By Crispin Sartwell
When the House passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, making it a federal crime to harm a
fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman, it was clearly an anti-abortion ploy, an attempt to
define the fetus as a human being for legal purposes.
I consider myself pro-choice.When I was sixteen, I impregnated my girlfriend, who was
fourteen. We were not equipped to raise a child; we went to the clinic; she had an abortion. I
think it was the right decision. My wife and my mother have had abortions, and anyone who
simply defines abortion as murder is going to have to convince me that these two women, as well
as most of the other women I know, are murderers.
But I'm not sure how I would have voted on the Unborn Victims Act. If a man beats a
pregnant woman, causing her to have a miscarriage, especially late in a pregnancy, I think that is
worse than simply assault on the woman. I guess I think another person has been assaulted as
well, or at least that another crime with another victim has been committed.
The reason the bill is so effective as an anti-abortion ploy is because it presses on our intuition
that harm to a fetus is a serious ethical matter. And that in turn makes it clear that abortion itself is
a serious moral issue.
Because though I cannot regard abortion as murder, I also cannot regard it morally trivial. The
pro-choice advocates who claim to believe that it is purely a matter of a woman's control over her
own body, like their extreme opponents, make the matter too simple. Whether and to what degree
and at what times the fetus is part of the woman's body are extraordinarily difficult questions.
If I was sure that the fetus was merely part of the woman's body, I would support an absolute
right to abortion at any time before birth. But I'm not, so I don't, nor do I see many advocates of
choice defending such a position.
Pro-choice advocates invariably tell you that they are not in favor of abortion itself. However,
they think it is a private matter. But if there really is no serious moral problem, why not advocate
abortion as a standard form of birth control? The fact is that advocates of choice also know that
the issue is vexed, that the life of a fetus has some moral claim and not merely as a part of
someone else's body.
What makes the issue of abortion almost impossible to negotiate in this country is the war of
rhetoric. No one in their right mind opposes choice or life as abstract concepts; but no one in their
right mind thinks that abortion is purely an issue of either one. It would be nice to calm down long
enough to realize that we all share certain basic moral insights that could help us through the
mess.
We all believe, or should believe, that it is a serious decision and a serious commitment to
bring a child into this world and that it carries with it an obligation to see that the child is cared
for. We all want children to have that care.
And we all recognize, or should recognize, that killing a fetus in some circumstances is a
terrible thing and that in all circumstances it is a morally significant thing.
It's very hard for two groups of people to have a discussion where one asserts that it is fighting
for the most basic inalienable right to their own body and the other asserts that the first are
murderers. What is hopeful is that both these positions are wrong, and that most people have the
moral intuitions to see why they're wrong.
There might be room for some legal limitations on late-term abortions, and also for some legal
protection of the fetus in the case of assault on the mother. But there might also be room for RU-486 and other methods to make abortions earlier and simpler.
If either extreme side of the abortion debate won, the result would be disastrous. So even at this
late date, we've got to find somewhere to talk.
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