is a particular kind of thing (e.g. a living human being, or a living human being that can feel pain, or a living human being that could survive outside its mother).
Pro-life arguments then assert that things of this kind have a right to life. It is stated that it’s morally wrong to kill a living human being, or a living human being that can feel pain, or whatever kind of thing the unborn has just been claimed to be. An intermediate conclusion can now be drawn: The unborn has a right to life.
Abortion, of course, kills the unborn, so it’s a small step from there to another intermediate conclusion: Abortion involves the violation of a right to life.
That isn’t quite it though. To be complete, pro-life arguments have to weigh the unborn’s right to life against whatever women’s rights might be violated by prohibiting abortion (e.g. the right to decide what happens to one’s body, or the right to reproductive freedom), and assert that the right to life takes precedence.
If you have to choose between killing someone (on the one hand) and denying someone reproductive freedom (on the other), then the right thing to do is to deny someone reproductive freedom (or so goes the argument).
Only then can the conclusion be drawn: Abortion is immoral.
So a rough summary of the pro-life argument could go like this:
(R) The unborn is a being of type x.
(R) Everything that’s a being of type x has a right to life.
Therefore: (IC) The unborn has a right to life.
(R) Abortion kills the unborn.
Therefore: (IC) Abortion violates a right to life.
(R) The right to life takes precedence over any rights violated by prohibiting abortion.
Therefore: (C) Abortion is immoral.
There was a documentary about religious fundamentalists on Channel 4 last night. It included two clips of pro-choice protesters chanting. In both cases, the chants completely misrepresented the pro-life position.
I know that expecting tight logic from a demo chant is probably a bit optimistic, but it irritated me anyway.
The first chant, coming from pro-choice campaigners trying to disrupt the pro-life March for Life rally, was “March for life, that’s a lie. You don’t care if women die.”
This is, presumably, a condensed version of the argument that if abortion is prohibited then some women will go to illegal abortion providers, putting their safety at risk (and that abortion should therefore be legal so that we can make it as safe as possible).
Accusing those who believe that abortion should be prohibited of not caring if women die seems a bit strong, though.
A pro-life campaigner may well care if women die, but think that protecting the lives of unborn children is more important than protecting the lives of mothers trying to kill them. I strongly suspect that this point of view is far more common than the view that it doesn’t matter at all if a woman having a back-street abortion dies, that the chant misrepresents pro-lifers, that it’s attacking a straw man.
The second chant, “Women’s rights are human rights”, seems just as unfair to the pro-life point of view.
The accusation here is that the pro-life position doesn’t take women’s rights seriously, that it treats them as less than human.
The pro-life argument doesn’t work by denying women rights, though; it works by attributing to the unborn a right even more fundamental than those women’s rights that are broken by prohibiting abortion. Again, then, the chant attacks a straw man.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the pro-life argument is sound, just that these chants are no good as responses to it.
So what should pro-choice protesters chant?
“It’s just a bunch of cells” (to the tune of the football chant “You don’t know what you’re doing”, presumably) would be to the point, denying that the unborn is the kind of thing that has rights that we ought to protect.
“Women’s rights come first” would also work, challenging the idea that it’s more important to protect the unborn’s life than it is to protect its mother’s freedom.
I’m sure that a pro-choice protester (who would have much more motivation to do this than me) could come up with something catchy that makes these kinds of point.
Logical chants are clearly possible; are they really too much to ask for?
March 25th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Typo: “The pro-choice argument doesn’t work by denying women rights, though; it works by attributing to the unborn a right even more fundamental than those women’s rights that are broken by prohibiting abortion.”
That’s the pro-life argument, not the pro-choice one. Good logic – I’m very much enjoying the articles on this site!
March 25th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Re: “Logical chants are clearly possible; are they really too much to ask for?”
It may not be that they’re “too much” to ask for, but they may be considered less effective than straw-man and other weasely arguments. It’s a regrettable truth that politicians (and “activists”) often use sophistry when the arguments supporting their stance are simply unconvincing or unattractive to the intended audience (e.g. chanting “it’s all just a bunch of cells”, even if they believe that to be the case, would seem unlikely to win much support).
Sometimes using purposely misleading arguments and faulty reasoning seems like the most reasonable choice out of a set of poor options.
March 26th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Thanks for pointing out the typo; it’s now fixed.
I think the standard response to your suggestion that the best arguments aren’t necessarily the most effective, and that the most effective arguments aren’t necessarily any good at all, is to say that you should give the British public more credit, that they aren’t stupid.
Unfortunately, though, fallacious arguments do seem to sway public opinion, so I’m not sure I want to make that move.