One of the tragedies of Morgentaler's life is that in his determination to create a safer, more compassionate world, a world in which the horrors of his youth could not be recreated, he has in fact lowered the value of all human lives, severally and together. A good number of pro-choice supporters in both Canada and the USA are quite sincere in their belief that a world with universal abortion will be a world with less violence, happier families and a better quality of life for all. This is illustrated by an article on Morgentaler discussing his clinic in Manitoba, which is not funded, despite abortions being provided at government expense in hospitals.
In this article the reporter muses, in a manner more appropriate for an editorial than for a front page news lead, that a province with as high a Fetal Alcohol Syndrome rate as Manitoba has should be embracing abortion for all who want it. The reasoning seems to be that if women only carry pregnancies they want, they will be less likely to do things that unnecessarily injure the fetus. On the surface this isn't an unreasonable supposition -- but it is one that doesn't stand up to scrutiny, or to the light of the past few decades of experience. A culture that permits and indeed promotes the casual destruction of pregnancies for the sake of convenience is not creating an ethic of concern for the welfare of any fetus. As ready abortion makes casual and unprotected sex increasingly consequence-free, it becomes less and less likely that young mothers will have the caution, foresight or self-discipline to take even rudimentary care of themselves and their children, either before or after their birth. There is ready evidence in the USA that the availability of abortion actually increases promiscuity and decreases the use of contraceptives, even by those who do not have abortions themselves.
There is also a logical contradiction here. If a fetus can be killed for the sake of convenience, why can it not be poisoned for the sake of an evening's fun? On what basis do we declare it permissible to inject poison into a fetal heart but immoral and unacceptable to let alcohol or cocaine cross the placenta into its system? As premature babies survive more and more often, and as prenatal imaging becomes more common, it grows clear to all willing to open their eyes that the notion of a moment before which a fetus is disposable tissue and after which it is a member of society with rights is untenable. We cannot assert an interest in the wellbeing and future of only those fetuses carried to term, while consigning the aborted to the category of medical waste.
Morgentaler and editorialists are right that a world with filled with atrocities and FAS must reconsider its attitude to abortion. They are wrong about the direction in which attitudes must move. The key to reducing cruelty and carelessness is to elevate potential human lives to a level at which they must be nurtured and nourished, and then to sustain that respect and compassion as long as possible. The fact that so many intelligent, well-intentioned people believe just the opposite -- that harmony will come when babies are disposable -- is a measure of how far we have slipped.
Posted by Clio at January 21, 2003 09:27 PM