Abortion, euphemism, and moral evasion

“Congratulations, Ms. Smith! The abortion was a success. Here’s your new baby girl!”

“Thank, Doc! I didn’t want to kill her . . . I just didn’t want to be pregnant anymore. Thanks for making that happen!” 

Said no maternity patient ever.

Is there anyone who believes that the death of the unborn child is merely an unintended “secondary effect” of a procured abortion for which the procurer, the mother, is not culpable?

Is not that death the primary, intended consequence of the “procedure”?

Abortion-speak has ever been plagued with euphemisms—like “procedure,” as though snuffing out a life were on the level of a tonsillectomy.

Some recognition of reality is reflected when the “procedure” is conflated with its fatal effect, i.e., a dead human being. One now regularly hears of “aborted babies.”

What is subject to a possible abortion (military, aeronautical, or clinical), of course, is a process. Whenever NASA aborts a scheduled launch, what was going forward is halted. The missile is not destroyed.

A procured abortion—another euphemism—results in the “termination of a pregnancy.” That’s accurate as far as it goes, for the pregnancy is a months-long process whose natural terminus is childbirth.

But no one calls an induced labor an “abortion,” even though it ends a pregnancy as surely as a miscarriage (aka “spontaneous abortion”) or mifepristone.

The woman who procures an abortion, surgical or chemical, doesn’t want to “terminate her pregnancy” as much as she wants what has been living in her since conception dead. The ironic bite of the opening fictitious dialog depends on recognizing that homicidal primary intention.

Again, for her, it’s not enough not to be pregnant anymore, that is, to “reclaim her bodily autonomy.” No, heteronomy—in the extreme form of the destruction of another’s body—is the goal. (And if the latter’s distinctive DNA is not a sufficient criterion of physical otherness, nothing is.)

Nothing above is meant to imply that taking an unwanted pregnancy to term is easy, or that one suffering it isn’t deserving of compassion as well as assistance—material, psychological, and spiritual—from people ready, willing, and able to do for the baby what she cannot do, if only she would let them know.

It is meant only to remind those in her situation (and their loved ones) that not all possible solutions to a problem are morally permissible. 

Being “pro-choice” (another euphemism) is meaningless, or at least misleading, if it implies that anything that suits one’s fancy falls within the range of morally permissible choice.  That range does not include the intentional taking of innocent human life.

Of course, those who dismember babies in effigy, as one deranged person did on a church’s steps the other day, attempt to intimidate Justices to influence their deliberations and conclusions, or firebomb pro-life offices are not susceptible to attempts at rational  persuasion.

And they’re supported by millions who knowingly vote for politicians who will not uphold the law.

To combat evil, reasoning is necessary, but not sufficient. The legal order must compensate for the deficiency of “mere argument.” But what is our recourse if those charged with upholding that order fail to do so?

See also

William F. Vallicella, “Abortion and the Wages of Concupiscence Unrestrained,” May 13, 2022

Anthony Flood, “Murray Rothbard: on my late friend’s lamentable error,” January 7, 2019