Privately against but publicly for abortion

Ernesto Antunez/Contributing Writer

As the dividing issue of abortion continues to intensify with a litany of legislative affronts to Roe v. Wade, people everywhere are being forced to pick a side.

However, many in the center and on the right have taken the middling, ambiguous stance of being privately “pro-life” but publicly “pro-choice.”

These wishy-washy individuals start off by, on the one hand, saying they would never personally advocate for abortion because they think it to be a great moral evil – specifically speaking, the taking of a human life.

But they simultaneously protest that their libertarian predilections do not allow them to swallow the bitter pill of government intervention in such a “private choice.”

This is the sort of political posturing that seeks to satisfy all sides – and ends up satisfying none –  by combining a private condemnation of abortion to please the “pro-life” camp and a rigid opposition of government intervention to do likewise for the “pro-choice” camp.

I find this act of gross equivocation to be completely lacking in logic and moral understanding. If abortion is an act that is truly morally evil and worthy of condemnation because it involves taking a human life – murder – then it must be in the same category as other moral evils such as rape or theft, and therefore must fall under the government’s legal purview.

If you say this is true, then the government can no more be left out of abortion than it can be left out of cases of sexual assault or property theft. After all, a man who says he would never commit theft or rape or advocate for such actions but is against government restriction of these practices would be a moral idiot of the highest order.

No one has the right to a private choice when the act in question is as morally heinous as murder, which is what equivocators claim abortion to be. Classifying abortion as evil can never be just a private opinion but must be a public pronunciation out of which must flow legal consequences.  

However, if we reject abortion as a morally heinous act and instead as a morally neutral act, like choosing whether to buy a certain model of car over another, then it is proper for the government to “stay out of it!” as our leftist friends are constantly screeching from the rooftops.

It is incoherent, therefore, to be morally outraged by abortion and at the same time act outraged at possible government interference dedicated to dealing with such a morally outrageous act in the first place.

It is becoming quite clear that no longer will political ambiguity on such a fundamental issue, whether for or against, be overlooked.

 

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The opinions presented within this page do not represent the views of PantherNOW Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.

Featured image by Tony Webster on Wikicommons.

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