home > articles > ethics > The Myth of Safe, Legal, and Rare

It’s reported that President Bill Clinton was the first to coin the phrase, “Abortion should be safe, legal and rare.” This clever sounding phrase was designed to be a politically safe appeasement for both the ‘Pro-Life’ and the ‘Pro-Choice’ camps. Due to the political success of this phrase it has been picked up by other politicians around the world who are also seeking to avoid polarising their electorate. But I consider this phrase absolutely non-sensical and utterly morally indefensible. Here’s why.

WHAT WE’RE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., shakes hands with Pastor Rick Warren during the Saddleback Forum in Lake Forrest, Calif. Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

And during Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential race, he reiterated President Bill Clinton’s rhetorical quip about safe, legal, and rare but added the very amusing preface- “That question is above my pay-grade!” This week I was privileged to moderate a public political forum in Launceston, Tasmania, where both major party candidates repeated the mantra about Abortion should be safe, legal and rare. It was neither appropriate nor allowable for me to interrogate the candidates on their glib answer about abortion. But I did wonder how many people in the audience thought, as they thought when Bill Clinton said it and then Barack Obama reiterated it, whether this answer was as equally coherent as it was applaudable?

Here’s what were talking about. I have a conviction that-

The unjust taking of an innocent human life is wrong.

Therefore, the random assassination of a person is morally wrong. And the killing of an unborn child is wrong for exactly the same reason. Because the two forms of killing are morally equal (that is, they are both immoral), should the mantra- Random assassinations of people should be safe, legal and rare similarly apply?

When we discuss abortion, we are necessarily talking about the unjust taking of an innocent person’s life. Das Recht auf Leben ist die einfachste und grundlegende universelles Menschenrecht – The right to live is the most basic and fundamental universal human right. It is utterly false, incoherent, delusional, and deceptive to claim that an unborn baby is not a human being deserving of this most basic Menschenrecht – human right!

Abortion is most commonly initially justified by asserting that it is “an embryo”. Here is a picture of embryo, with some accompanying details-

A human embryo at 50 days. It is between 13 – 18 millimetres long. The flexure of the head is gradually reduced and the neck is somewhat lengthened. The upper lip is completed and the nose is more prominent. The nostrils are directed forward and the palate is not completely developed. The eyelids are present in the shape of folds above and below the eye, and the different parts of the auricular are distinguishable.

It is then justified as morally defensible because it is not a human being yet. In this instance it is most commonly described as a foetus. Here is a picture of a foetus with accompanying details-

The body is covered by fine hairs (lanugo) and the deposit of vernix caseosa is considerable. The papillae of the skin are developed and the free border of the nail projects from the corium of the dermis. Measured from vertex to heels, the total length of the foetus at the end of this month is from 30 to 32 cm.

WHAT DETERMINES SOMEONE’S HUMANITY

For the sake of all those on lower pay-grades”, here is what the rest of us can tell you about what constitutes a human being. This won’t take long. I say this because often politicians wave their hands at the question and laugh it off with a, “Boy! How much time have we got??!” This doesn’t require the making of convoluted or technical arguments. A human being is biologically the offspring of a man and a woman which necessarily means they have (human) DNA (unique to them) which is traceable to their parents. This definition is not subject to a person’s:

– S i z e

– L o c a t i o n

– E n v i r o n m e n t

– D e p e n d e n c y

Irregardless of a human being’s size (whether they are a few millimetres long, or a couple of metres), they are still a human qualifying for the most basic human right. Irregardless of a human’s location (whether it is in their mother’s womb, or in the critical care unit of a hospice) they are still a human. Irregardless of a human being’s environment (whether it is the womb, the birth canal, or a hospital), they are still human. Irregardless of a human being’s level of dependency (whether they are dependent upon an umbilical cord or a feeding tube), they are still human!

PRO-CHOICE ARGUMENTS

(i) IT’S A WOMAN’S BODY

The common ‘argument’ for abortion being safe, legal and rare is that it is about a woman’s body. This argument held sway in the 1960s and 70s but began to be eroded from the 1980s with the invention of the sonograph (“Ultra-sound”). It was then that the argument about an embryo or foetus merely being a blob of biological tissue became untenable. It became scientifically demonstrable that an embryo was a developing human being.

Most famously, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, had long claimed that what he was aborting was merely “non-human” and “tissue”, was at the forefront of the push to legalise abortion in the US back in the 1960s and 70s. He was one of the founding members of the National Abortion Rights Action League, and now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, never performed another abortion after he videotaped, via ultrasound, an abortion (a technology that was just being introduced at the time in 1984). What he saw shocked him to the core of his soul. He saw the human foetus experiencing horror and pain as it was being killed. The argument that abortion of a foetus is simply expelling an unwanted part of a woman’s body is utterly unsustainable scientifically. It is readily demonstrable that the unborn has its own blood-type, its own DNA, its own brain-wave activity, and its own body – all distinct from its mother.

(ii) IN THE EVENT OF RAPE

Rape is reprehensible. It is akin to murder and in most international jurisdictions is treated by the Law as such. Pregnancy, as a result of rape, is extremely rare. But when pregnancy does result from rape there is no justification for killing the innocent unborn human being being carried by the victim of the rape. As someone has said, “There is no such thing as an illegitimate child – but there may be illegitimate parent(s)!” There is no such thing as an unwanted child. Killing an unborn child resulting from a rape does not repair the damage of the rape or heal its hurt – in fact, it may add to it greatly.

(iii) IN THE EVENT OF GENETIC DEFECT

When an unborn child is diagnosed with a genetic disorder, such as cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome, or a heart defect, this does not make them less human – neither does it justify the taking of this child’s life! The practice of killing unborn children due to genetic defects is known as Eugenics (practiced in Nazi Germany).

(iv) IN THE HEALTH INTERESTS OF THE MOTHER

This sounds plausible and compassionate. And you would be forgiven for assuming that proponents of this justification for unjustly taking the life of an innocent human being were meaning the ‘physical’ health of the mother. But recently in my home state of Tasmania, it was ironically the Health Minister which proposed in legislation that “in the health interests of a woman” encompass her: economic health, emotional health, social health, psychological health, as well her physical health. Bizarrely, a local General Practitioning Doctor in conference with another medical opinion can determine that an abortion is necessary based on this set of criteria. (Although this Legislative proposal has passed the Lower House of the Tasmanian Parliament, it is currently being reviewed in a Parliamentary Committee.)

I have asked numerous medical doctors to give me a scenario when an abortion is in the best health interests of a woman. One very experienced doctor told me that possibly in the case of cervical cancer it might be in the health interests of a mother to abort. While he said this, another equally experienced international doctor stated that even then it wasn’t. He went to tell a story of how a woman with cervical cancer had come to him as a patient seeking a second opinion. She had been told by doctor to abort her baby so that they could immediately commence cancer treatment. The second opinion was that an abortion was not necessary. The woman accepted the second opinion and was guided through to the safe, healthy C-section premature delivery of her baby and then immediate cancer treatment. The result was that the baby was born healthy and the cancer treatment proved successful for the mother.

Recently, in my home-city of Launceston, a couple reported back to the hospital to get the test results of their aborted baby’s condition for which they were given no medical alternative than to abort. The doctor on duty was a little stunned at their question about their baby’s “condition”. He asked them why they thought their baby had a “condition” requiring an abortion? They told him how they had been directed to abort their baby due to its genetic disorder. The duty doctor had the sad job of telling them that there was absolutely nothing wrong with their baby. Responding to their immediate distress he referred them to professional counselling.

The fact that abortion always unjustly takes the life of an innocent human being should be enough to recognise its insidiousness. In light of this I can not even take the time to respond to other absurd justifications for taking the life of an unborn child such as “The world doesn’t need anymore unwanted children…She can barely look after the children she’s got now…” and so on. There is a little known set of side-effects to abortion. It is called Post Abortion Syndrome (also referred to as Post Abortion Trauma). It should be enough that abortion unjustly takes the life of an innocent human being – yet it is a largely unstated fact that abortion is bad for women! It causes physical, emotional, and psychological damage. Sometimes this damage is immediate (as in the well publicised case of Dr Kermit Gosnell’s abortion patients) but often the deepest damage is not revealed for years. I detail many of the associated disorders associated with Post-Abortion Syndrome here.

IT’S TIME TO GET ANGRY

This is not some insignificant or irrelevant issue. It is absolutely central to how we as a society treat people – both women and children! I conclude with the words of my friend Paul O’Rourke –

I’m mad. Really mad. Not miffed, ticked or slightly perturbed, but furious, steaming, positively apoplectic.
The anger isn’t new, but the recent intensity of my rage has shocked even me. It’s always there, sitting just below the surface, rising and falling like the molten rock in an active volcano, bursting to life in response to seismic shifts in society.
I like to think it’s usually a controlled and measured righteous indignation, but sometimes my white-hot anger is out-of-control, fuelled by my utter frustration and a despairing disbelief that society can be so blind to the damage that abortion causes women, children, relationships and, ultimately, society.
Our colossal stupidity to this fact constantly astounds me. Abortion is a national tragedy; it’s by any objective measure inhuman, disturbing, barbaric, illogical, unjust and a crime against the weak and vulnerable, the very ones a civilised and caring society is meant to protect.
Don’t tell me to settle down, that it’s none of my business, a woman’s right, not really a baby, is necessary to prevent child abuse, save a relationship, stop overpopulation, ensure every child is a wanted child, and prevent women having backyard abortions using coat hangers. The debate has been reduced to these clever and yet false catchphrases; another being: “If you don’t like abortion then don’t have one.” Substitute any other crime for the word “abortion”, and you realise the stupid and sinister nature of the rhetoric.

We want to tax, encourage or scare smokers out of their filthy habit, end the whale hunt, protect the rainforests, save the orangutangs, protect the planet, and ban factory farming, while equally defending and promoting the right of any girl or woman, independent of any man, to kill her child, damage herself, as well as current and future relationships.

We’re rightly outraged at the annual deaths of 15,000 Australians from smoking-related causes, but blindly accept the annual deaths of 80,000 little Australians through abortion as somehow unavoidable. Why? It makes no sense.
How is it that we can we see-through the Japanese claims that they need to kill lots of whales to study them, but fail to see that abortion is wrong because it ends the life of a human being and wounds many others? Whales have rights, but not unborn children.

Surely only the blind and deceived can believe that a child nestling safely at the entrance to the birth canal is a fetus, not really human, or with any inherent value or rights, but the infant to emerge at the other end is a human baby. It makes me think of the line from Seinfeld when Jerry asks George how to beat a lie detector: “Remember Jerry, it’s not a lie if you believe it.” – Paul O’Rourke

© Dr. Andrew Corbett, Legana, Tasmania, 7th September 2013.