Well, She Tried

One of the biggest reasons that the arguments of American “pro-lifers” are such a self-contradictory shambles is the belief of many of them that women should not be subject to any legal sanctions, although if you believe the underlying premises of those who would criminalize abortion this woman is guilty of taking a human life. Obviously, this doesn’t make a shred of sense, and provides clear evidence they really don’t take their own arguments seriously. Dawn Eden–who is willing, horribly but at least consistently, to apply pro-life logic to cases of rape–tries to defend the indefensible in comments:

A woman who has an abortion may not be aware of what she is doing. But the abortionists are, and they’re the ones who should be prosecuted.

This is, of course, an exceptionally bad (and pernicious) argument. The question of whether the fetus is a human life with legal status is a moral and ethical question, not an empirical question. A doctor performing an abortion, of course, has no more access to this moral question than a woman seeking an abortion. Eden’s argument–like the original late 19th century laws that originally banned abortion–is premised on the idea that women are not really moral agents. Eden wants to take us back to a time in which women were not full citizens (or, in some cases, even legal persons) but rather where wards of the state and/or their husbands. It’s framed in the language of compassion, but this is a debased, patriarchal form of “compassion,” premised on the idea that women are not full members of society who share the rights and responsibilities of adult citizens. Given how widespread Eden’s argument is among pro-lifers–up to and including the Republican platform–I think it’s pretty instructive about how the pro-life movement views women.

(Via Jesse.)